Articles by Jennifer Tsang
Streamlining stable cell line development from the start
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A Bunsen Burner's Effectiveness Depends on How Dirty the Air Is
When microbiologist Hannah Gavin started a faculty position at Providence College two years ago, her lab was assigned to a new building. This meant having a say in what type of equipment she could put into it and how to build out her lab space. “Gas lines and open flames were a part of that conversation,” she said, recalling some pushback from a building code and fire code point of view about whether they were necessary.
Menstrual Cycle Phase Alters COVID-19 Vaccine Outcomes
Skip to main content Vaccination during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle results in a higher chance of side effects, but a longer time to infection. Written byJennifer Tsang, PhD Period-tracking data paired with vaccination records helped scientists understand the relationship between the menstrual cycle and vaccine effects.
A lifelong quest to understand how a cell becomes an organism
When Judith Kimble began studying animal development in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, she wasn’t thinking about a career in science. “I just wanted to tackle a problem that was fundamental but still a mystery––a black box,” she says.
PLL Therapeutics reports positive phase I/II data for gut-targeting ALS therapy
This first phase of the trial establishes safety and tolerability of the therapy in 12 patients with ALS at three different doses by subcutaneous injection. The trial, which was double-blind and placebo-controlled, resulted in no serious adverse events and no treatment-emergent adverse events that resulted in study discontinuation. Focusing on the connection between ALS and leaky gut PL001 is a polypeptide delivery platform based on poly-L-lysine, which can be conjugated with active compounds.
Gut Bacteria Tied to Rare Disease That Makes People Drunk Without Drinking
A new cohort study found that specific gut bacteria contribute to auto-brewery syndrome, spurring studies into how fecal microbiota transplants may reverse it. Written byJennifer Tsang, PhD Gut microbes influence alcohol production in the gut in people with auto-brewery syndrome. Image credit:© iStock.com, GeorgeRudy Register for free to listen to this article Imagine getting intoxicated without drinking a drop of alcohol.
Cell-free DNA Reveals Disease Mechanisms Behind Sepsis
When cells in the body die, they release DNA. This DNA, known as cell-free DNA (cfDNA), makes its way into the bloodstream where it gets chopped up by enzymes, and in minutes to hours, the liver pulls it out of circulation. It can serve as a biomarker in many contexts such as detecting pregnancy complications, organ transplant rejection, and cancer before symptoms appear.
Gut Microbes Can Make Mice Lazy
Behavioral traits get passed on via an animal’s genetics, but a new study reveals that the microbiome can pass them on too, providing insight into animal evolution. Written byJennifer Tsang, PhD Image credit:©iStock, Mary Swift Register for free to listen to this article Animals and their microbiomes have evolved alongside one another for millions of years. But when nature selects for specific animal traits, it’s hard to tease apart the role of changing microbiomes from changes in host genetics.
Forging a Path Toward Cell-Free Treatment for Heart Failure
In a 2023 clinical trial, Mayo Clinic researchers found that stem cell therapy for heart failure improves quality of life in patients. But how stem cells work to heal the heart remained unknown. “The holy grail of regenerative medicine is discovering the drivers of regeneration,” says Andre Terzic, M.D., Ph.D., Marriott Family Professor and Marriott Family Director, Comprehensive Cardiac Regenerative Medicine for the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Biotherapeutics.
Non-antibiotic drugs increase microbiome susceptibility to infections
Antibiotics are widely known to wreak havoc on the gut microbiome, causing uncomfortable symptoms such as bloating and diarrhea, and serious infections with Clostridioides difficile. These infections occur because antibiotics kill off other bacteria in the gut, allowing pathogens to proliferate. A new study from Lisa Maier’s lab at the University of Tübingen and University Hospital Tübingen now finds that non-antibiotic drugs can have similar effects.
Could Non-Invasive Colon Cancer Screening Replace Colonoscopies?
