Andrei Osterman

Supporting our troops through science

by Kristina Meek on May 26, 2012 at 4:00 am | 0 Comments

The USS Midway, a decomissioned aircraft carrier, opened as a museum in 2004 in San Diego Harbor. Image courtesy of USS Midway Museum.

On Memorial Day, members of our military—including those who have sacrificed their lives or have returned to us with injuries or illness—will receive much-deserved thanks and recognition. Whether you attend a parade, observe a moment of silence for those lost, or simply shake a soldier’s hand and say, “thank you,” you will find your way of expressing your gratitude. At Sanford-Burnham, we support the U.S. armed services by doing what we do best: science.

Sanford-Burnham’s headquarters in San Diego County place it in the midst of one of the largest active duty military populations in the country and the largest concentration of soldiers wounded in combat. Additionally, both states where Sanford-Burnham has locations, California and Florida, are among those with the largest populations of veterans. So the men and women who defend us are always on our minds. In honor of Memorial Day weekend, we have chosen to highlight some of the ways we strive to defend them in return.

How the body fends off bacteria

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on February 16, 2012 at 11:01 am | 1 comment

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Structure of bacterial flagellin bound to TLR5

To invade organisms such as humans, bacteria make use of a protein called flagellin, part of a tail-like appendage that helps the bacteria move about. Now, for the first time, a team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute has determined the 3D structure of the interaction between this critical bacterial protein and an immune molecule called TLR5, shedding light on how the body protects itself from such foreign invaders.

The study, published February 17 in Science, not only helps decipher the molecular mechanism underlying TLR5 recognition and function, but it also advances knowledge that’s key to the design of new therapeutics.

10 years of science & counterterrorism

by Communications Staff on September 11, 2011 at 6:41 am | 0 Comments

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Crystal Structure of Anthrax Lethal Factor complexed with a small molecule inhibitor

As the United States pauses to observe the 10th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, we reflect on the research advances that contribute to new counterterrorism measures—understanding anthrax, for example—and the health of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, including under-studied conditions such as traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Here are a few examples, and these only cover discoveries made at Sanford-Burnham since September 11, 2001. Can you think of more? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Witnessing the birth of a new scientific field

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on June 14, 2011 at 1:04 pm | 1 comment

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Dr. Arthur Olson, of the The Scripps Research Institute, shared this image, which models the complement of proteins and other molecules in blood serum. Dr. Olson's lab uses animation techniques normally found in blockbuster movies to make these sophisticated models. Image courtesy of TSRI's Molecular Graphics Laboratory.

Each year, Sanford-Burnham’s annual symposium features a different topic. Past years have focused on infectious diseases, RNA biology and other disciplines. This year, however, the 33^rd annual meeting introduced an entirely new scientific field: Structural Systems Biology.The June 7 symposium was opened with a welcome from Dr. Adam Godzik, director of Sanford-Burnham’s Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Program and one of the meeting’s co-organizers. “When I tell people I am a biologist, they think of organisms,” he said, showing a picture of zoo animals and wildflowers. “But I actually work on the parts.” With that, he flipped to cartoons of genes and proteins.

Structural Biology generates data related to the physical shape of these individual proteins– how they’re folded, how they form complexes with other proteins, what they look like in 3D. That information helps answer questions about how proteins perform their duties –facilitate chemical reactions, carry molecular signals in and out of cells, control cellular movements, etc. Understanding a protein’s structure and function helps identify its role in human health and disease, as well as its potential as a therapeutic target.

But, as Dr. Godzik went on to explain, these individual components all exist as part of a system. They are each a “node” in a network that controls an aspect of cellular behavior – turning genes on and off, communicating with other cells, metabolizing nutrients or performing any number of other processes. Systems Biology focuses on all these components and the interactions among them. Scientists in this field aim to create meaningful models capable of quantifying and predicting these complex cellular processes.

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Fueling cancer cell growth

by Josh Baxt on May 17, 2011 at 8:00 am | 2 Comments

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Dr. Jorge Moscat and Dr. Maria Diaz-Meco

May is National Cancer Research Month, created by Congress in 2007 to recognize the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) for its contributions to the field. To honor AACR and highlight some of the important cancer research being done at Sanford-Burnham, we will be posting a series of articles on the ongoing work in our National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center. The vast majority of this research is made possible by funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which includes the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Fifty years ago, cancer biologists were convinced that understanding cancer metabolism would lead to a cure, until discoveries about cancer genetics shifted the research focus in other directions. But now the pendulum is swinging back, renewing interest in metabolism’s role in cancer.

