2016–2017 Beckman Center Highlights

The Board of Directors of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation held their annual meeting at the Beckman Center at Stanford University on October 11-13, 2016.  

Beckman Center director, Lucy Shapiro, the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research and professor of developmental biology, welcomed board members with an informal dinner on Tuesday evening, October 11th. 

On Wednesday morning, board members heard presentations by Dr. Karl Diesseroth, the D.H. Chen Professor, professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Dr. David Kingsley, professor of developmental biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and Dr. Sam Gambhir, the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor for Clinical Investigation in Cancer Research, and chair and professor of radiology.

Board members then did a walk-through of the center’s Cell Sciences Imaging Facility led by CSIF director, Jon Mulholland. The Board held their meeting in the afternoon, followed by a dinner in the evening for all participants hosted by the Beckman Center director and the dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, Dr. Lloyd Minor.

The visit was a highly productive and informative event for all parties involved.

The Breakthrough Prize, founded by Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, Yuri and Mulia Milner, and Mark Zuckerberg in 2013, honors paradigm-shifting research and discovery in the fields of life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics. Nusse was awarded the $3 million prize for his contributions to the understanding of how a signaling molecule called Wnt affects normal development, cancer and the functions of adult stem cells in many tissues throughout the body.

The Breakthrough Prizes, initiated in 2013, honor paradigm-shifting research and discovery in the fields of life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics. In total, about $25 million was awarded this year. A black-tie, red-carpet ceremony for the presentation of the prizes was held at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View.

The annual award by the Office of the Vice Provost and Dean of Research at Stanford University is made to staff members who have made outstanding contributions to Stanford’s research mission. Mulholland was cited for his contributions in transforming the Cell Sciences Imaging Facility into a world-class operation by working tirelessly to keep Stanford at the leading edge of the revolution in technological advances in light and electron microscopy. 

Dr. Boettiger uses super-resolution single-molecule microscopy techniques to understand how noncoding sequences in the genome interact physically to shape genome structure and regulate gene expression. His aim is to understand how cells with the same genome can develop dramatically different behaviors.

As a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, Dr. Boettiger set out to study the structure of chromatin in three major epigenetic states, the transcriptionally active, inactive, and Polycomb-repressed states. At Stanford, he will combine both technology development and biological investigations to determine how the three-dimensional structure of the chromatin/chromosome regulates gene expression.

Dr. Haroush's research interests focus on understanding how the brain performs complex cognitive tasks. As a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, she developed innovative experimental protocols to follow interactions among primates that could then be dissected at the neural level.

In recognition of her landmark postdoctoral work, she was the recipient of the Gruber Prize for International Research, an award given annually to the most promising young neuroscientist in the world.

Because evolutionary success requires adaptability, Dr. Jarosz suspected that prions might play a role in providing it. A single prion can quickly convert many others to assume the same shape – and since a protein’s shape dictates its behavior, that means the prion converts the other proteins’ behavior, as well.  

Unlike traits resulting from most genetic mutations, prion traits are dominant, and they don’t obey Mendel’s laws. Rather than being passed to half of all progeny in genetic crosses – as Mendel saw with his peas – prion-based traits are transmitted to every cell. Jarosz’s data established a new and common type of protein-based molecular memory through which intrinsically disordered proteins can drive the emergence of new traits and adaptive evolution.

The goal is for Eterna Medicine players to design a molecule that could help spur the development of a new tuberculosis test.  

Recently, assistant professor of medicine, Purvesh Khatri and his team came up with a test that can accurately diagnose TB from a simple blood sample. The test looks at the expression levels of three different genes. When the three genes are expressed in certain proportions, doctors know the patient has TB.  

But how to calculate those proportions in a simple test on a stick is the challenge. To do so, according to Das, they need a molecule that can calculate the proportions of the three molecules. Right now, there’s no single molecule that can make that calculation. But Das said the Eterna game, powered by the minds of thousands of players, can theoretically create a molecule capable of such a calculation.

There is reason to suspect that the test could be used to predict many other diseases of old age.

Mounting evidence suggests that many diseases that become more common with advancing age do so because the immune system begins to malfunction. In addition to responding more sluggishly to dangers such as infectious pathogens or incipient tumors, the aging immune system tends to spend its downtime – periods when it has no imminent challenge to respond to – in a low-grade inflammatory state. Medical experts are increasingly convinced that this constantly thrumming, inflammatory activity threatens diverse tissues throughout the body.

A new test developed by Davis is able to detect early cardiovascular irregularities in otherwise asymptomatic individuals.