Ilya Shmulevich, PhD, shares this message about our hosting a TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) steering committee meeting at ISB. In the video below, Ilya explains the purpose of the meeting and chats briefly about “pan-cancer” – the effort to find commonalities among multiple cancers. Related content: Read about ISB’s role in TCGA as a Genome Data Analysis Center and about the most recent collaborative paper on endometrial cancer, which…
By Dana Riley Black, Director of ISB’s Center for Inquiry Science Healthcare continues to be listed as a “high-demand” field, meaning there continue to be significant and projected employment opportunities in the field. A recent employment gap analysis by Washington State released on April 3 suggests a projected deficit of 472 healthcare jobs filled annually in the state (see: http://www.wtb.wa.gov/HighDemandFields.asp). As a result, many middle and high schools are turning…
America’s most productive biologist on philanthropy’s role in science Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., is one of America’s most successful and distinguished scientist-inventors. Four devices he created proved instrumental in decoding the human genome. He pioneered the important new field of systems biology, which studies complex biological linkages and uses technology and mathematics to map and explain interrelationships. He has been awarded seven of the highest prizes in experimental science, and…
ISB held a panel discussion at Town Hall to discuss the complexity of the brain. It was a thought-provoking evening that attracted about 200 attendees. If you can’t see the embedded video, click on this link: Town Hall video Read Karlyn Beer’s column in Xconomy on why systems biology is necessary for tackling the complexity of the brain. RELATED: ISB’s International Symposium: Systems Biology and the Brain info
Above: Dr. Lee Hood and members of his lab group raise a very Seattle toast with Starbucks coffee to celebrate. On Dec. 21, 2012, the White House announced that Dr. Lee Hood, ISB’s president and co-founder, is a recipient of the 2012 National Medal of Science. This is the highest honor the U.S. President can bestow upon scientists. “This is exciting because it’s for lifetime achievement,” Lee commented, “which lauds all…
Traditional node-link diagram of a network of yeast protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions with over 3,000 nodes and 6,800 links. Data from: von Mering et. al. Nature, 417, 399-403, May 2002; Lee et. al. Science, 298: 799-804 (2002) The node-link diagram above is a “hairball” of biological network data. Because it’s such a large network, it’s hard to scan for patterns or interesting interactions worth further investigation. But Bill Longabaugh, a…
SCImago, a research group based in Granada, Spain, generates an annual ranking of research institutions based on the impact of their research. The SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR) report for 2012 calculates “Excellence Rates” for each of 3290 institutions based on the percentage of papers cited. ISB ranks fourth in the world.
ISB is proud to announce that Sriram Chandrasekaran, one of our predoctoral scientists in the Nathan Price group, has received one of 10 Harvard Junior Fellowships. This prestigious fellowship grants Sriram the opportunity to pursue an independent research project without the pressure of having to secure funding and with mentoring from faculty at Harvard and MIT. It’s a “sexy way of transitioning to a tenure-track faculty position.” The rigorous interview…
What You Saw in the News: 2012 was the year of the microbiome. Feature stories about the trillions of microbes found in our environment and on/in human bodies appeared in publications such as The Economist, the New York Times, The Scientist, The New Yorker, Wired, Scientific American, and Discover. The NIH’s Human Microbiome Project published a report in Nature. The Earth Microbiome Project held its first international conference, which took…
On Nov. 29, 2012, ISB held its first annual Valerie Logan Luncheon to honor Valerie Logan, Dr. Lee Hood’s wife, and to raise funds for our work related to K-12 science education. The City of Seattle also issued a proclamation for Nov. 29 as “Valerie Logan Leadership in Science Education Day.” We also presented the first Valerie Logan Leadership in Science Education Award to Don McConkey, who is the assistant…
ISB’s Steve Sample loads turkey dinners to deliver to the YWCA. Watch the video about the emotional day. A complete, hot meal is something most of us take for granted. At Thanksgiving, we joke about abundant leftovers and the subsequent “food coma.” But for hundreds of families in Seattle and King and Snohomish counties, a holiday feast that would have been a fantasy became a reality because of the YWCA…
Figure depicting cross-disciplinary collaborations among lab groups and usage of technologies housed in ISB’s core facilities. In August, ISB learned that our National Center for Systems Biology was renewed for $13.7 million over the next five years. This is no small feat given that only two National Centers were funded in this round and that there’s fierce competition for diminishing government grants. Here’s how your tax dollars are being put…
What You Saw in the News: The Pacific Science Center just opened a new permanent exhibit called “Professor Wellbody’s Academy of Health & Wellness.” Here’s a description of the exhibit from the PSC web site: “Seven-thousand square feet of hands-on inventions, gadgets, activities and experiences will present health as a life-long process of balancing exercise, diet, proper rest and hygiene. These tools and resources for managing health and well-being will…
Kai Wang, Ji Hoon Cho and intern Alan Lin, all of Dr. Lee Hood’s group, participated in the IMPROVER Diagnostic Signature Challenge and won first place for the psoriasis sub-challenge. IMPROVER stands for Industrial Methodology for Process Verification in Research; it’s a method for verifying scientific data and concepts in systems biology research.
Juan Caballero, a post doctoral fellow in Dr. Lee Hood’s group, answered an open call through InnoCentive for a solution to combat Citrus Greening Disease, which affects about 18 percent of citrus trees in Florida. He was awarded $10,000 for designing the right RNAi to control the viral disease.
On Nov. 1, ISB and San Diego-based Sapphire Energy announced a strategic partnership to apply systems biology to algae with the goal of significantly increasing oil yield and improving resistance to crop predators and environmental factors in order to further the advancement of commercialized algae biofuel production. “Together, we have complementary expertise that will allow us to understand, reverse engineer and rationally alter the gene networks for fuel production in…
When you see a reference to “cancer research,” you know that it’s important. But do you really know what it means and how complex the research is? Many ISB scientists are entrenched in molecular cancer research. To better appreciate what they’re tackling, let’s talk about The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project. In understanding cancers, researchers first have to know what errors in the DNA of tumor cells cause them to…
About 20 years ago, Carole Ellison attended a lecture by Dr. Lee Hood shortly after he had arrived at the University of Washington to start the Department of Molecular Biotechnology. She was impressed by his vision for the future of science and healthcare and vowed to meet him one day. This wish and her lifelong interest in science and human health led her to ISB. This summer, Carole finally was…
