There has been an explosion of research into the two-way communication between the gut microbiota and the brain, which has helped us to understand complex behavioral and neurophysiological phenotypes in many animal species. This year, ISB hosted a virtual microbiome series dedicated to exploring the gut-brain axis.
ISB hosted a full-day symposium – titled Resonance – celebrating the life and scientific contributions of Professor Ilya Shmulevich, who passed away in April 2024 from complications of acute myeloid leukemia.
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.
A key question in the aging research field field is how to effectively integrate and utilize the wealth of omics data to advance our understanding of aging processes and potentially inform interventions. In May 2024, ISB hosted a virtual workshop in that provided practical tools for performing multi-omic systems biology analyses.
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.
ISB hosted a free one-day Spatial Multi-Omics for Cancer Systems Biology virtual workshop. The event consisted of sessions on four topics: experimental methods, computational algorithms, applications of spatial multi-omics and a practical methods tutorial.
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.
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.
High school students Ashwin Mukherjee and Rohan Chanani worked with ISB Research Scientist Dr. Jacob Valenzuela on a project to build a machine learning algorithm to count algal cells from microscope images taken from a cell phone. In April, the team was recognized as champions in the DOE-sponsored AlgaePrize competition.
In their new book, “The Age of Scientific Wellness: Why the Future of Medicine is Personalized, Predictive, Data-Rich, and In Your Hands,” Drs. Lee Hood and Nathan Price introduce a new way of thinking about healthcare – a focus on preventing diseases and optimizing overall wellness.
Bacteria are much more than single-celled organisms swimming around. Bacteria also form communities called biofilm, and work together to maintain the microbial community. Biofilm is just one research area of ISB’s Kuchina Lab. In this Research Roundtable presentation, ISB Assistant Professor Dr. Anna Kuchina details her work studying biofilms.
Renowned artist Ginny Ruffner and ISB President Dr. Jim Heath delivered a lecture at Town Hall Seattle about the intersection of art and science. They spoke about how creation stories tie scientists and artists together, and how their approaches are both similar and different from that point on.
Scientists for the first time have used CRISPR to substitute a gene to treat patients with cancer. The remarkable findings were published in the journal Nature and presented at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 2022.