When Erica Barnell was an MD/PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis, she met a woman who had stage four colorectal cancer (CRC). The woman was only 52 years old—more than a decade younger than the median age of a person who receives a CRC diagnosis, which is 68 years old.1 She had not been screened for colon cancer because she couldn’t take time off work and was busy with her kids.
Medication Use Associated with Gut Microbiome Changes Years Later
Taking antibiotics can often lead to a collection of side effects: constipation, diarrhea, and bloating, for example. This happens because antibiotics are meant to target infection-causing bacteria, and as collateral damage they kill off other bacteria in the gut as well.
Cracking the code of multichain biotherapeutic development
Email This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest biotech news! By clicking this I agree to receive Labiotech's newsletter and understand that my personal data will be processed according to the Privacy Policy.* Multichain recombinant proteins are a growing class of biotherapeutics used to treat cancer and other indications.
Drug developers rethink submission strategies amidst FDA’s new AI tool
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced the launch of its new AI tool, Elsa, to help them review regulatory submissions. This rollout initially faced skepticism among scientists and regulatory experts about the potential for inaccuracies, AI hallucinations, transparency concerns, and other concerns. Even FDA staff had mixed reviews.
Horseshoe Crabs Break Free from Biomedical Testing
For 40 years, researchers relied on horseshoe crab blood to catch endotoxins in drugs. Now, synthetic alternatives and updated regulations can end the practice. Written byJennifer Tsang, PhD Image credit:©iStock, milehightraveler Register for free to listen to this article Every year in May when high tide coincides with the full moon, horseshoe crabs convene on the beaches of the mid-Atlantic coast to lay millions of eggs.
Detecting menstrual blood biomarkers directly on sanitary pads
Each month, 1.8 billion people menstruate. This blood, normally discarded as waste, can reveal quite a bit about the status of someone’s health. If scientists used menstrual blood instead of venous blood draws to detect biomarkers and monitor disease, it could open up the possibility for less invasive and more accessible blood tests. However, unlike urine or blood, menstrual blood hasn’t been widely seen as a diagnostic sample and there have been very few scientists studying this area.
Preventing obesity with an immune-altering gut microbe
The understudied human gut bacteria P. faecium counteracted weight gain in mice by reducing inflammation, revealing a potential new way to treat obesity. Credit: iStock.com/Artur Plawgo The understudied human gut bacteria P. faecium counteracted weight gain in mice by reducing inflammation, revealing a potential new way to treat obesity.
Align and ATCC Partner to Launch World’s Largest AI-Ready Microbial Phenotyping Dataset
The Align Foundation, a nonprofit focused on accelerating predictive biology through AI-driven research infrastructure, has announced a landmark collaboration with ATCC, the leading global nonprofit supplier of microbial strains and biological standards. Together, they will create the world’s largest public, AI-ready microbial phenotyping dataset, designed to accelerate machine learning applications in biological research.
Developing drugs faster with flycode antibody tags
In the search for promising drug candidates that will make their way to approval, drug developers sift through thousands of molecules to find the best one for clinical trials. To narrow it down, part of the process involves tracking where the drugs go in the body and how long they stay there. For small molecule drugs, there are ways to test multiple drug candidates within the same mouse. But scientists must test therapeutic antibody drugs exhaustively one at a time in mice.
Engineering bacteriophages to produce proteins in the gut
By using phages to deliver genes for therapeutic proteins, biologic drug delivery could become much easier. Credit: iStock.com/Marharyta Marko By using phages to deliver genes for therapeutic proteins, biologic drug delivery could become much easier. | 4 min read Jennifer Tsang, PhD Register for free to listen to this article Biologic drugs have opened the door to treating diseases that were once considered difficult or impossible to treat.
