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Dear Friends,
At the Salk Institute, people have always been the driving force behind our scientific achievements. There are many people to celebrate in this issue, including a new faculty member and others making bold discoveries in cancer research and AI.
I especially want to call attention to the people at the core of Salk’s mission to drive high-impact science—our postdoctoral researchers and graduate students. By planning and conducting experiments, publishing papers, and mentoring others, these trainees are vital to our success and culture. And I’d like to spotlight one postdoc in particular: Louis Parham in Assistant Professor Christina Towers’ lab. Earlier this month the Howard Hughes Medical Institute named him one of 25 Hanna H. Gray Fellows in the nation.
Please join me in congratulating Louis and thanking all of our hard-working postdocs and grad students! You can read more below about how we celebrated National (Pre and) Postdoc Appreciation Week last week.
Warmest regards,
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Gerald Joyce
Salk Institute President
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Unleashing the power of AI to track animal behavior | Movement offers a window into how the brain operates and controls the body. Methods for tracking human and animal movement have come a long way, with current cutting-edge methods utilizing artificial intelligence to automatically track parts of the body as they move. However, training these models is still time-intensive and limited by the need for researchers to manually mark each body part hundreds to thousands of times. Now, Associate Professor Eiman Azim and team have created GlowTrack, a noninvasive movement tracking method that uses fluorescent dye markers to train artificial intelligence. GlowTrack is robust, time-efficient, and high definition—capable of tracking a single digit on a mouse’s paw or hundreds of landmarks on a human hand. | | | |
Reducing stress on T cells makes them better cancer fighters | | |
 
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Even for killer T cells, specialized immune cells, seeking and destroying cancer cells around the clock can be exhausting. In a new study, Professor Susan Kaech and team discovered the body’s sympathetic stress response (“fight-or-flight”) hormones can exhaust killer T cells in varying cancer types in mouse and human tissue samples—and that exhaustion can be inhibited with beta-blockers. The findings demonstrate the benefit of pairing beta-blockers with existing immunotherapies to improve cancer treatment by bolstering killer T cell function. Read more »
See also:
Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News »
The Tribune »
Tech Explorist »
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Rewiring tumor mitochondria enhances the immune system’s ability to recognize and fight cancer | | |
 
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Immunotherapy, which uses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer, is an effective treatment option, yet many patients do not respond to it. Thus, cancer researchers are seeking new ways to optimize immunotherapy so that it is more effective for more people. Now, Professors Susan Kaech and Gerald Shadel and team have found that manipulating an early step in energy production in mitochondria—the cell’s powerhouses—reduces melanoma tumor growth and enhances the immune response in mice. The findings may be leveraged to create new cancer therapeutics that are less harmful for mitochondria and cells. Read more »
See also:
Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News »
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“Super-enhancer” supercharges pancreatic tumor growth | | |
 
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Pancreatic cancers are among the most aggressive, deadly tumor types, and for years, researchers have struggled to develop effective drugs against the tumors. Now, Professor Ronald Evans and team have identified a new set of molecules that fuel the growth of tumors in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most common type of pancreatic cancer. The new research explains how certain gene mutations trigger out-of-control growth in pancreatic cancer by activating a “super-enhancer” that turns on other genes. It also showed the effectiveness of a new drug that put the brakes on pancreatic cancer growth by blocking the effects of that super-enhancer. Read more »
See also:
Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News »
ET Health World »
Genomeweb »
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September 18-22: National (Pre- and) Postdoc Appreciation Week | Earlier this month, Salk’s Pre & Postdoctoral Office celebrated the Institute’s graduate students and postdoctoral researchers—thanking them for their research, mentoring, and outreach efforts. These trainees are on the front lines of innovation every day, doing the experiments, obtaining and analyzing the data, and publishing the papers that drive discovery. The Pre & Postdoctoral Office collaborated with other departments to host a number of events throughout the week. | | | |
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La Jolla Light
Salk physician-scientist Jesse Dixon named Rita Allen Foundation Award Scholar
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Read article »
Features Professor Jesse Dixon
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GQ
Colon and rectal cancer rates are going up and scientists aren’t sure why
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Read article »
Features Professor Ronald Evans
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Quanta Magazine
Magnetism may have given life its molecular asymmetry
Read article »
Features President Gerald Joyce
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The Washington Post
For jet lag, a hearty breakfast in the new time zone may help
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Read article »
Features Professor Satchin Panda
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The latest issue of Inside Salk magazine is now available. In this issue, we celebrate how Salk scientists are developing new approaches in plant biotechnology to store atmospheric carbon within deeper root systems, addressing the challenge of pancreatic cancer with novel multicellular strategies, visualizing the activity of cells in real time with high resolution, and applying artificial intelligence to track fine motor movements and other behaviors. We share captivating stories from faculty, postdoctoral researchers, staff scientists, and alumnus, and honor the life of prolific artist Françoise Gilot, widow of Jonas Salk. Be sure to read it online or join our mailing list for a print edition. | |
Plant biologist Lena Mueller joins the Salk Institute to study plant-fungi relationships | | |
 
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The Salk Institute will welcome Assistant Professor Lena Mueller to the faculty in January 2024. Mueller is a plant biologist who studies arbuscular mycorrhiza symbiosis, a beneficial interaction between plants and fungi. She joins Salk from the University of Miami, where she is an assistant professor. Her work will bolster Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative, in which scientists are working to mitigate climate change by developing Salk Ideal Plants®—a new generation of food crops that are optimized to store excess atmospheric carbon in their roots. Read more » | |
Two Salk Institute faculty members earn V Foundation awards for cancer research | | |
 
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Assistant Professors Christina Towers and Deepshika Ramanan were named V Scholars by the V Foundation for Cancer Research. They will each receive $600,000 over three years to fund their unique cancer research goals. Towers was named to the first class of recipients of V Foundation’s A Grant of Her Own: The Women Scientists Innovation Award for Cancer Research, which was created to help counteract longstanding gender disparities in research. Read more » | |
Salk Institute wins Google Cloud Customer Award in Education | | |
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Each year, Google recognizes eight organizations across the country that create meaningful change and leave a positive impact in their communities. The winners demonstrate a capacity for innovation and utilize Google Cloud products and solutions to advance their missions. Salk won this year’s Education category for its use of Google Cloud to create the first comprehensive epigenome-based molecular map of the human brain. Read more » | | |
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Your support powers groundbreaking research, and the people who bring it to life. | |
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Professor Susan Kaech’s lab recently discovered the sympathetic nervous response’s hormones, like noradrenaline, can “exhaust” the immune system’s specialized killer T cells.
This wallpaper shows exhausted killer T cells with higher expression of the noradrenaline receptor ADRB1 (cyan) surround sympathetic nerves (yellow) in a virally infected spleen. Killer T cells without ADRB1 (red) do not surround the sympathetic nerves (yellow). Learn more »
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About this newsletter
Salk’s email newsletter is published monthly with updates on recent scientific publications, media coverage, awards, grants, events, and other timely information for Salk supporters and science enthusiasts.
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