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ISB Creates PerSort, a New Cell Sorting Technology Aimed at Studying Tuberculosis
ISB researchers Dr. Nitin Baliga, Dr. Eliza Peterson and Dr. Vivek Srinivas have developed a new cell sorting technology, called PerSort, that isolates and characterizes dormant persisters that exist in cultures of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the pathogen that causes tuberculosis.
ISB’s Dr. Eliza Peterson Earns TB Junior Investigator Award
Dr. Eliza Peterson, a senior research scientist who studies tuberculosis (TB) in the Institute for Systems Biology’s Baliga Lab, has been recognized by the University of Washington’s Tuberculosis Research and Training Center with a TB Junior Investigator Award.
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
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…
Baliga Lab: A Global Map To Fight Tuberculosis
3 Bullets: The disease progression of tuberculosis is extremely complex and it’s poorly understood. ISB and Seattle BioMed researchers have made an important step by developing a comprehensive map of gene regulation in tuberculosis. A resulting open-access web portal offers any scientist the ability to mine the collected data. By ISBUSA Tuberculosis (TB) remains a top global health threat due to its remarkable complexity in disease progression. To help understand…
Tuberculosis Research: A ‘Molecular Road Map’ to Help Understand Gene Regulation
The journal “Trends in Microbiology” recently published a spotlight article on a tuberculosis research collaboration between scientists at Institute for Systems Biology and Seattle BioMed. The paper “The DNA-binding network of Mycobacterium tuberculosis” was published in the journal “Nature Communications” (Jan. 12, 2015): “MTB employs about 200 different molecular switches to sense and respond to the shifting, hostile landscape of the host. To identify and understand the intertwining gene regulatory…
Tuberculosis: ‘The Forgotten Plague’
PBS: American Experience Film “The Forgotten Plague” BY ISBUSA The measles outbreak and subsequent fueling of the anti-vaccination debate have monopolized headlines recently. But there’s a “plague” that causes an estimated 1.3 million deaths per year that researchers, including those at Institute for Systems Biology, are dedicated to tackling: tuberculosis. On Tuesday, Feb. 10, PBS will feature an “American Experience” film “The Forgotten Plague” on the history of tuberculosis and…
Pushing the Molecular Switches of Tuberculosis Into Overdrive to Map Interactions
3 Bullets: Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infects more than 1.5 billion people worldwide partly due to its ability to sense and adapt to the broad range of hostile environments that exist within hosts. To study how MTB controls its responses at a molecular level, ISB researchers and their collaborators at Seattle Biomed perturbed almost all MTB transcription factor regulators and identified the affected genes. This comprehensive map of molecular switches in…
Baliga Lab: Uncovering the Genetic Adaptability of Tuberculosis
3 Bullets: The Institute for Systems Biology and Seattle BioMed have collaborated to reconstruct the gene regulatory network of the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Finely tuned gene regulation has allowed Mycobacterium tuberculosis to survive unnoticed in an apparently healthy host for decades; understanding those subtleties is critical for advancing treatment. The identification of co-regulated sets of genes and their regulatory influences offers validated predictions that will help guide future research…
ISB Researchers Identify New Protein Modification Critical to Growth of Tuberculosis Pathogen
3 Bullets: Institute for Systems Biology and Seattle BioMed researchers collaborated and discovered a new protein post-translational modification in the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Post-translational modifications are essential mechanisms used by cells to diversify protein functions and ISB scientists identified the rare phosphorylated tyrosine post translational modification on Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteins using mass spectrometry. Inhibiting phosphotyrosine modified amino acids in Mycobacterium tuberculosis severely limits the growth of this widespread deadly…
Connecting the Dots: NPR TB Story
WHAT YOU HEARD IN THE NEWS: NPR aired this story (on Sept. 5) about research just published in the journal Nature Genetics suggesting that tuberculosis may have existed more than 70,000 years ago. Tuberculosis Hitched a Ride When Early Humans Left Africa ‘ “The old, traditional view was that tuberculosis emerged during the Neolithic transition when people started to domesticate animals and develop agriculture, which started about 10,000 years ago,”…
Collaboration: $16.6M TB Grant
ISB will collaborate with Seattle BioMed and ETH Zurich on a $16.6 million tuberculosis grant from the National Institutes of Health. Seattle BioMed issued this press release today: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE SEATTLE, AUG. 15 — Seattle BioMed has been awarded a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, that will take a comprehensive systems approach to the problem of tuberculosis…