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, for example, when the HIV patient was cured by transplantation of stem cells resistant to the HIV virus to develop stronger therapeutics

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

~~knockout of gene to treat or prevent malaria (Duffy antigen/sickle hemoglobin/elliptocytosis)

Using vampire bacterial predator Micavibrio aeruginosavorus to create a living antibiotic

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

~Modify the target bacteria for these vampire bacteria

~Program vampire bacteria for apoptosis after a certain length of time or in response to a particular stimuli in order to flush the vampire bacteria out of the body after use. Potentially, these vampire bacteria could use a 2 component signaling system pathway like in E. coli . Work needs to be done to determine if these bacteria have these two component signaling systems and what apoptotic pathways the bacteria already have, so these pathways could be exploited

~Using these vampire bacteria as antibiotics might be especially helpful for patients with severe bacterial infections, like sepsis, gangrene, flesh eating bacteria, or patients with resistance to other antibiotics

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