Welcome to the biweekly electronic newsletter from the Bio-X Program at Stanford University 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 Bio-X or Stanford.

Announcement

Newly Elected AAAS Members

Ann Margaret Arvin, Ben A. Barres, Michael E. Bratman, Philip Howard Bucksbaum, Steven Michael Kahn, Stuart K. Kim, Liqun Luo, Penny S. Pritzker, Jeffrey David Ullman, and Andrew G. Walder are the members from Stanford that have been newly elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the most prestigious honorary societies in the country.

Newly Elected NAS Members

Karl Deisseroth, Carol S. Dweck, James D. Fearon, Christopher Garcia, Liqun Luo, and Robert Tibshirani are the 6 Stanford faculty newly elected into the National Academy of Sciences, which honors distinguished scientists in their continuing achievements in original research.

Seed Grant Program

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 tenfold-plus return on investment, as well as hundreds of publications, dozens of patents filed, and most importantly, the acceleration of scientific discovery and innovation.

WE ARE CURRENTLY IN THE PROCESS OF REVIEWING THE 118 BIO-X INTERDISCIPLINARY INITIATIVE SEED GRANT LETTERS OF INTENT THAT WE'VE RECEIVED FOR OUR 6TH ROUND. Competition is intense, and the criteria for the proposals include innovation, high-reward, and interdisciplinary collaboration. To view the 114 different projects that have been funded from the first 5 rounds, please click here.

On February 13, 2012, we held one of our two annual IIP symposia at the Clark Center, which showcases the awarded seed grant projects. Over 150 attendants were present for the 8 podium presentations and 103 poster presentations. The recorded talks are now online.

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 utilizes 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 excellent jobs in industry and academia.

The 2012 Bio-X Fellowship awardees will be announced soon. Competition is intense, with only ~15% of proposals accepted each year. To view the numerous projects that have been awarded over the years, please click here.

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

News

New type of retinal prosthesis could better restore sight to blind, study says
Bio-X 2008 Seed Grant Project with Affiliated Faculty Daniel Palanker and co-PIs
Using tiny solar-panel-like cells surgically placed underneath the retina, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have devised a system that may someday restore sight to people who have lost vision because of certain types of degenerative eye diseases. This device — a new type of retinal prosthesis — involves a specially designed pair of goggles, which are equipped with a miniature camera and a pocket PC that is designed to process the visual data stream. The resulting images would be displayed on a liquid crystal microdisplay embedded in the goggles, similar to what’s used in video goggles for gaming. Unlike the regular video goggles, though, the images would be beamed from the LCD using laser pulses of near-infrared light to a photovoltaic silicon chip — one-third as thin as a strand of hair — implanted beneath the retina. Electric currents from the photodiodes on the chip would then trigger signals in the retina, which then flow to the brain, enabling a patient to regain vision. A study, published online May 13 in Nature Photonics, shows how scientists used rat retinas to assess the photodiode arrays in vitro, and how the diodes produced electric responses that are widely accepted indicators of visual activity. The scientists are now testing the system in live rats, taking both physiological and behavioral measurements, and are hoping to find a sponsor to support tests in humans. “It works like the solar panels on your roof, converting light into electric current,” said Daniel Palanker, PhD, associate professor of ophthalmology and the paper’s senior author. “But instead of the current flowing to your refrigerator, it flows into your retina.” Palanker is also a member of the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory at Stanford and of the interdisciplinary Stanford research program, Bio-X. The study’s co-first authors are Keith Mathieson, PhD, a visiting scholar in Palanker’s lab, and James Loudin, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar. Palanker and Loudin jointly conceived and designed the prosthesis system and the photovoltaic arrays.

Not all tumor cells are equal: Study reveals genetic diversity in cells shed by tumors
Bio-X Affiliated Faculty Stephanie Jeffrey
The cells that slough off from a cancerous tumor into the bloodstream are a genetically diverse bunch, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have found. Some have genes turned on that give them the potential to lodge themselves in new places, helping a cancer spread between organs. Others have completely different patterns of gene expression and might be more benign, or less likely to survive in a new tissue. Some cells may even express genes that could predict their response to a specific therapy. Even within one patient, the tumor cells that make it into circulating blood vary drastically. The finding underscores how multiple types of treatment may be required to cure what appears outwardly as a single type of cancer, the researchers say. And it hints that the current cell-line models of human cancers, which showed patterns that differed from the tumor cells shed from human patients, need to be improved upon. The new study, published May 7 in PLoS ONE, is the first to look at so-called circulating tumor cells one by one, rather than taking the average of many of the cells. And it’s the first to show the extent of the genetic differences between such cells. “Within a single blood draw from a single patient, we’re seeing heterogeneous populations of circulating tumor cells,” said senior study author Stefanie Jeffrey, MD, professor of surgery and chief of surgical oncology research.

Naturally blond hair in Solomon Islanders rooted in native gene, study finds
Bio-X Affiliated Faculty Carlos D. Bustamante
The common occurrence of blond hair among the dark-skinned indigenous people of the Solomon Islands is due to a homegrown genetic variant distinct from the gene that leads to blond hair in Europeans, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine. “This is one of the most beautiful examples to date of the mapping of a simple genetic trait in humans,” said David Reich, PhD, a professor of genetics at Harvard University, who was not involved in the study. The study identifying the gene responsible for blond hair in the Solomon Islands, a nation in the South Pacific, represents a rare case of simple genetics determining human appearance, and shows the importance of including understudied populations in gene mapping studies, said co-senior author Carlos D. Bustamante, PhD, professor of genetics at Stanford. The findings were published May 4 in Science.

Bejeweled: Nanotech gets boost from nanowire decorations
Bio-X Affiliated Faculty Xiaolin Zheng
Like a lead actress on the red carpet, nanowires—those superstars of nanotechnology—can be enhanced by a little jewelry, too. Not the diamonds and pearls variety, but the sort formed of sinuous chains of metal oxide or noble metal nanoparticles. Though science has known for some time that such ornamentation can greatly increase the surface area and alter the surface chemistry of nanowires, engineers at Stanford University have found a novel and more effective method of “decorating” nanowires that is simpler and faster than previous techniques. The results of their study were published recently in the journal Nano Letters. The development, say the researchers, might someday lead to better lithium-ion batteries, more efficient thin-film solar cells and improved catalysts that yield new synthetic fuels. “You can think of it like a tree. The nanowires are the trunk, very good at transporting electrons, like sap, but limited in surface area,” explained Xiaolin Zheng, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and senior author of the study. “The added nanoparticle decorations, as we call them, are like the branches and leaves, which fan out and greatly increase the surface area.” At the nanoscale, surface area matters a great deal in engineering applications like solar cells, batteries and, especially catalysts, where the catalytic activity is dependent on the availability of active sites at the surface of the material. “Greater surface area means greater opportunity for reactions and therefore better catalytic capabilities in, for example, water-splitting systems that produce clean-burning hydrogen fuel from sunlight,” said Yunzhe Feng, a research assistant in Zheng’s lab and first author of the study. Other applications such as sensing small concentrations of chemicals in the air—of toxins or explosives, for example—might also benefit from the greater likelihood of detection made possible by increased surface area.

Events

Resources

To learn more about Bio-X or Stanford University, please contact Dr. Hanwei Li, the Corporate Forum Liaison of Bio-X, 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.