Infection, autoimmunity and cancer account for 40 percent of deaths worldwide. In a Cell Reports paper, ISB researchers detail how the human immune system works in common ways across diseases – findings that offer promising avenues for exploring multi-disease therapeutic strategies.
In a breakthrough discovery that changes how we understand T cells and with implications of how we can better engineer custom immune responses to fight disease, Institute for Systems Biology researchers showed that the different disease-fighting functions of different T cells are determined by the genetically encoded T-cell receptor sequence that are unique to those cells.
In a just-published paper in the journal Nature, a collaborative team of researchers from ISB, UCLA, PACT Pharma, and beyond analyzed T-cell responses in melanoma patients who were treated with different immune checkpoint inhibitors, and how those responses evolved over time.
Renowned artist Ginny Ruffner and ISB President Dr. Jim Heath delivered a lecture at Town Hall Seattle about the intersection of art and science. They spoke about how creation stories tie scientists and artists together, and how their approaches are both similar and different from that point on.
Scientists for the first time have used CRISPR to substitute a gene to treat patients with cancer. The remarkable findings were published in the journal Nature and presented at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 2022.
Author Meghan O’Rourke recently joined ISB President Dr. Jim Heath for a virtual fireside chat focused on reimagining chronic illness – also the topic of O’Rourke’s New York Times bestselling book. This event was the latest in the ISB-Town Hall Seattle Science Series.
The NCI awarded ISB a 5-year, $13 million grant to lead a comprehensive cancer center and study sequential combinations of targeted inhibitors and immunotherapies. The program is designed to determine if the treatments yield greater patient benefit when administered in sequence rather than as monotherapies or as simultaneously administered combinations.
As part of a massive nationwide effort, ISB is leading a multi-site consortium for the NIH RECOVER (Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery) Initiative. The Pacific Northwest consortium is made up of ISB, Providence, Swedish, and University of Washington School of Medicine.
Dr. Jim Heath was announced as a newly elected Fellow of the American Academy for Cancer Research (AACR) Academy Class of 2022. “I am honored and humbled to be recognized as part of this renowned group of researchers who have done so much to move our understanding of cancer forward,” Heath said.
Researchers have identified several factors that can be measured at the initial point of COVID-19 diagnosis that anticipate if a patient is likely to develop long COVID. They also found that mild cases of COVID-19, not just severe cases, are associated with long COVID. Their findings were published by the journal Cell.
On January 18, 2022, Dr. Jim Heath gave a talk on COVID at the first Research Roundtable event of 2022. Research Roundtable is a series of ISB hosted conversations with our leading scientists on the latest research happening at ISB. Designed for a lay audience, this series is open to all. Attendees have the opportunity to ask questions directly to our scientists.