Predicting postpartum depression during pregnancy
Postpartum depression (PPD) affects nearly 20 percent of childbearing people, but just three percent receive treatment until their symptoms resolve (1,2). Lauren Osborne, a reproductive psychiatrist at Weill Cornell Medicine/New York-Presbyterian Hospital said that this is partly because “we aren't good at figuring out who's going to be at risk and getting them into care early.” What if there was a way to better predict and treat people before PPD develops?
Diagnostics for faster antimicrobial susceptibility testing
New phenotypic methods can help identify the best antibiotic to treat sepsis, UTIs, and other bacterial infections. Credit: Martin Oeggerli (Micronaut) and Resistell 2021 New phenotypic methods can help identify the best antibiotic to treat sepsis, UTIs, and other bacterial infections.
Optimizing antibiotics out of worm guts
In vivo studies of the antibiotic darobactin D22 against high-priority gram-negative bacteria show promise for further drug development. In vivo studies of the antibiotic darobactin D22 against high-priority gram-negative bacteria show promise for further drug development. | 3 min read Jennifer Tsang, PhD Register for free to listen to this article In the innermost layer of a parasitic worm sits the starting material for what may become a powerful new antibiotic.
Towards an AI-Driven CRISPR Future
Since the discovery of Cas9, scientists have been identifying other CRISPR enzymes in attempts to find enzymes that are better fit for purpose - those that cut more efficiently, those that are smaller and thus easier to package in gene therapy vectors, or those that have minimal off-target editing. Scientists have been optimizing CRISPR systems for years, and now, with the rise of AI in biotech, many in the field have been using AI to design the best CRISPR system.
Toward an AAV gene therapy to treat muscular dystrophies
Gene therapies have tremendous potential in treating a variety of diseases, but ones that use adeno-associated viruses (AAV) as their delivery vehicle are often too small to deliver a full human gene. While there have been many attempts at using multiple AAVs to deliver gene fragments into the cell where they can assemble together once inside, these efforts often proved inefficient.
First brain-delivered AAV therapy approved by FDA
Until recently, the rare genetic disease, aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) deficiency, had no cure. The disease, which begins in the first months after birth, affects physical, mental, and behavioral aspects of life, and treatment has mainly targeted symptoms. Things are changing, however, with the introduction of new gene therapies that attack the disease at its source. On November 13, 2024, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat AADC deficiency in children and adults.
Future-proofing potato crops to resist heat waves
Ensuring access to food is becoming more difficult in many parts of the world due, in large part, to the effects of climate change. Crop yields have plateaued in recent years and rising temperatures can make it more difficult for crops to thrive. To overcome these challenges, scientists from the University of Illinois sought to “future proof” potatoes to resist the effects of climate change and boost crop yields amidst rising temperatures.
The surprising link between saliva and stress during pregnancy
Scientists find unique combinations of oral microbes can help identify states of stress in pregnant individuals. What can our spit tell us about our mental health? Quite a bit actually. Researchers have recently found that the microbes found in the saliva of pregnant people could reveal whether they’re currently experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.
How the right clinical trial design software boosts success rates
Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest biotech news! By clicking this I agree to receive Labiotech's newsletter and understand that my personal data will be processed according to the Privacy Policy.* Email This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. The clinical development process is long, often exceeding 10 years from discovery through regulatory approval for a drug candidate.
Honey bees boost crop pollination, but at a cost to wild bees
Honey bees compete with wild bees for resources in croplands, but nutritious wildflower plantings can mitigate these effects. In 2017, Maureen Page began collecting thousands of bees from wildflower plantings neighboring almond orchards in the California Central Valley. Surprisingly, she says she never got stung in the two years she spent collecting bees.
Reducing bacterial skin infections with harmless zaps of electricity
Imagine a time where instead of using antibiotics, we could simply zap bacteria with a small amount of electrical current. This is not the reality now, but scientists are beginning to understand how electrical current at levels imperceptible to humans can reduce harmful bacterial growth on the skin. This work, from a collaboration between two labs at University of California San Diego and University of Chicago, was recently published in Device.
