ISB In the News: NIH, Viral Networks and Systems Biology


Emily Carlson and Sharon Reynolds, of the National Institutes of Health/NIGMS, posted a story on NIGMS's Inside Life Science as well as on Livescience.com on how systems biology is a powerful approach to studying biological networks. The article included comments from ISB scientist Aaron Brooks and senior research engineer Chris Lausted who created a network activity that they presented during the USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington D.C. on April 26-27. The project was supported by funding through ISB's Center for Systems Biology and NIH/NIGMS.
"(Networks) can yield information that helps us better understand — and potentially influence — complex phenomena that affect our health."
The network diagram above — by Allison Kudla, ISB's communication designer — depicts yeast cells (superimposed circles) and the biochemical "chatter" between them (lines) that tells the cells to gather together in clumps. This clumping helps them survive stressful conditions like a shortage of nutrients.
Read the article…
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USA Science & Engineering Festival
Networks are everywhere – from communications and transportation to social and biological – but we take most of them for granted. Three ISB scientists (Chris Lausted, senior research engineer; Aaron Brooks, graduate student; and Martin Shelton, postdoc) and high school intern Sarah Williams are collaborating on a project for the USA Science & Engineering Festival on April 26-27 in Washington D.C. to demonstrate just how essential networks are. The team…
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Mark Calendars for Dr. Lee Hood’s Reddit AMA on April 11
Dr. Lee Hood will participate in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) on March 24 April 11 from 10-11 a.m. PST. There will be more details posted on Reddit.com the morning of April 11. For now, feel free to look at the list of upcoming science AMAs or check out some previous science AMAs here.
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NOAA Ocean Acidification Webinar for Communicators & Educators
NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries and Ocean Acidification Program is holding a webinar series starting March 19 through June on the topic: "Sharing Ocean Acidification Resources for Communicators and Educators." ISB's Claudia Ludwig, the Education Program Manager in the Baliga Lab, will present: Ocean Acidification: A Systems Approach to a Global Problem When: Wed., April 23, 2014, 3 p.m. PST (6 p.m. EST) Primary Audience: Teachers, Formal Educators Project Website: http://baliga.systemsbiology.net/drupal/education/?q=content/ocean-acidification-systems-approach-global-problem…
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NOAA Ocean Acidification Webinar for Communicators & Educators
NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries and Ocean Acidification Program is holding a webinar series starting March 19 through June on the topic: "Sharing Ocean Acidification Resources for Communicators and Educators." ISB's Claudia Ludwig, the Education Program Manager in the Baliga Lab, will present: Ocean Acidification: A Systems Approach to a Global Problem When: Wed., April 23, 2014, 3 p.m. PST (6 p.m. EST) Primary Audience: Teachers, Formal Educators Project Website: http://baliga.systemsbiology.net/drupal/education/?q=content/ocean-acidification-systems-approach-global-problem…
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ISB at Town Hall Seattle on March 27
As an extension of ISB's 13th Annual International Systems Biology Symposium, we are collaborating with Town Hall Seattle to hold a panel discussion. Panelists include ISB president, Dr. Lee Hood; Dr. Tony Blau, of UW's Division of Hematology, Department of Medicine; Dr. Peter Nelson, prostate cancer researcher and oncologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center; and moderator Dr. Eric Holland, Senior VP and Director of the Human Biology Division at…
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ISB’s Trans Proteomic Pipeline Software in Demand
Luis Mendoza and Eric Deutsch, of the Moritz lab, were at CINVESTAV (a federal institute in Irapuato, Mexico) last week to teach a workshop on the Trans-Proteomic Pipeline software. From Luis (pictured above): "We covered the basics of data analysis of tandem mass spectrometry data using the TPP, including the justification and theory behind the methods as well as interpretation of the results via hands-on tutorials. We had a full…
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Best Way to Get Kids to Like Science? Inspire Teachers
By Hillary Lauren Science teachers and principals from Schmitz Park and Arbor Heights Elementary Schools in West Seattle attended a day-long workshop co-hosted at the Institute for Systems Biology. During their visit to ISB, the educators were enthusiastic to collaborate, learn about new curriculum materials, and see first-hand what an innovative science research space looks like at ISB. “The day signified much more than these teachers learning about some instructional…
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Now Accepting ISB Internship Applications
ISB’s summer internships for high school and undergraduate students are highly competitive — who wouldn’t want to work leading experts in systems biology research? The application process is now open. If you or someone you know may be interested in applying, visit the following links: High School Internships Undergraduate Internships
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Slow Motion Video Booth at ISB
Institute for Systems Biology held its holiday party on Jan. 18, 2014. We hired Super Frog Saves Tokyo to set up a slow-motion video booth and this was the result. It's never boring at ISB! Doing systems biology research is serious work. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be irreverent. I encourage you to take a moment to watch the really, really fun video from our holiday party. We worked…
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Science Education Impact
The educators who work at ISB continue to influence how science is taught in the State of Washington. Claudia Ludwig and Dina Kovarik, members of the Baliga Lab education team, recently helped the Highline School District apply for a $1,000 grant to use toward systems science materials and teacher training. Highline’s Arts and Academics Academy received the award, which will also provide students with “real-world” lab experience.
