Everybody poops, but not every day. An ISB-led research team examined the clinical, lifestyle, and multi-omic data of more than 1,400 healthy adults. How often people poop, they found, can have a large influence on one’s physiology and health.
Wei Wei, PhD – an accomplished cancer researcher with expertise in biotechnology and cancer systems biology – has been promoted to ISB associate professor. The Wei Lab focuses on understanding how cancer cells adapt to therapeutic treatment to foster therapy resistance by coordinating their internal molecular machinery and how these adaptive changes evolve within diverse tumors influenced by the tumor microenvironment.
Glioblastoma is one of the deadliest and most aggressive forms of primary brain cancer in adults and is known for its ability to resist treatment and to recur. ISB researchers have made breakthrough discoveries in understanding the mechanisms behind acquired resistance, focusing on a rare and stubborn group of cells within tumors called glioma stem-like cells.
Netflix’s “Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut” is a documentary that merged gut microbiome experts, four individuals – including a well-known hot dog eating champion – facing personal battles with gastrointestinal health, and a unique, effective visual method of “showing” the gut microbiome in action.
ISB researchers have developed a novel way to simulate personalized, microbiome-mediated responses to diet. They use a microbial community-scale metabolic modeling (MCMM) approach to predict individual-specific short-chain fatty acid production rates in response to different dietary, prebiotic, and probiotic inputs.
Devoted husband and father. Animal lover. Accomplished pianist. Avid cyclist. Compassionate human. Exceptional scientist. The ISB community mourns the loss of Professor Ilya Shmulevich, PhD, who died on April 13, 2024. He was 54 years old.
Each month throughout the 2023-2024 academic year, we will highlight some of the top projects the ISB Education team is working on. In May, the ISB Education team hosted student visitors from Lincoln High School, dozens of science education leaders who run projects in Washington state’s ClimeTime program, and more.
Dr. Sean Gibbons is creating a new precision nutrition platform called My Digital Gut that leverages the gut microbiome to make nutrition and healthcare personalized, predictive, and preventive. In an ISB Research Roundtable presentation, Gibbons spoke about My Digital Gut and other microbiome-related projects studied in his lab.
A new study unveils important insights and actionable protocols into providing equitable STEM experiences for high school students from historically marginalized communities. The research highlights the transformative power of informal STEM learning and the ease with which many organizations could provide these opportunities.
Infection, autoimmunity and cancer account for 40 percent of deaths worldwide. In a Cell Reports paper, ISB researchers detail how the human immune system works in common ways across diseases – findings that offer promising avenues for exploring multi-disease therapeutic strategies.
An ISB-led study showed nuanced pregnancy outcomes for pregnant individuals with autoimmune disease. The findings reinforce that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, and provides important new avenues for further investigation.
In a breakthrough discovery that changes how we understand T cells and with implications of how we can better engineer custom immune responses to fight disease, Institute for Systems Biology researchers showed that the different disease-fighting functions of different T cells are determined by the genetically encoded T-cell receptor sequence that are unique to those cells.
Dr. Sid Venkatesh recently joined ISB as assistant professor and is our newest faculty member. In this Q&A, Venkatesh discusses his research, his aspirations in the gut-microbiota field, his philosophy as a scientist, what he does when he’s not in the lab, and more.
Throughout 2023, ISB research has been published in impactful peer-reviewed journals and our scientists have been featured in major media outlets and popular podcasts. In this 2023 Year in Review, we showcase some of our most important and interesting highlights of the year.
ISB Associate Professor Dr. Sean Gibbons was named a Highly Cited Researcher for 2023. It is the second consecutive year Gibbons has earned the distinction. The Highly Cited Research list is generated annually by Clarivate, which says: “Of the world’s population of scientists and social scientists, Highly Cited Researchers are 1 in 1,000.”
By using a computer model to understand the adaptions of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the pathogen that causes tuberculosis, researchers at ISB have identified a network within Mtb that allows it to tolerate and resist drug therapies. This work is published in Cell Reports.
Supplementing the standard of treatment for Alzheimer’s disease patients with personalized lifestyle coaching leads to less cognitive decline compared to standard of treatment alone, according to an ISB-led two-year study. The results were published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Sarah Clemente recently joined ISB as a Systems Thinkers in STEM Ambassador Coordinator, and is the third AmeriCorps member to work with us. In this Q&A, Clemente shares what drew her to ISB, what she hopes to accomplish over the next year, and more.
