Sepsis Diagnostics
Each year, ~2,000,000 people in the U.S. develop sepsis and over 250,000 of these people die. Clinicians need advanced support when they make rapid, high-stakes decisions about sepsis for individual patients. Personalized risk stratification can help save lives and reduce unnecessary and potentially harmful care. Our lab, through a DoD funded study on post-operative sepsis, has developed blood biomarkers that can predict up to 3 days prior to diagnosis, with…
Lyme Disease Diagnostics
Lyme Disease Incidence has doubled over the past few decades with ~30,000 confirmed new case per year, which is likely an underestimate due to undiagnosed disease. Current diagnostic tests are only effective several weeks after infection since they rely on the host development of antibodies. Projects in our group are focusing on identifying biomarkers that can be diagnostic of infection at a much earlier time point. Furthermore, we are seeking…
Molecular Mechanisms of Influenza Infection
A major cause of morbidity/mortality during influenza virus infection is secondary bacterial co-infection. Indeed, bacterial co-infection is thought to have been the predominant cause of death during the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed over 50 million people. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying this synergy are not clearly defined. Our research has revealed that the mechanisms differ between influenza virus strains and include inhibition of lung epithelial repair processes and perturbations…
Biomarkers for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Blood based diagnostic marker for Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) poses a significant burden on emotional and physical health and health care costs. According to US Department of Veterans Affairs, about 12% of Gulf war veterans, including those deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, suffer from PTSD in a given year and about 30% of Vietnam veterans have had PTSD in their lifetime. The annual treatment cost for…
Extracellular Vesicles as a Diagnostic
Extracellular Vesicles in the Early Diagnosis of Small Cell Lung Cancer Lung cancer is the primary cause of cancer related deaths in the U.S and carries a 5-year survival rate of 17%. There are several reasons for these staggering facts including tumor heterogeneity, limited targeted therapeutics and late clinical presentation of disease. In the last several years, the development of therapeutics targeted to Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) and Anaplastic…
Analysis of Single Extracellular Vesicles
Microfluidics Array Based Sorting, Isolation, and RNA Analysis in Single Extracellular Vesicles Extracellular vesicles (EVs) such as microvesicles and exosomes are small membrane vesicles released by cells in the body. EVs are present in all biological fluids tested (e.g., blood, urine, cerebral spinal fluid) and contain various biomolecules including DNAs, RNAs, proteins and metabolites, and have been implicated as part of the cell-cell communication systems. Despite their importance, the current…
Infectious Disease & Biomarker Discovery
Infectious Disease research projects involve the discovery of biomarkers to improve diagnosis, as well as deep phenotyping of human host responses in order to identify therapeutic strategies. Current projects underway in the laboratory, focused include research efforts in COVID-19, Lyme Disease, Sepsis and Influenza. COVID-19 Understanding how to identify and treat COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, is of crucial global public health importance. ISB was quick to initiate a…