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Valerie Logan Luncheon Raises $50K for Science Education Programs at ISB
The Second Annual Valerie Logan Luncheon, which took place on Nov. 13, raised just over $50,000 (UPDATE: As of Dec. 18, 2013, the total funds raised has reached more than $60,000) for our education programs at Institute for Systems Biology. Guest speaker Julia Joo, who spent her summer as a high school intern here at ISB, shared with us the educational journey that led her to choose science as a…
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ISB Hosts 2nd Annual Valerie Logan Luncheon on Nov. 13
Photo above: Valerie Logan during the 2012 Valerie Logan Luncheon. To inspire students and imbue them with a love for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), we must inspire their teachers. ISB has always held this philosophy and, at the 2nd Annual Valerie Logan Luncheon on Nov. 13, we will celebrate our vision for bringing quality STEM education to all students and also honor Dr. Meena Selvakumar as the recipient…
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ISB, Lee Hood on Forbes.com
John Nosta, a contributor to Forbes.com, posted this piece today and included a mention of a collaboration between Indi and ISB on a diagnostic that may help identify benign lung nodules. From Diagnosis to Treatment, Has Lung Cancer Begun To Turn The Corner? This study suggests the tremendous power of using systems biology and bioinformatics to better understand health and disease,” said Lee Hood, M.D., Ph.D., co-author of the study; co-founder…
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WA State Adopts Next Generation Science Standards
PRESS RELEASE SEATTLE, Oct. 3, 2013 – After a two-year process, Washington State will officially adopt the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). It is the eighth state in the country to make the commitment. Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) has been one of the leaders in the process of developing the standards and preparing local school districts for the implementation of NGSS. “It is unusual for a nonprofit scientific research…
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Connecting the Dots: The Social Life of Genes
WHAT YOU SAW IN THE NEWS: Pacific Standard Magazine published the following cover story in September 2013: The Social Life of Genes “Your DNA is not a blueprint. Day by day, week by week, your genes are in a conversation with your surroundings. Your neighbors, your family, your feelings of loneliness: They don’t just get under your skin, they get into the control rooms of your cells. Inside the new…
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Guest Post: Harvard at ISB
Guest Post By Alia Qatarneh Research Assistant, Life Sciences Outreach Program Harvard University The realm of research is changing. The understanding of a scientific phenomenon is no longer a journey on a one-way road. It is an active collaboration between many departments, professionals, and experts, resulting in interdisciplinary frameworks that can tackle the vast principles of biology. Systems biology combines those aspects and allows for the exploration of how components…
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NIH Awards $45M to Alzheimer’s Research
The National Institutes of Health announced $45 million in grants to support several research groups that are focused on Alzheimer's prevention. ISB's Price Lab will be working with the University of Florida to use systems biology to identify new therapeutic targets in the innate immune system. The systems approach, which ISB pioneered, allows scientists to integrate and analyze disparate data (genome, gene expression, pathology) in order to find the molecular…
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UW Students Get a Taste of Systems Biology
“It was very interesting to learn how all the different backgrounds, such as one person having majored in physics, computer science, or chemistry, can come together to achieve a goal. Also, how some have bachelors or postdoc degrees. I also learned more about how PDMS is used and how there are teams that create their own equipment for experiments and data.” – LSAMP Student This afternoon, a group of freshmen…
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Greater Good: Successful High School Interns
