Dr. Lai Hong Wong is a senior research fellow working in the laboratory of Prof. Douglas Fowler and Prof. Maitreya Dunham in the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. Dr. Wong is interested in leveraging yeast genetics to explore the genetic determinants of drug metabolism that are implicated in adverse drug reactions in humans. We sat down…
It might seem unlikely for scientists at Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI), a research institute focused on causes and cures for autoimmune disease, to study cancer. But this area of investigation is growing as researchers uncover links between autoimmune disease and the mechanisms that help cancer evade the immune system. If BRI can pinpoint how cancer cells prevent…
Jason Schmitt was working at Atlantic Records when the online site Napster disrupted the music industry by making copyrighted songs freely available. Now, the communications and media researcher at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, is pushing for a similar disruption of academic publishing with Paywall, a documentary about the open-access movement that debuts today in a Washington, D.C., theater. “I don’t…
Biological processes supporting life are orchestrated by a highly dynamic array of protein structures and interactions comprising the interactome. Defining the interactome, visualizing how structures and interactions change and function to support life is essential to improved understanding of fundamental molecular processes, but represents a challenge unmet by any single analytical technique. Chemical cross-linking with mass spectrometry provides identification of…
“Scientific wellness” should be widely adopted as a health strategy to avoid chronic illnesses and reduce healthcare costs, according to Dr Leroy Hood, founder of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. This strategy was an entirely new way of doing medicine, which he described as “P4 medicine,” in that it was “predictive, personalised, preventive and participatory”. Speaking at the “Schrödinger at…
UW Biology today opened the doors to a new Life Sciences Building that will transform learning, teaching and research for generations. The $171 million Life Sciences complex includes seven floors and 207,000 square feet that encourages and makes possible team-oriented science. Designed by Perkins+Will and built by Skanska, the building encompasses a 187,000-square-foot research and teaching facility and a 20,000-square-foot…
OncoResponse, a Seattle biotech company creating antibody-based treatments for cancer, has raised a $40 million Series B round to advance five new treatments into preclinical and clinical trials. The company has now raised nearly $70 million since it was launched by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the now-closed Theraclone Sciences in 2015. The Series B round was led…
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection is initiated in the distal airways, but the bacteria ultimately disseminate to the lung interstitium. Although various cell types, including alveolar macrophages (AM), neutrophils, and permissive monocytes, are known to be infected with Mtb, the initially infected cells as well as those that mediate dissemination from the alveoli to the lung interstitium are unknown. In this study,…
Immusoft Corporation, a Seattle, Wash.-based cell therapy company, announced today that it has received a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant (SBIR) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant, in the amount of just over $3.5 million, will enable Immusoft to further advance its modified B cell approach to treating disease.…
Building on seven years of research that helps patients with sensory and motor neurological disorders, the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering is updating its name to the Center for Neurotechnology (CNT). The CNT, which is based at the University of Washington but includes researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, San Diego State University, Caltech and other partners, changed its name to…