Boo! How Bacterial Ghosts Can Help Treat Disease
It’s been a while since I did spooky microbiology stories back in 2021. Then, I nerded out about zombie worms that melt away bones and use microbes to help them gain nutrients, vampire bacteria that feast upon other bacteria, and zombie fungi that take over the minds of ants. But this time, I’m bringing you a different kind of Halloween delight. Today we’re going to meet bacterial ghosts. Bacterial ghosts are bacterial cell envelopes devoid of any internal contents (ex: DNA, proteins, etc.).
Co-opting bacterial proteins for macrophage-based drug delivery
To successfully infect a host, the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes rely on their ability to invade cells, multiply in them, and subsequently leave. These intracellular pathogens invade many kinds of human cells, including macrophages. Carine Smith explores ways to optimize macrophage-based drug delivery to deliver more potent drugs in a targeted fashion. Credit: Tracey Ollewagen Now, a team of researchers led by Carine Smith, a physiologist from Stellenbosch University, co-opted L.
When should I get my flu shot? Here’s what science says.
Pharmacies and doctors start booking flu vaccine appointments in late August, long before the number of flu cases are on the rise. The CDC recommends getting vaccinated in September or October. But most years, flu cases don’t peak for a couple months. So why September or October? First, we need to consider how long the flu vaccine protects you from the flu. If you get the vaccine too early (ex: August), you could be less protected towards the end of the flu season.
AI and Automation Drive Bioreactor Innovations from Pharma to Precision Fermentation
When Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, he did not think it would be a useful antibiotic to treat infections. It was hard to isolate, it was unstable, and he had doubts it would last long enough in the body to take effect. It wasn’t until 1941 that pharmacologist Howard Florey and biochemist Ernst Boris Chain treated the first patient with penicillin. However, they ran out of the drug, and the patient died.
How Pfizer’s decision in the '90s cost them a stronghold in the GLP-1 market
GLP-1 analogs are a class of medication intended to lower blood sugar levels and promote weight loss. These molecules, which mimic the action of glucagon-like peptides that are normally produced in the gut, have in recent years seen significant growth as a class of drugs. With several GLP-1 drugs on the market today, GLP-1 medications are expected to reach at least $100 billion by 2030.
Redesigning Synthetic Biology with Automation
Engineering biology is an iterative process. Design. Build. Test. Learn. Rinse and repeat. It can involve a lot of pipetting, picking colonies, screening a large number of variants, and other highly manual and repetitive tasks. What if biologists could outsource these tasks to robots? While many in the field have explored using robotics to streamline their processes, it’s been difficult to adopt.
Personalizing nutrition based on the gut microbiome
“You are what you eat” is a popular phrase to describe how diet influences health, but not everyone responds in the same way to the same foods. “If I feed ten people a banana, different chemicals come out the other side,” said Sean Gibbons, a microbiome scientist at the Institute for Systems Biology. These chemicals are short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). “The gut microbiome is a short chain fatty acid producing machine,” said Gibbons.
“Take Five” with Microbial Ecologist Alexandra Worden
By Jennifer Tsang July 17, 2024 "Take Five" is an occasional feature in which we pose five questions to an MBL community member about their career, dreams, and passions. Here we profile Alexandra Worden, senior scientist at the MBL's Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology & Evolution and professor in the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. Worden joined the MBL in 2023.
Meet a Microbe: Anaplasma phagocytophilum
We’re deep into tick season in the Eastern US. As dog parents, we give our pup monthly flea and tick medication and check her for ticks if she’s been in fields or wooded areas. We thought we were in the clear, but when we went to the vet one time, her routine bloodwork came back positive for anaplasmosis, a tick-borne illness. I had no idea what this disease was (maybe this is embarrassing to admit as a microbiologist) and was surprised since she did not seem sick.
