Welcome to the biweekly electronic newsletter from Stanford Bio-X for members of the Bio-X Corporate Forum. Please contact us if you would like to be added or removed from this distribution list, or if you have any questions about Stanford Bio-X or Stanford University.

 


Seed Grants

SEED GRANTS FOR SUCCESS - Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Program (IIP)

The Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Program represents a key Stanford Initiative to address challenges in human health. The IIP awards approximately $3 million every other year in the form of two-year grants averaging about $150,000 each. From its inception in 2000 through the fifth round in 2010, the program has provided critical early-stage funding to 114 different interdisciplinary projects, involving collaborations from over 300 faculty members, and creating over 450 teams from five different Stanford schools. From just the first 4 rounds, the IIP awards have resulted in a 10-fold-plus return on investment, as well as hundreds of publications, dozens of patents filed, and most importantly, the acceleration of scientific discovery and innovation.

In 2012, Stanford Bio-X selected 23 new seed grant projects as the winners of the 6th round. Please go here to view the list of awardees, along with the titles of their projects and the abstracts of the research. Competition was intense as the awardees were chosen from 118 Letters of Intent (LOIs). Selection criteria included innovation, high-reward, and interdisciplinary collaboration. (To view the 114 other IIP projects that have been funded from the first 5 rounds, please click here.) In addition, SANOFI has also funded 4 new Bio-X IIP Seed Grant projects from round 6!

On February 25, 2013, Stanford Bio-X held its latest annual IIP Seed Grant Symposium at the Clark Center. It was attended by over 150 people, and the symposium included 8 podium presentations and 116 poster presentations. The podium talks represented research from a wide array of fields (such as gene delivery to interactive gaming in biology to tele-robotic systems to stem cells to hedgehog signal transductions and more), with each project exemplifying the Stanford Bio-X mission of crossing boundaries to bring about interdisciplinary research and solutions in the field of life bioscience. The talks for this symposium are posted here. To view previously recorded talks, please go here.

SAVE THE DATE: the next Bio-X IIP Symposium will be taking place on August 26, 2013! Stay tuned for more information!

We are cultivating and are highly successful in building meaningful collaborations with numerous corporate colleagues. New collaborations through our seed grant projects are highly encouraged. To learn about how to get involved, please contact Dr. Hanwei Li or Dr. Heideh Fattaey.

 


Fellowships

BIO-X FELLOWSHIPS

Every year, graduate students and postdoctoral scholars of Bio-X affiliated faculty are highly encouraged to apply for the Bio-X Fellowships, which are awarded to research projects that are interdisciplinary and utilize the technologies of different fields to solve different biological questions. Students are encouraged to work collaboratively with professors of different departments, thus creating cross-disciplinary relationships among the different Stanford schools. Our fellows have conducted exciting research, resulting in publications in high-impact journals and have been offered excellent positions in industry and academia. To date, Stanford Bio-X has a total of 152 Fellows.

On June 26th, Bio-X held its annual Bio-X Fellows Symposium, where there were four 15-minute oral presentations followed by one-minute spiels from current fellows. The 25 newest fellows selected this year were also announced, and about 100 attendees came to the symposium. Please click on the "Bio-X Fellows Symposium" link above for the agenda and titles of the talks, and on the icon of the brochure above for the updated and latest Bio-X Fellowships brochure.

To view the numerous projects that have been awarded over the years, please click here.



BIO-X UNDERGRADUATE SUMMER RESEARCH PROGRAM

The Bio-X Undergraduate Summer Research Program supports undergraduate research training through an award designed to support interdisciplinary undergraduate summer research projects. The program is an invaluable opportunity for students to conduct hands-on research, learn how to carry out experiments in the laboratory, and develop the skills to read and analyze scientific literature.

This program is eligible to Stanford students who want to work in the labs of Bio-X affiliated faculty. To date, 176 students have been awarded the opportunity to participate in the Bio-X Undergraduate Summer Research Program. This summer is Stanford Bio-X's 8th round of USRP.

Participating undergraduates are also required to present poster presentations on the research that they've conducted during the program. Please click here for title lists of past posters that our undergraduates have presented.

Many fruitful collaborations and relationships have been established with industry through fellowships. Please contact Dr. Hanwei Li or Dr. Heideh Fattaey if you'd like to learn more about how to get involved with these fellowship programs.

 


News

DNA ‘reverse’ vaccine reduces levels of immune cells believed responsible for type-1 diabetes, study shows
Bio-X Affiliated Faculty Lawrence Steinman, PJ Utz, and Bill Robinson

A clinical trial of a vaccine, led by Stanford University School of Medicine researchers and designed to combat type-1 diabetes, has delivered initially promising results, suggesting that it may selectively counter the errant immune response that causes the disease. Several important findings of the multicenter, randomized, double-blind trial were published June 26 in Science Translational Medicine. First, levels of a blood-borne proxy of insulin production were maintained — and in some cases increased — over the course of the 12-week dosing regimen. This indicates that those getting the vaccine may have suffered less ongoing destruction of beta cells, which produce and secrete the peptide hormone insulin after a meal, than those given placebo injections. (A peptide is a very short protein sequence.) Second, blood levels of a specific group of immune cells that inappropriately home in on and destroy a protein found only on beta cells appear to have been selectively depleted in patients receiving the vaccine. No adverse effects, serious or otherwise, that could be attributed to the vaccine were observed. “We’re very excited by these results, which suggest that the immunologist’s dream of shutting down just a single subset of dysfunctional immune cells without wrecking the whole immune system may be attainable,” said Lawrence Steinman, MD, professor of pediatrics and of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford. Steinman is a renowned immunologist and multiple sclerosis specialist who treats patients at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. “This vaccine is a new concept. It’s shutting off a specific immune response, rather than turning on specific immune responses as conventional vaccines for, say, influenza or polio aim to do.”


