Building a Biotechnology Innovation Ecosystem to Mitigate Climate Change

EMde-Emergency Medicine- Dermatology: Drug Eruptions: Etiology, Differential Diagnosis and Treatment; Cutaneous Infections and Infestations, Part I: Bacterial, Viral, and Fungal; Cutaneous Infections and Infestations, Part II: Parasites, Bites, and Stings.

In the nearly two decades since the first successful use of gene therapy, transplantation of gene modified autologous hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is emerging as a viable treatment for a number of genetic blood cell and metabolic diseases and for some may even become standard of care.

Genomic analyses are yielding a host of new information on the multiple genetic abnormalities associated with specific types of cancer. A comprehensive description of cancer-associated genetic abnormalities can improve our ability to classify tumors into clinically relevant subgroups and sometimes identify drivers. However, the functional significance of cancer-associated mutations is often difficult to discern. Forward genetic screens provide a powerful tool to identify genes or genetic networks that contribute to specific biological phenotypes or diseases and therefore hold great potential for elucidating gene function and revealing therapeutic targets for diseases. The advent of CRISPR-Cas technology has revolutionized genome editing in higher eukaryotes and enables efficient gene manipulation in mammalian cells. CRISPR guide-RNA libraries allow facile generation of a pool of genetically perturbed cells and its application in genetic screens has marked a major breakthrough for functional genomics in mammalian cells.

The subcellular distribution and function of lipids remains a serious challenge to understanding biology. Two student presentations at a recent scientific conference highlighted a new innovation in mass spectrometry that improves organelle identification and a new function for ceramide-dependent mitophagy associated with aging in T cells.