Engineering bacteria for drug delivery
Topical drugs have quite a few advantages to tout. They’re noninvasive, treat directly at the site they’re needed, and are easily administered by patients. However, topical drugs need frequent reapplication because they don’t stay long on the skin. This can lead to patients missing doses or stopping the medication all together.
Building Microbiomes From Scratch
In 2022, Alice Cheng, Michael Fischbach, and their colleagues published a paper documenting the creation of a synthetic human microbiome for the first time. This microbiome consisted of 119 species sourced from bacterial species naturally found in humans. They carefully cultured these species, transferred all species together into germ-free mice, and found that they could stably colonize mice and fend off pathogenic Escherichia coli infection.
A new synthetic antibiotic tightly binds bacterial ribosomes
The evolutionary arms race where bacteria evolve mechanisms to outsmart antibiotic drugs has left clinicians with a dearth of ways to fight bacterial infections effectively. To discover new antibiotics, researchers in chemist Andrew Myers’ laboratory at Harvard University turned to completely synthetic approaches. In their latest endeavors, they developed a completely synthetic antibiotic called cresomycin (1).
Shrinking The Environmental Footprint of Digital Data Storage With DNA
Cloud storage. Social media platforms. Streaming services. Large language models. These platforms all contribute to a growing challenge: the need to store lots and lots of data. In 2010, we generated three zettabytes of data. That number is predicted to grow to 180 zettabytes just next year. “It’s hard to fathom how much data that is,” says Mike Kamdar, chair of the Reading, Writing, and Editing DNA track at the SynBioBeta 2024 conference and most recently, president and CEO of Molecular Assemblies.
Advancing the Frontier of Long DNA Synthesis
Since the 1980s, scientists have relied on chemical synthesis to build custom DNA molecules base by base. It’s been reliable for synthesizing short oligonucleotides less than 200 base pairs in length. However, it uses a large amount of organic solvents, phosphoramidites aren’t stable on the bench, and it’s not suited for synthesizing long pieces of DNA.
Phages and Synthetic Biology Team Up to Tackle Antimicrobial Resistance
The first antibiotic was discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming. In the decades that followed, new antibiotics were discovered rapidly and quickly modified to make them more effective. But, with the increasing use of antibiotics, it’s become more challenging to identify new antibiotics that are effective against “superbugs” or bacteria resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics. No new classes of antibiotics have been brought to market since the 1980s.
Seven Spooky Microbiology Stories for Halloween
Spooky season is here! While we associate Halloween with ghost stories, haunted houses, zombies, and trick-or-treating, the microbial world contains many eerie, microscopic (and macroscopic) tales. This Halloween, we bring you seven tales of microbial spookiness. (1) Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, the vampire bacteria Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus has many names such as the vampire bacterium or the predatory bacterium that describes its lifestyle.
Viral Vectors 101: Pseudotyping
To deliver genes using lentiviral vectors, you need an envelope protein on the virus’s surface and a corresponding receptor in the host cell. Some of these envelope-receptor pairings are broad, allowing delivery into many cell types, while others are specific, allowing delivery to only a few cell types. If you’re looking for more control in the cell types your lentiviral vector will infect, pseudotyping can help.
Michael Davidson and Roger Tsien Commemorative Conference Awards
Are you a master’s student, PhD student, or postdoc using fluorescent proteins in your research? Consider applying for the Michael Davidson and Roger Tsien Commemorative Conference Attendance Awards. This year, we’re giving out up to five awards, each up to $800, for virtual or in-person conference attendance.
Deck the Lab (or Home) for Addgene’s 2020 Holiday Decorating Contest!
We’ve finally reached the end of 2020 and that means it’s time for our annual Deck The Lab holiday decorating contest! If you’re selected as a winner, you’ll receive a winter care package from Addgene. This year, there’s a twist. Because of COVID-19, we’re giving you the option to decorate the lab if you can do so safely, or you can decorate at home. Here are the details. Contest 1: Deck The Lab: Classic Edition.
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