Dr. Jorge Moscat and Dr. Maria Diaz-Meco, who both recently arrived at Sanford-Burnham from the University of Cincinnati, have been working together for more than twenty years to understand the mechanisms that allow cancer cells to grow at such a breakneck pace. Their investigations have led them to a network of proteins characterized by having PB1 domains. This network of proteins controls inflammation, how cells communicate with each other, and how they sense nutrients—all key drivers of cancer growth.

For example, the PB1-containing scaffold protein p62 regulates an enzyme called protein kinase C zeta (PKCZ), which is often missing in human cancers. PKCZ is a tumor suppressor that prevents inflammation and ensures that cells remain sensitive to nutrient levels. Cells without PKCZ get reprogrammed to endure food scarcity.

“If they lack this gene, they don’t care if glucose is unavailable,” says Dr. Moscat, “they just use other nutrients.”

World Health Day 2011: No Action Today, No Cure Tomorrow

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on April 7, 2011 at 10:28 am | 0 Comments

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Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a type of bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics (Image courtesy of the CDC)

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterial infection that is highly resistant to some antibiotics. (Image courtesy of the CDC)

Editor’s update, April 8, 2011: It’s not too late – you can still find audio and slides from this event here.

Today, World Health Day 2011, the World Health Organization (WHO) calls on governments and stakeholders to implement the policies and practices needed to prevent and counter the emergence of microorganisms resistant to current therapies.

Antibiotics are among the most important advances in human health, but their use and misuse over the past 70 years have increased the number and types of microorganisms resistant to antibiotics – resulting in deaths, greater suffering and disability and higher healthcare costs. The challenge posed to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries is loud and clear – only seven new antibiotics have been introduced since 2003.

A press conference will be held this afternoon at Sanford-Burnham’s La Jolla, Calif. campus to feature innovators in antibiotic research and development.

WHAT: Innovation in Antibiotics: Medicine for the Next Wave of Bacterial Infections

WHEN: Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time

WHERE: Sanford Children’s Health Research Center, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, 10905 Road to the Cure, San Diego, CA 92121 or via webcast.

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Quick peek at Sanford-Burnham

by Josh Baxt on March 23, 2011 at 7:19 am | 0 Comments

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Sanford-Burnham's La Jolla campus. Photo by Nadia Borowski Scott

A video by high school student Daniel Osterman, son of Sanford-Burnham investigator Dr. Andrei Osterman, takes a quick look at the basic biomedical research being conducted at the Institute. In particular, the piece focuses on Dr. Hudson Freeze’s research. Dr. Freeze recently organized Sanford-Burnham’s 2^nd Annual Rare Disease Symposium, and studies a group of rare conditions called Congenital Disorders of Glycosolation (CDG), in which sugars fail to attach properly to proteins.

Some like it sweet

by Heather Buschman, Ph.D. on May 28, 2010 at 10:23 am | 1 comment

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Bacteria need sugars to survive. So they grab sugars where they can – either by making them or by taking them up from the environment – and mold them into a form that can be used nutritionally (to make energy) or structurally (to build a cell wall, for example). In turn, a bacterial cell’s sugar give-and-take can influence its environment, whether that’s water, soil or the human gut. With the long-term goal of developing ways to manipulate bacteria for a desired outcome, like new antibiotics or producing alternative energy, scientists are piecing together the complicated machinery that bacteria use to modulate sugars. In doing so, they face the major challenge of figuring out which genes are involved and what roles they play in sugar processing.

Sanford-Burnham’s Dr. Andrei Osterman addressed this problem in a talk he gave last week at the San Diego Consortium for Systems Biology’s 5th Annual Systems to Synthesis symposium, held at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Two types of bacteria that Dr. Osterman uses to study sugar processing pathways, Thermotoga maritime and Shewanella oneidensis, may have potential industrial applications to produce biohydrogen or clean up nuclear waste.

Early in his talk, Dr. Osterman summed up his group’s method for pinpointing what a gene does. “Coming from Russia, I think of it as a very American approach,” he joked. “We try to figure out what’s going on by taking a look around the neighborhood.”

He means the genomic neighborhood, of course.

Supporting our troops through science

How the body fends off bacteria

10 years of science & counterterrorism

Witnessing the birth of a new scientific field

Fueling cancer cell growth

World Health Day 2011: No Action Today, No Cure Tomorrow

Quick peek at Sanford-Burnham

Some like it sweet

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