Every summer, ISB welcomes a group of high school interns, hosted through our Systems Education Experiences program. ISB is proud of its collaborative and cross-disciplinary culture and we work hard to nurture an environment that allows our staff to achieve at a high level. It was especially gratifying to get this comment from one of our interns, who had just completed her time here: “At ISB, I witnessed collaboration that…
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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,”…
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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…
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K-12 Science Education: MESA Math Scholars Visit ISB
Just as the Seattle tourist traffic picks up in the summer, the intern and visitor traffic at ISB spikes during July and August. It’s always inspiring to see the fresh faces of high school students in our halls. On Aug. 7, the MESA Math Scholars came to ISB to visit our labs and spend some time with a few of our scientists. MESA stands for Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement and…
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ISB Joins Global Alliance
By Gustavo Glusman, ISB Senior Research Scientist ISB has joined the Global Alliance for responsible sharing of genomic and clinical data. You can read the white paper here. In the last couple of years, we (Family Genomics at ISB) moved from analyzing a handful of genomes (for the Miller Syndrome project) to analyzing over a thousand high-quality whole genomes we have in-house – in addition to the low coverage data…
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To Inspire Students, We Have to Inspire their Teachers
JUNE 24, 2013 — Dr. Lee Hood, ISB’s president, says that we have to “infect” kids with the excitement of science. The same can be said about their teachers. It may even be more crucial to inspire teachers, because they’re the ones who have the most impact on the greatest number of kids. At ISB, the transfer of knowledge to society is a part of our core. Supporting K-12 science…
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ISB Education Team: Next Gen Science Standards for Teachers
ISB is committed to K-12 science education. Today, to launch a new OSPI Math & Science Partnership, we are hosting 40 teachers from Seattle Public Schools and 20 teachers from Renton Public Schools to help them develop curriculum aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (and how all that fits with Common Core Standards). Go, ISB education team! (Full gallery)
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Why Does Lee Hood Travel So Much? He’s a Man on a Mission
Dr. Lee Hood believes that ISB scientists are missionaries who are spreading the power of systems biology. He is always on the road and today (June 24) he’s in Lyon, France, to attend the EISBM Symposium 2013 to give a talk on P4 medicine. Prior to arriving in Lyon, Lee was in Jerusalem to give a talk at the Israeli Presidential Conference, which drew world leaders such as Bill Clinton…
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Luxembourg-ISB Partnership: ‘An Unqualified Success’
By Hsiao-Ching Chou LUXEMBOURG JOURNAL, June 12, 2013 – At the 17th-century Neumünster Abbey, the cultural heart of Luxembourg City, a small group of some of the world’s most cutting-edge scientists gathered on June 10-11, 2013, for a symposium to discuss the future of medicine and healthcare. The consensus was clear: Achieving the greatest advances requires “no-box” thinking, cross-disciplinary teamwork and, as ISB president, Dr. Lee Hood, likes to say,…
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Scenes from Luxembourg
ISB is co-hosting a scientific symposium with Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine in Luxembourg City on June 10-11. Here are some scenes from Luxembourg pre-symposium. The full set of images can be found at this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/90930918@N08/sets/72157634024779425/
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In the WSJ: Dr. Lee Hood Explains How Nonprofits Can Be Entrepreneurial
Our Dr. Lee Hood is a guest mentor for The Wall Street Journal's Accelerators blog. In this post, he shares how nonprofit organizations can borrow the entrepreneurial and audacious-goal-oriented spirit of startups to be successful – in addition to remaining true to their missions. An excerpt: …achieving your vision requires determined optimism, the will to never give up, a missionary passion for the concept (to convince the skeptics), a willingness…
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