Microscopy is a key technology driving biological discovery. Nowadays, microscopy based scientific findings must be substantiated by quantitative image analysis. The discipline concerned with such quantification of biological microscopy images is called bioimage analysis. Dr. Christian Tischer walks us through the main concepts of a typical bioimage analysis workflow. He explains how to quantitatively interpret… Continue Reading
iBiology Podcasts
Nico Stuurman: Introduction to Image Acquisition for Quantitative Analysis
How do we visualize biological samples? In this talk, Dr. Nico Stuurman provides an overview of the different tools, equipment, and software available to acquire an image of a biological sample using a light microscope, and the considerations one needs to take when using these tools. This lecture will allow scientists to understand the principles… Continue Reading
Ted Yednock Part 2: Response to the Emergence of Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy
Just a few months after Tysabri was approved for MS treatment, two patients developed progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a fatal or seriously debilitating disease. In his second talk, Yednock describes the response of medical and regulatory groups and researchers to this discovery and its impact on the treatment of MS patients with Natalizumab/Tysabri. Continue Reading
Ted Yednock Part 1: Immune Cell Migration to the CNS
Yednock relates the discovery and development, over 15 years, of the drug Tysabri, an alpha4 integrin antibody, as a treatment for multiple sclerosis. In the first of his two talks, Ted Yednock begins with an overview of multiple sclerosis. He describes how, in MS, immune cells are able to transverse the wall of blood vessels… Continue Reading
Tejal Desai & Robert Bhisitkul: Advancing the Treatment of Retinal Diseases
Robert Bhisitkul and Tejal Desai describe how treatment for retinal diseases leading to vision loss, such as age related macular degeneration, may be much improved by efforts to develop implantable devices for drug delivery. Age related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of several retinal diseases that can lead to vision loss and, ultimately, blindness. Dr…. Continue Reading
Ricardo Dolmetsch: Neurodevelopmental disease: Drug Discovery in Neuroscience
Drug discovery for diseases of the nervous system is difficult. Although mouse models are helpful to study many human diseases, they have serious limitations for understanding neurological and psychiatric disease. Dolmetsch describes a method developed by his group to produce induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons from patients. Using these iPSC neurons, they can identify molecular… Continue Reading
Christine Stadelmann & Mikael Simons Part 2: Neuropathology of Multiple Sclerosis
MS begins as a disease of intermittent episodes with recovery in between. With time, however, MS changes to a progressive disease with increasing disability. In her talk, Dr. Stadelmann explains that studies of MS brain lesions have identified specific changes that occur with disease progression. For example, chronic MS lesions contain many fewer oligodendrocytes than… Continue Reading
Christine Stadelmann & Mikael Simons Part 1: Myelination, Remyelination and Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating autoimmune disease in which immune cells infiltrate the central nervous system and attack the myelin sheath surrounding axons. Dr. Simons explains that myelin is necessary for signal conduction by nerve cells and for the metabolic support of axons. Demyelination results in axonal loss and formation of lesions in the… Continue Reading
Tom Gadek Part 3: Discovery and development of Lifitegrast: Clinical Study
In his third lecture, Gadek outlines Lifitegrast clinical trials, from Phase 1 to Phase 3, and presents evidence of Lifitegrast’s safety profile in normal individuals as well as the efficacy of the drug in treating dry eye syndrome. Lifitegrast’s story shows the different layers of drug development and the steps that companies go through to… Continue Reading
Tom Gadek Part 2: Discovery and development of Lifitegrast to treat dry eye syndrome: Pharmacology
In his second lecture, Gadek reviews the molecular mechanism of dry eye syndrome, focusing on the role of inflammation and T-cells in this disorder. By analyzing clinical trial data from other drugs developed to treat dry eye, Gadek and colleagues confirmed the importance of LFA-1 as a possible target. LFA-1 is a surface protein on… Continue Reading
Tom Gadek Part 1: The SARcode Story: How to build a biotech company
Using the company he co-founded, SARcode, as an example, Dr. Tom Gadek tells us how one converts a novel idea into a successful company. He walks us through the discovery of Lifitegrast to treat dry eye syndrome, the founding of SARcode in 2006, and the subsequent clinical trials. In his first talk, Gadek highlights the… Continue Reading
Deepak Srivastava Part 2: A Change of Heart: In vivo Cellular Reprogramming
About half of the cells in an adult heart are cardiac myocytes, or muscle cells, and about half are cardiac fibroblasts or support cells. Following a heart attack, muscle is lost and fibroblasts form scar tissue. In his second talk, Srivastava asks whether our understanding of embryonic heart development can be used to reprogram fibroblasts… Continue Reading
Deepak Srivastava Part 1: A Change of Heart: Embryonic Heart Development
