20.109(F11): Cara Brown & Emily Brown

Topic

Stem cells

Infectious diseases

Research Ideas

How can stem cells better aid in the process of fighting/curing an infectious disease.

~creating patient specific stem cells in vitro for stem cell therapy

~taking research from stem cell therapy (HIV cured in patient by total stem cell replacement) to develop strong therapeutics

~~knockout of CCR5 in HIV using RNAi, virus induced gene silencing

~~knockout of gene to treat or prevent malaria (Duffy antigen?)

Engineering human blood vessel cells to express EPO under the control of light

Using vampire bacterial predators to create a living antibiotic

~Look at efficiency and lethality of using the unmutated vampire bacteria to kill other bacteria (in bacteria, in mice, in vitro human cells)

~See what kind of bacteria the vampire bacteria most efficient against

~Target vampire bacteria to only destroy a certain type of bacteria

~Program vampire bacteria for apoptosis after a certain length of time or in response to a particular stimuli, so you do not have to use antibiotics to destroy these living antibiotics (using 2 component signaling system pathway? do these bacteria have this pathway?- exploit already existing apoptotic pathway)

~Can be inserted into areas of the body with extreme infection- gangrene, flesh eating bacteria, will it work against bacteria we cannot easily target?

Resources

Kadouri, D. et al. "Vulnerability of Pathogenic Biofilms to Micavibrio aeruginosavorus" Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 73:2, 605-614 (2007). http://aem.asm.org/content/73/2/605.full

Klessing, Ann A. "Curing HIV Disease with Stem Cell Therapy". Bedford Stem Cell Research Foundation, June 2010. Date accessed: 25 Nov 2011. http://www.bedfordresearch.org/article/hiv-aids-stem-cell-therapy-hiv-treatment-25644

Lin, R.Z. et al. "Induction of erythropoiesis using human vascular networks genetically engineered for controlled erythropoietin release" Blood. 118:20, 5420-5428 (2011) http://bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.org/content/118/20/5420

Noggle, Scott et al. "Human oocytes reprogram somatic cells to a pluripotent state". Nature, Oct 2011. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7367/full/nature10397.html

Suga, Hidetaka et al. "Self-formation of functional adenohypophysis in three-dimensional culture". Nature, Nov 2011. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10637.html#/in-vitro-functionality-as-endocrine-tissue

Wang, et al. "Genomic insights into an obligate epibiotic bacterial predator: Micavibrio aeruginosavorus ARL-13". BMC Genomics 12:453 (2011) http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/12/453