Sanford-Burnham Science Blog
A new study involving Sanford-Burnham's Erkki Ruoslahti, M.D., Ph.D., contributing to work by Samir...
Sanford-Burnham’s 33rd annual symposium launched an entirely new field of science: Structural...
Sanford-Burnham at Lake Nona announced today the selection of the first five research organizations...
Sanford-Burnham's Erkki Ruoslahti, M.D., Ph.D., is a co-author of the study.
Conventional treatments for diseases such as cancer can carry harmful side effects—and the primary reason is that such treatments are not targeted specifically to the cells of the body where they’re needed. What if drugs for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases can be targeted specifically and only to cells that need the medicine, and leave normal tissues untouched?
The Florida Translational Research Program provides Florida-based scientists with access to Sanford-Burnham's drug-discovery technology and expertise.
We announced today the selection of the first five research organizations that will participate in the Florida Translational Research Program (FTRP) to advance drug discovery in the state. The projects focus on cancer, diabetes, and obesity, and are led by scientists from the University of Central Florida, the University of Florida, the University of Miami, Scripps Florida, and a team of our own Lake Nona scientists. The Florida Department of Health and Sanford-Burnham established the FTRP as a competitive grant program that provides funding for collaborative drug discovery projects. The overall goal of the program is to translate research discoveries made in Florida laboratories into the medicines of tomorrow.
Differentiating mouse embryonic stem cells (green = mesoderm progenitor cells, red = endoderm progenitor cells). The microRNAs identified in this study block endoderm formation, while enhancing mesoderm formation.
An embryo is an amazing thing. From just one initial cell, an entire living, breathing body emerges, full of working cells and organs. It comes as no surprise that embryonic development is a very carefully orchestrated process—everything has to fall into the right place at the right time. Developmental and cell biologists study this very thing, unraveling the molecular cues that determine how we become human.
“One of the first, and arguably most important, steps in development is the allocation of cells into three germ layers—ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm—that give rise to all tissues and organs in the body,” explains Mark Mercola, Ph.D., professor and director of Sanford-Burnham’s Muscle Development and Regeneration Program in the Sanford Children’s Health Research Center.
In a study published November 14 in the journal Genes & Development, Mercola and his team, including postdoctoral researcher Alexandre Colas, Ph.D., and Wesley McKeithan, discovered that microRNAs play an important role in this cell- and germ layer-directing process during development.
What: SDBN October event: ScienceOnline, What’s in it for me?
When: October 22, 2012, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Where: Green Flash Brewery Tasting Room, 6550 Mira Mesa Blvd., San Diego 92121
Host: San Diego Biotechnology Network (SDBN)
Who should attend: Life science researchers and professionals in the greater San Diego area
Registration and more info: http://sdbn.org/october
Cost: $25/20 (academic), dinner provided, drinks available for purchase
Twitter: #sciosocal @SDBN
Dr. Francis Collins makes a compelling case for continued funding of basic medical research (Photo by National Institutes of Health)
In an editorial for Science, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), makes a convincing case for continued funding of basic medical research. In the editorial, Dr. Collins writes that the NIH will continue to support basic research, which it defines as systematic study directed toward fuller knowledge or understanding of the fundamental aspects of phenomena and of observable facts without specific applications in mind. According to the article:
“In this time of severe budget constraints, Americans need to know that today’s basic research is the engine that powers tomorrow’s therapeutic discoveries,” says Dr. Francis Collins. “They need to know that basic research is the type of science that the private sector, which requires rapid returns on investment, cannot afford to fund. They need to know that, because it is impossible to predict whence the next treatment may emerge, the nation must support a broad portfolio of basic research.”
Earlier this month, Dr. John Reed, CEO and the Donald Bren Chief Executive Chair at Sanford-Burnham, spoke with Bruce Bigelow of Xconomy—a network of biotechnology-related blogs, events, and other initiatives—about how our drug discovery capabilities and the Institute as a whole have developed in the decade since he became CEO. The article points out that Dr. Reed led the development and implementation of a 10-year plan to extend the Institute’s work beyond basic research, with a focus on discovering and developing new drug candidates. Today, Sanford-Burnham identifies between two and four compounds each year that are considered valid clinical candidates.
