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New Study May Provide Knowledge for Increased Biofuel Production from Unicellular Algae
With potential ramifications for increasing biofuel production from unicellular algae, ISB’s Drs. Mónica Orellana and Nitin Baliga, along with colleagues from the University of the Witwatersrand, used the chlorophyte algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii to demonstrate the cell’s metabolic and physiological changes of lipid accumulation that occurs during nitrogen depletion.
Profiling Pathogen Gene Expression from Infected Host Cells
Researchers at ISB reported a novel method, Path-seq, to profile expression of all MTB genes within infected mice. This study presents the most comprehensive transcriptome profiling of MTB from in vivo infection and a major technical advancement for studying any host-pathogen interaction.
Spotlight on Amy Zamora, ISB Systems Research Scholar
Amy Zamora joined ISB in August as a Systems Research Scholar. The Systems Research Scholars Program provides recent college undergraduates a springboard to become the next generation’s pioneers of interdisciplinary scientific research. In this Q&A, Zamora describes her experiences at ISB, research interests, future aspirations, and much more.
ISB’s Innovator Award Program rewards high-risk, cross-disciplinary research projects
The Innovator Award Program at Institute for Systems Biology is an annual internal initiative started in 2017 that aims to stimulate creativity, innovation and collaboration within ISB, to provide funding support for high-risk, high-reward projects, and to develop new technologies and discoveries that will impact the entire research organization.
ISB develops stress test to predict how diatoms will react to ocean acidification
In a study published in Nature Communications and with implications for understanding effects of climate change, ISB researchers show microscopic phytoplankton are more resilient in an acidified environment.
‘Fantastic Opportunity:’ ISB’s Scholars Program Offers Transformational Experience for Ambitious College Grads
ISB’s Systems Research Scholars Program (SRSP) is a two-year, fully funded training program for recent college graduates, and is designed to help transform exceptionally talented and ambitions post-baccalaureate students into the next generation’s pioneers of interdisciplinary research.
ISB, Providence St. Joseph Health Launch Translational Research Fellows Program
ISB and Providence St. Joseph Health are leveraging their respective research and clinical expertise to attract exceptional individuals into the Translational Research Fellows Program, a three-year training program that offers early-stage scientists a chance to jumpstart their careers and provides mentorship from experts in systems biology and clinical research.
ISB Scientists Have Discovered When and Why a Microbial Community Might Collapse
Researchers in the Baliga Lab at Institute for Systems Biology have developed a framework for assessing the “health” of a microbial community through a stress test that enables them to ask when and why microbial communities collapse under different environmental conditions. The study, published on March 20, 2017, in the journal Molecular Systems Biology, determined that while microbes are equipped to respond to environmental changes, when pushed to the extreme…
New Baliga Article: ‘The Promise of Systems Biology’
ISB Director and SVP Dr. Nitin Baliga contributed an article to the Missoulian Newspaper that explains the power of the systems biology approach to research. Read the full article… “Biology is complex. The need to understand this complexity drives advancements in technologies that are required to measure properties of all of the constituent parts and to understand how they interact with one another. The application of those technologies generates large…
Earth To Dinner Rallies ISB Community Around Climate Action
It started with a call to action: On Dec. 12, the first anniversary of the Paris Agreement, gather around the dinner table with friends and other community members to discuss climate action. Organizers from GOOD Magazine and the Earth To Coalition hoped that this grassroots movement, given the incoming administration, would inspire people to keep climate action at the top of minds. ISB answered the call and decided to host…
#EarthToDinner Event To Support Climate Action
Earth To Dinner: In December 2015, 195 global leaders came together to adopt the historic Paris Agreement – the world’s first comprehensive climate agreement. GOOD, in partnership with the #EarthTo coalition (100+ partners strong), has created the #EarthToDinner (earthtodinner.org) climate conversation dinner series to keep climate action on the table. Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) is hosting dinner for 50 at its labs in the South Lake Union neighborhood of…
New Baliga Lab Publication in Cell Systems
The Baliga Lab’s Dr. Christopher Plaisier was the lead author of the study “Causal Mechanistic Regulatory Network for Glioblastoma Deciphered Using Systems Genetics Network Analysis” which published online in Cell Systems on July 14. Dr. Plaisier wrote a summary of the research: 3 Bullets: Using data from TCGA and ENCODE, ISB researchers developed integrative database and analysis platforms that provide insight about the underpinnings of glioblastoma multiforme. Researchers developed a…
NIH Research Matters Features ISB’s MTB Paper
NIH Research Matters published an article on our tuberculosis paper. “The incredibly large number of possible drug combinations taken together with the difficulty of growing Mtb in the laboratory make discovery of effective combination therapy extremely challenging,” Dr. Nitin Baliga says. “We hope that our systems-based strategy will accelerate TB drug discovery by helping researchers prioritize combinations that are more likely to be effective.” READ THE ARTICLE
Exploring the Invisible Forest
Gallery above: Dr. Anne Thompson and research assistant Allison Lee traveled to Station ALOHA in Hawaii on a research cruise to collect water samples and various species of organisms. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. OCE-1558924. What’s the “invisible forest” and what does it have to do with environmental research? Dr. Anne Thompson who was in the Baliga Lab at…
Baliga Lab: New Publication in ‘Nature Microbiology’
The Baliga Lab and colleagues at Center for Infectious Disease Research published (online in advance of print) this landmark study today in the journal Nature Microbiology: Seattle researchers created a genetic blueprint of the cunning tuberculosis bacteria, then used it to predict and rank potential drug targets 3 Bullets: Researchers at the Institute for Systems Biology and Center for Infectious Disease Research have deciphered how the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis…
Advancing Sustainable Agriculture
ISB’s Project Feed 1010 is building a global, crowd-sourced network of educators, students, researchers and farmers to optimize and scale-up sustainable agriculture practices and educate the future scientific workforce. To support this global network, we have partnered with Northeastern University to develop database, web and mobile infrastructures with functionalities for data tracking, monitoring, analytics and predictive modeling. More than 20 graduate-level computer science students enrolled in an interactive course have…
Project Feed 1010 Partners with Northeastern University to Advance Sustainable Agriculture
ISB’s Project Feed 1010 is building a global, crowd-sourced network of educators, students, researchers and farmers to optimize and scale-up sustainable agriculture practices and educate the future scientific workforce. To support this global network, we have partnered with Northeastern University to develop database, web and mobile infrastructures with functionalities for data tracking, monitoring, analytics and predictive modeling. For the next 10 weeks, more than 20 graduate-level computer science students will…
Learning From Microalgae as ‘Biofactories’
In a newly published research, members of the Baliga and Price labs share discoveries from their studies of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii – Chlamy for short. Excerpt: To the casual observer, algae may appear to be a nuisance. But for researchers, photosynthetic microalgae and other microbes have the potential to become sustainable biofactories that can economically produce renewable biofuels and a wide variety of other valuable commodities. One such group of microalgae…