Dr. Christina Surawicz, professor emeritus (Gastroenterology) has been selected to receive the 2022 Masters of the World Gastroenterology Organisation (WGO) Award. The Masters of the WGO (MWGO) Award is the highest honor WGO can bestow and is granted only to those individuals who have provided outstanding dedication to the mission of the WGO and achieved distinction in scholarly research, teaching,…
Cajal Neuroscience, a Seattle startup taking a unique approach to developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, revealed more details about its strategy and announced $96 million in funding Tuesday. Biopharma companies have spent billions of dollars over decades on failed trials for Alzheimer’s directed at just one target, amyloid-beta. The one drug available against that target, Biogen’s Aduhelm, was approved in…
Sara Calder is a life-long Washington state resident, and her education journey has been focused on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). In October, she joined ISB as Systems Health and STEM Coordinator and our second-ever AmeriCorps member. Calder’s journey to ISB is an interesting one, and she agreed to answer our questions to unpack her past experiences, future aspirations,…
HEY1-NCOA2 fusion is most described in mesenchymal chondrosarcoma. This is the first case report of a primary renal spindle cell neoplasm of uncertain malignant potential with a HEY1::NCOA2 fusion identified by Fusionplex RNA-sequencing that is histologically distinct from mesenchymal chondrosarcoma. The neoplasm was identified in a 33 year old woman without significant past medical history who underwent partial nephrectomy for…
Neurons in the developing brain undergo extensive structural refinement as nascent circuits adopt their mature form. This physical transformation of neurons is facilitated by the engulfment and degradation of axonal branches and synapses by surrounding glial cells, including microglia and astrocytes. However, the small size of phagocytic organelles and the complex, highly ramified morphology of glia have made it difficult…
The U.S. Congress returns this week after tumultuous midterm elections that left the Republicans still hoping to retake the House of Representatives and the Democrats doing better than expected by retaining the Senate. A divided Congress could mean a bumpy ride for the U.S. research community over the next 2 years. The results of the 8 November elections will likely…
Nature only samples a small fraction of the sequence space that can fold into stable proteins. Furthermore, small structural variations in a single fold, sometimes only a few amino acids, can define a protein’s molecular function. Hence, to design proteins with novel functionalities, such as molecular recognition, methods to control and sample shape diversity are necessary. To explore this space,…
Dr. Jonathan Himmelfarb and Glenda Roberts have been recognized by President Joseph R. Biden with U.S. Presidential Volunteer Service Awards. They both received gold medals. In 2003, the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation founded the President’s Volunteer Service Award to recognize the important role of volunteers in America’s strength and national identity. This award honors individuals whose service positively impacts communities in every corner of…
New research from the Steinbrenner lab on the evolution of herbivore peptide recognition by a plant immune receptor was recently published in eLife(link is external). This new research explores evolution and plant immunity, and utilizes the sequence of the ancestral gene from ~28 million years ago. Co-authors on the paper include Simon Snoeck, Biology postdoctoral scholar; Anthony Garcia, Biology graduate student; and Adam Steinbrenner, Biology Assistant…
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder and a mechanistically complex disease. For the last decade, human models of AD using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have emerged as a powerful way to understand disease pathogenesis in relevant human cell types. In this review, we summarize the state of the field and how this technology can apply to studies…
