Dr. Martin Shelton is a post-doctoral fellow in the Hood Lab. Q: What are you currently working on? Our project, which I work on jointly with Rhishikesh Bargaje and Kalliopi Trachana, along with many other great collaborators both within and outside of the ISB, involves measuring the changes that occur within individual cells as populations of those cells transition from one state to another. We use, as a model system,…
By Martin Shelton, Theo Knijnenburg and Joseph Zhou ISB Editorial Board Members The oldest existing record of cancer occurs in a 4000-year-old Egyptian papyrus. It describes, in detail, a woman with symptoms eerily similar to those of modern breast cancer patients. As for the prescribed treatment, there was simply this statement: “No cure.” Sadly, this short and assertive conclusion remains true. According to the American Cancer Society’s annual cancer statistics…
By Martin Shelton ISB Editorial Board Member With the exception of cancers of the skin, mouth, and blood, it is difficult to detect cancer by sight or with a routine health screen. The natural variety that exists at the cellular level — even within cells of the same type — challenges our ability to differentiate healthy tissue from diseased. This variety, what biologists call heterogeneity, means that equally healthy cells…
ISB scientists Aaron Brooks (Baliga Lab) and Martin Shelton (Hood Lab) attended the USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington D.C. on April 26-27. They, and ISB senior research engineer, Chris Lausted, developed an interactive network activity involving circuit boxes that represent nodes and fiber optic cables to connect them. The project and trip to D.C. were supported by funds through NIH/NIGMS and ISB’s Center for Systems Biology. From Brooks:…
