ISB News

Malaria Researchers’ Findings May Have Implications for Preventing Spread of Deadly Disease

ISB researchers and their collaborators are using systems biology approaches to learn how the malaria parasite is able to transfer to humans via the bite of an infected mosquito. The information they have uncovered may help identify new ways to prevent people from contracting the deadly disease.

New Study Identifies Organ-Specific Biomarkers for Acute Liver Injury

ISB scientists recently published a study in the Journal of Proteome Research that presents results from a study on identifying organ-specific blood biomarkers for acute liver injury due to over-exposure to acetaminophen. From the summary: 3 Bullets: Finding organ-specific blood biomarkers for disease that are clinically useful is challenging. New study identifies organ-specific blood biomarkers for acute liver injury caused by over-exposure to acetaminophen. ISB researchers use the powerful, targeted…

Dr. Kristian Swearingen, ISB research scientist.

Dissecting Mosquitoes is Hard!

Photo by Hsiao-Ching Chou Dr. Kristian Swearingen is a research scientist in the Moritz Lab at ISB. He and his collaborators just published a paper in PLOS Pathogens that describes potential new targets for malaria vaccines. Read his article about the research. Asked about the challenge of having to dissect thousands of mosquitoes, he commented: When we started this project, my collaborators collected all the parasites and I focused on…

Promotion: Dr. Jie Luo Becomes Senior Research Scientist

Congratulations to Dr. Jie Luo, of the Ranish Lab, who has been promoted to senior research scientist. From Dr. Jeff Ranish: Jie Luo is an extremely dedicated and talented scientist. When he joined ISB in 2006 as a postdoctoral fellow, he had no experience in mass spectrometry-based proteomics. Now he is a leader in the field of structural and functional proteomics. He has conceptualized and implemented several innovative proteomics strategies…

ISB releases open-source software to analyze digital fingerprint of protein data

3 Bullets SWATH mass spectrometry, an emerging protein analysis technique being pioneered by ISB researchers, provides a digital fingerprint of all accessible proteins in a sample. The data generated by the SWATH technique are highly complex and require sophisticated computational tools in order to extract identities from a sea of data. ISB researchers have released a free, open source program that allows users to confidently identify and quantify proteins analyzed…

New Structural Map Helps To Understand Aggressive Tumors

3 Bullets: Aggressive tumor growth is linked to high activity of a macromolecular assembly called RNA polymerase I. ISB and FHCRC researchers collaborate to map the architecture of the assembly using a powerful crosslinking-mass spectrometry (CXMS) technology. Structural maps provide important insights into therapeutic targets for cancer treatment. By Mark Gillespie Rapidly growing tumor cells require large amounts of protein for their survival. This increased protein synthesis, or translation, can…

Cover image for ISB's 2013 Annual Report.

ISB’s 2013 Annual Report is Now Available

Institute for Systems Biology has a dizzying breadth of research projects. But when we talk about what we do, it’s how we do it that matters most. The systems approach that we pioneered and exemplify continues to distinguish our ability to tackle the most complex biological and environmental challenges today. Because of how we apply our hallmark collaborative, cross-disciplinary and integrative approach, our collective success is greater than the sum…

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…

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…