The Collaborative Research Grant program will provide Florida scientists with access to our screening center
Last week was a great one for medical researchers across the state of Florida. The state legislature and governor approved funding for the Collaborative Research Grant program between the Florida Department of Health and Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute. Starting in July, the program will provide scientists at universities and non-profit institutes throughout Florida with access to Sanford-Burnham scientists and our state-of-the-art technologies for drug discovery. This includes access to the Institute’s Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics.
Together with the Florida Department of Health, Sanford-Burnham will develop a competitive grant program, based on peer-review that will provide funds for collaborative projects between Florida-based research scientists and Sanford-Burnham’s fully operational, state-of-the-art drug discovery technology center based at Lake Nona.
Presence of calcium deposits in a mouse aorta, as revealed by alizarin red staining.
Editor’s note: this is the second in a series of posts highlighting drug screening studies in our Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics. Read the first post here.
Calcification of the medial layer of arteries is increasingly recognized as an important clinical problem. Medial vascular calcification (MVC) is the major cause of morbidity and mortality in generalized arterial calcification of infancy (GACI), and contributes to cardiovascular deterioration in Kawasaki disease (KD), chronic kidney disease (CKD), as well as in diabetes, obesity, and aging. MVC is thought to result from decreased circulating levels of the mineralization inhibitor, inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi).
Researchers at Sanford-Burnham have revealed that the development of MVC in mouse and rat models is accompanied by up-regulation of tissue-nonspecific alkaline phosphatase (TNAP), an enzyme whose primary function is to hydrolyze PPi, and thus, crucial in determining where mineralization occurs. Preliminary data have proven that upregulation of TNAP is sufficient to cause MVC and Sanford-Burnham scientists have developed potent drug-like inhibitors of TNAP.
TRI grand opening speakers (from left to right): John Reed, Terry Owen, Dan Kelly, Steve Smith, Lars Houmann, Des Cummings, Don Jernigan
“My goal is to cure diabetes,” Steven Smith, M.D., scientific director of the Florida Hospital – Sanford-Burnham Translational Research Institute for Metabolism and Diabetes (TRI), said boldly at the opening ceremony of the TRI’s new state-of-the-art facility in downtown Orlando on March 27. “We believe that personalized medicine is our best shot at discovering cures for our most serious health problems like diabetes.”
The ceremony’s highlight was the unveiling of a spectacular nine-foot double-helix DNA structure that will be placed at the main entrance of the building, symbolizing the fundamental research being conducted at the TRI, as well as the synergies and collaborations the TRI represents. Selected board members and presenters each added one illuminated “bar,” representing a nucleotide, to the double helix.
“This is one of those rare times when the reality far exceeds the dream,” said John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., CEO of Sanford-Burnham. “The TRI is a wonderful opportunity for our organization, which will bring more and more to life our slogan From Research, the Power to Cure. We’re very excited about this opportunity to take our relationship with Florida Hospital to the next level.”
NIH funding is crucial for medical research
When Sanford-Burnham CEO John Reed, M.D., Ph.D. traveled to Washington, D.C., in early February, he attended a variety of Capitol Hill briefings to discuss the importance of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for medical research. He pointed out that NIH grants account for approximately 80 percent of all funding for non-profit medical research institutions in the United States, such as Sanford-Burnham.
NIH grants contribute to the ultimate goal of developing new treatments for diseases and improving the quality of life for millions of Americans and people worldwide. The research supported by these grants also generates U.S. patents that fuel the biotechnology industry and creates thousands of jobs across the nation. NIH funding supports the training of our biomedical research workforce and strengthens the foundation of a 21st century knowledge-based economy.
