The Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG) is a research organization dedicated to furthering our understanding of the world’s fauna and flora. Through a variety of approaches, researchers at the institute are discovering, cataloging, and describing biodiversity. DNA barcoding, an innovative technique developed at CBG, utilizes DNA sequencing technology for species identification.
A tale of sex: gene sharing between microbial species, genomes and microbiomes
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is an important evolutionary process that allows the spread of innovations between distantly related organisms. In this webinar, I will present recent findings on the process, driving factors and impacts of HGT in light of recent developments in next-generation sequencing approaches. I will discuss examples of HGT within species, between species and between microbial communities, and how these gene exchange networks drive the genetic and phenotypic diversity of microbes in nature and clinical settings
Transcription Factor Assisted Loading and Enhancer Dynamics Dictate the Hepatic Fasting Response
Fasting elicits transcriptional programs in hepatocytes leading to glucose and ketone production. This transcriptional program is regulated by many transcription factors (TFs). To understands how this complex network regulates the metabolic response to fasting we aimed at isolating the enhancers and TFs dictating it. Measuring chromatin accessibility revealed that fasting massively reorganizes liver chromatin, exposing numerous fasting-induced enhancers.
Systems Biology to Overcome TRAIL Resistance in Cancer Treatment
Over the last decade, our research team has investigated the dynamic responses and global properties of living cells using systems biology approaches. More specifically, we have developed computational models and statistical techniques to interpret instructive cell signaling and high-throughput transcriptome-wide behaviors of immune, cancer, and embryonic development cells.
A Convergent, Multidisciplinary Approach Towards Developing Microphysiological Systems: Tissues-on-Chips for Pharmacological Safety and Efficacy Testing
Advances in basic and preclinical science continue to fuel the drug discovery pipeline, however only a small fraction of compounds meet criteria for approval by the FDA.
SBML (the Systems Biology Markup Language) and related resources for computational systems biology
Computational modeling allows biologists to create formal models of cellular phenomena that can be simulated, analyzed and compared to experimental data. Biologists today have at their disposal a wide range of software tools for their modeling efforts. The wealth of resources is a boon to researchers, but it also presents interoperability problems.
Garuda Platform – Re-imagining connectivity in medicine
With the explosion of data in different dimensions of drug discovery, biomedicine and healthcare, a key challenge is the ability to connect the disparate data sources, discover the right analytics tools for a specific analysis and navigate through inter-operable analytics to provide executable insights.
Precision Medicine for the Ophthalmologist: Next-generation genetic tools in approaching eye disease
The identification of disease-causing genes provides information about the pathogenesis of heritable eye diseases at the most basic level. Finding the causative gene of a disease helps the patient move beyond the unknown into the world of knowing what they have, what the future might hold, recurrence risk assessment, identification of at risk family members, contact with appropriate support groups, knowledge of what else to look for, and appropriate surveillance screening, and most importantly, the new possibility of gene based treatment.
CRISPR/Cas9 Targeted Genome Editing: Tips and Considerations
The genome found in every cell of our body contains over 20 thousand genes and over 3 billion letters of DNA that sustains life, shapes who we are and determines our risks of having a disease. CRISPR/Cas (clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats) is a recently discovered antiviral defence system in bacteria that has become the favorite set of tools to edit and correct any diseased genome and change any sequence of DNA in precisely chosen genomic location performed not in a test tube but within the nucleus of our living cell.
Comparative genomics of cellulolytic shipworm symbionts
Shipworms are marine bivalves that live and feed on wood. These bivalves, like most xylophagous and herbivorous animals, rely on bacterial symbionts to digest the recalcitrant lignocellulose component of plants. What’s unusual about shipworms is that bacterial symbionts are housed intracellularly in the specialized cells in the gills, therefore are not in direct contact with the ingested food particles.