Home Department: undeclared
Supported by: Bio-X
Mentor: Helen Blau, Microbiology & Immunology

Many of the receptors that regulate cell fate and self-renewal are G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Discovering drugs for muscle repair is challenging because it has been difficult to discover drugs for cell fate regulating GPCRs. To overcome this issue, Helen will develop an innovative new system to create a library of single variable chain antibodies (nanobodies) that will be able to target GPCR as agonists to the receptors and may also lead to other novel treatments.

Poster presented at the Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Symposium on August 24, 2017:

Discovering Agonist Nanobodies to Muscle Stem Cell GPCRS for Use as Therapeutic Biologics

Helen Liu^1,2,3, David M. Burns^1,2,3, Helen Blau^1,2,3
[Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology¹, Department of Microbiology & Immunology², and Institute for Stem Cell Biology & Regenerative Medicine³, Stanford University]