Dr. Judith Bond (right), professor and department chair at Penn State College of Medicine and president-elect of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), visits a poster at the 2011 International Proteolysis Society meeting.
Scientists from around the world met in San Diego October 16-20 to discuss their work on proteases at the International Proteolysis Society’s bi-annual meeting. The event, organized by Sanford-Burnham’s Dr. Guy Salvesen and Stanford University’s Dr. Matt Bogyo, brought together more than 300 researchers from a wide variety of fields to provide educational, training, and networking opportunities at all levels.
Proteolysis is a basic cellular function in which enzymes (called proteases) cleave other proteins. Sometimes a cell needs proteases to stop an aberrant protein from sending the cell astray. Other times, proteolytic cleavage activates a protein, cutting it free from an anchor that was holding it back. Needless to say, proteolysis needs to be carefully regulated, as it affects everything from cellular movement to cell lifespan.
An autophagosome full of degraded old cell parts, as viewed under an electron microscope. (Image by Malcolm Woods, The Scripps Research Institute)
Every well-run house needs someone to clean up the clutter, prune the hedges, and rake up the leaves, even whip up something to eat when the refrigerator is empty. In the life of a cell, those kinds of jobs are handled by an incredible process called autophagy.
Biologists first observed autophagy in the early 1960s as a mechanism by which cells break down their own components and recycle the parts. Autophagy, which literally means “to eat oneself,” is essential to cell survival, particularly when food is scarce.
But there’s a much larger role for autophagy than just helping a cell survive starvation. The process helps cells dispose of malfunctioning parts, clean up clutter, and defend against invading pathogens.
Microscope available in Sanford-Burnham's Cell Imaging facility
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of posts highlighting Shared Resources available at Sanford-Burnham. Future posts will further explore some of the individual capabilities found in these core facilities.
Suppose you’re a new assistant professor just starting your career at Sanford-Burnham, and you need to perform some high-resolution fluorescence microscopy to finish your first big paper as a principal investigator. How do you afford that $400,000 confocal microscope for the key experiments? For that matter, how does anyone afford a $400,000 microscope? Here’s where Shared Resources saves the day. Just down the stairway sits the Zeiss Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope that Sanford-Burnham’s Cell Imaging facility has thoughtfully provided for you. How did you get so lucky?
Let’s suppose your summer backpacking trip takes a disastrous turn and you’re lost, out of food, and desperate. You think those berries look OK so you swallow them down—even though they’re as bitter as anything you’ve eaten before. It’s not long before you regret ignoring your taste buds and suspect you’ve eaten something poisonous.
Unless you’re a molecular biologist, you’re probably not thinking at that moment about the biochemistry churning in your gut. But a cacophony of cellular signals is actually assembling a second line of defense to keep your digestive system from absorbing toxins into your bloodstream.
Of course, your body doesn’t always win. But Dr. Timothy Osborne’s lab at Sanford-Burnham’s Lake Nona campus has outlined how bitter taste-sensing receptors on enteroendocrine cells in the gut, called T2Rs, automatically kick into gear when confronted with bitter-tasting substances. You might disregard the taste buds in your mouth, but your digestive system knows better and tries to make up for your recklessness.
In the movie Extraordinary Measures, Harrison Ford plays a glycobiologist.
Earlier this summer, Dr. Hudson Freeze, program director in Sanford-Burnham’s Sanford Children’s Health Research Center, chaired the Gordon Conference on Glycobiology in Lucca, Italy. 170 glycobiologists from around the world gathered to hear about exciting new developments in the science of carbohydrates (sugar molecules) and the complex molecules like proteins and lipids whose properties are influenced by incorporation of carbohydrates. Once a rather understudied area of biology, glycobiology has been transformed by the realization that carbohydrates mediate many of the key molecular interactions that govern cellular function. Meeting topics included the effects of sugar modifications during development, the role of carbohydrates in normal adult physiology and the involvement of carbohydrates in tissue engineering and repair, including their importance in stem cell biology.