During embryogenesis, the heart needs to form a specific three-dimensional shape or a child will be born with a defective heart. Srivastava and his colleagues hope that by better understanding the molecular pathways involved in normal heart development, it will possible to improve treatments for both congenital and adult onset heart disease. In his first… Continue Reading
Louis Ptáček & Ying-Hui Fu Part 2: Understanding our Sleep Behaviors
By studying families with sleep/wake disorders, Fu and Ptáček have shown that mutations that cause changes in the phosphorylation or acylation of the PER2 protein are responsible for regulating circadian rhythms. In Part 2 of the talk, Dr. Fu explains that studies of families with sleep disorders have shown that post-translational modifications of the PER2… Continue Reading
Louis Ptáček & Ying-Hui Fu Part 1: Connections between Clock and other Phenotypes
By studying families with sleep/wake disorders, Fu and Ptáček have shown that mutations that cause changes in the phosphorylation or acylation of the PER2 protein are responsible for regulating circadian rhythms. Ptáček introduces the circadian clock and its relationship to sleep. He describes different sleep-wake behaviors including people who go to sleep and awaken exceptionally… Continue Reading
Wallace Marshall & Jacque Duncan Part 2: Ciliopathies and Retinal Degeneration
In the second video, Dr. Duncan explains that the inner segment of photoreceptor cells, where proteins are made, and the outer segment, where light is transduced into a chemical signal, are joined by connecting cilia. Mutations in proteins that localize to the connecting cilia can lead to photoreceptor cell death and vision loss. In a… Continue Reading
Wallace Marshall & Jacque Duncan Part 1: Ciliopathies and Retinal Degeneration
Cilia and flagella are complex, but highly conserved, structures found on most cells of the human body. Mutations in proteins localized to cilia can cause a collection of human diseases including renal failure and retinal degeneration. Dr. Marshall begins with an overview of the complex internal structure of cilia and flagella and the machinery, called… Continue Reading
Bryan King & Matthew State Part 2: From Genes to Pathology in Autism Spectrum Disorders
In the second lecture, Dr. Matthew State overviews the hunt for genes associated with autism and explains how studying de-novo rare mutations in the germline has advanced the understanding of the genetics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Studying a cohort of families with one affected individual and one unaffected sibling, they were able to map… Continue Reading
Bryan King & Matthew State Part 1: Developing Autism Spectrum Disorder Therapeutics: Treatment Targets and Tools from 30,000 Feet
In the first lecture, Dr. Bryan King introduces the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and defines the clinical criteria that characterizes ASD. Although there is no universal drug that is used to treat ASD, there are multiple medications used in the setting of autism. King outlines the different drugs used to treat the core behavioral features… Continue Reading
Prescott Woodruff & Joseph Arron Part 2: Asthma heterogeneity: biomarkers and drug development
Asthma is a heterogeneous disease with varying degrees of airway inflammation and variable response to treatment with inhaled corticosteroids. Woodruff and Arron describe experiments to develop a biomarker to detect asthma subtypes and determine which patients are likely to benefit from anti-inflammatory treatments. In the second lecture, Joe Arron reiterates the fact that asthma patients… Continue Reading
Prescott Woodruff & Joseph Arron Part 1: Molecular Phenotyping of Asthma
Asthma is a heterogeneous disease with varying degrees of airway inflammation and variable response to treatment with inhaled corticosteroids. Woodruff and Arron describe experiments to develop a biomarker to detect asthma subtypes and determine which patients are likely to benefit from anti-inflammatory treatments. In the first of these lectures, Prescott Woodruff explains that while asthma… Continue Reading
Carolyn Calfee & Michael Matthay Part 1: Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: An Overview
Acute respiratory distress syndrome is a life threatening condition with few effective treatment options. Preliminary studies using mesenchymal stem cells, or stromal cells, to treat ARDS have shown promise with decreased levels of bacteria in the lungs, reduced pulmonary edema and improved oxygenation. In Part 1, Dr. Calfee begins by explaining that acute respiratory distress… Continue Reading
Carolyn Calfee & Michael Matthay Part 2: Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy for ARDS
In Part 2, Dr. Matthay provides the rationale behind treating ARDS patients with MSC. Initial studies in a mouse model of ARDS, showed that treatment with MSCs increased levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines and antimicrobial peptides in the lung, and increased phagocytosis of bacteria by monocytes. Further studies in ex vivo perfused human lungs and in… Continue Reading
Manu Prakash: Scientific Curiosity: Finding Sublime in the Mundane
Manu Prakash always yearned to know the why and the how of things. As a boy in India, he spent endless hours playing outside with animals and making flammable artifacts in an abandoned lab in the basement of his home. Having the chance to explore his surroundings with open-ended curiosity, he learned to find the… Continue Reading