Scientists discern signatures of old versus young stem cells
Bio-X Affiliated Faculty Tom Rando

A chemical code scrawled on histones — the protein husks that coat DNA in every animal or plant cell — determines which genes in that cell are turned on and which are turned off. Now, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have taken a new step in the deciphering of that histone code. In a study published June 27 in Cell Reports, a team led by Thomas Rando, MD, PhD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences and chief of the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System’s neurology service, has identified characteristic differences in “histone signatures” between stem cells from the muscles of young mice and old mice. The team also distinguished histone-signature differences between quiescent and active stem cells in the muscles of young mice. “We’ve been trying to understand both how the different states a cell finds itself in can be defined by the markings on the histones surrounding its DNA, and to find an objective way to define the ‘age’ of a cell,” said Rando, who is also director of Stanford’s Glenn Laboratories for the Biology of Aging and deputy director of the Stanford Center on Longevity.


Hyperconnectivity found in brains of children with autism, study says
Bio-X Affiliated Faculty Vinod Menon

The brains of children with autism show higher-than-normal connectivity along many neural networks, a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine has found. The study’s results may contribute to the development of a brain-based test that could be used to diagnose autism at an early stage. The findings, published June 26 in JAMA Psychiatry, were unexpected because they contradict prior reports of reduced brain connectivity in adults with autism. “We found that in the brains of children with autism there is a surprisingly high level of hyperconnectivity,” said Vinod Menon, PhD, senior author of the study. Menon is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford and a member of the Child Health Research Institute at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.


Long-term hearing loss from loud blasts may be treatable, researchers say
Bio-X Affiliated Faculty John Oghalai

Long-term hearing loss from loud explosions, such as blasts from roadside bombs, may not be as irreversible as previously thought, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Using a mouse model, the study found that loud blasts actually cause hair-cell and nerve-cell damage, rather than structural damage, to the cochlea, which is the auditory portion of the inner ear. This could be good news for the millions of soldiers and civilians who, after surviving these often devastating bombs, suffer long-term hearing damage. “It means we could potentially try to reduce this damage,” said John Oghalai, MD, associate professor of otolaryngology and senior author of the study, published July 1 in PLOS ONE. If the cochlea, an extremely delicate structure, had been shredded and ripped apart by a large blast, as earlier studies have asserted, the damage would be irreversible. (Researchers presume that the damage seen in these previous studies may have been due to the use of older, less sophisticated imaging techniques.)


New mouse model reveals a mystery of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, scientists report
Bio-X Affiliated Faculty Helen Blau

Children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy often die as young adults from heart and breathing complications. However, scientists have been puzzled for decades by the fact that laboratory mice bearing the same genetic mutation responsible for the disease in humans display only mild symptoms and no cardiac involvement. Now, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a mouse model that accurately mimics the course of the disease in humans. The study is the first to demonstrate a molecular basis for the cardiac defect that is the primary killer of people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Furthermore, the study provides evidence for a potential treatment to help prolong heart function. The mouse model also will allow researchers and clinicians to test a variety of therapies for the inherited condition. “Until now, scientists had no animal model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy that manifests the symptoms of the cardiac disease that kills children and young adults with the condition,” said Helen Blau, PhD, the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Professor at Stanford and director of the Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology. “This has been a conundrum for three decades."

 


Events

Neurology and Neurosciences
July 12, 2013, 8 am - 9 am
300 Pasteur Drive/LKSC 120, Stanford, CA
“Molecular/Cellular Mechanisms of Epilepsy”
Speaker: Brenda Porter, MD
Pathology
July 23, 2013, 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
LKSC 130, Stanford, CA
"Barrett's Esophagus and Barrett's-Related Dysplasia: One Pathologist’s Perspective"
Speaker: John R. Goldblum, MD, Cleveland Clinic Foundation

 


Resources

Stanford University
Stanford Bio-X
Bio-X Seed Grants
The Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Program (IIP) provides seed funding for high-risk, high-reward, collaborative projects across the university, and have been highly successful in fostering transformative research.
Office of Technology and Licensing "Techfinder"
Search the OTL Technology Portal to find technologies available for licensing from Stanford.
Stanford Center for Professional Development
- Take advantage of your FREE membership!
- Take online graduate courses in engineering, leadership and management, bioscience, and more.
- Register for free webinars and seminars, and gets discounts on courses.
Stanford Biodesign Video Tutorials on how FDA approves medical devices
A series of video briefs recently produced by the Stanford Biodesign Program teaches innovators how to get a medical device approved for use in the United States. This free, online library of 60 videos provides detailed information on the Food and Drug Administration regulatory process, short case studies and advice on interacting with the FDA.

To learn more about Stanford Bio-X or Stanford University, please contact Dr. Hanwei Li, the Bio-X Corporate Forum Liaison, at 650-725-1523 or lhanwei1@stanford.edu, or Dr. Heideh Fattaey, the Executive Director of Bio-X Operations and Programs, at 650-799-1608 or hfattaey@stanford.edu.

Release Date: 
July 08, 2013