Protecting human health

Biologists, chemists, engineers, data scientists and other top experts unite at the Biodesign Institute in their common drive to determine what causes disease, create technology that leads to early detection, discover treatments to prevent problems altogether and optimize health overall.

Detecting gene mutations before they cause harm

A typo appearing in the draft of a novel is no great calamity. Nature, however, is often less forgiving of errors. A change in just one letter of the genetic code — known as a point mutation — can have catastrophic consequences for human health. Biodesign researchers have developed a new method for detecting point mutations that offers promise for accurate early diagnosis and better treatment options. The technique can be applied to living cells, offering a rapid, highly accurate and inexpensive means of identifying health-threatening mutations.

Cornering a prolific killer

Tularemia is a rare but often lethal disease. It is caused by one of the most aggressive pathogens on earth, the bacterium Francisella tularensis, which also poses a bioterror risk. The microbe, transported by a variety of animals and insects, enters and attacks the body through a range of pathways, causing different constellations of symptoms and severity. Biodesign researchers have examined a key membrane protein responsible for the bacterium’s prodigious ability to infect the body and cause illness. This virulence factor has been visualized in unprecedented detail with the aid of an X-ray free electron laser (XFEL), a massive and powerful instrument able to reveal biomolecules like proteins with astonishing clarity. Their work is a first step toward developing effective treatments for tularemia.

Fine-tuning microbes to treat obesity

Already considered a global epidemic, obesity continues to rise, affecting over 40% of the U.S. population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With health care costs approaching $316 billion dollars annually in the U.S., knowing how to treat obesity will result in a healthier population and help reduce runaway medical costs. Researchers at Biodesign are exploring new therapies that use the body’s complex colonies of gut microbes to micromanage weight. In a recent study, they provided new insights on the changes to the composition of gut bacteria following gastric bypass surgery. The work offers hope that obesity may one day be managed through noninvasive therapy, such as a customized probiotic, reducing the need for costly and risky surgery.

Revealing the surprising role of the microbiome in human health

The human body is teeming with nonhuman life forms — vast ecosystems of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes scientists have only begun to probe. Collectively, they are known as the microbiome, and they play a surprisingly large role in health and disease. The new Biodesign Center for Health Through Microbiomes will advance groundbreaking research into the subtle activities of microbial communities and investigate potential microbial-based therapies for disorders including obesity, Type 2 diabetes, altered drug metabolism, autism, depression, severe infections, irritable bowel syndrome, colon cancer and a range of other afflictions.

New hope for smarter drugs for heart failure

Cardiac disease is the most lethal disease worldwide, and it kills one person every 37 seconds in the United States. Biodesign scientists have zeroed in on a specific receptor that acts as a major regulator of cardiac function, called beta-1 adrenergic receptor. Reduced activity in β1-ARs is responsible for most cases of heart failure, one of the leading causes of medical problems worldwide. Using cryo-electron microscopy, scientists examined this vital protein complex and its binding with unprecedented clarity. The structural revelations will help guide the design and development of smarter drugs to address this deadly disease.

Donor impact

Benter Foundation funds Alzheimer’s research

The number of Americans with Alzheimer’s disease is growing fast. Currently, an estimated 5.8 million Americans age 65 or older are living with this devastating form of dementia. The Benter Foundation is funding research at Biodesign that uses big data analysis tools to study the genes that are inherited and those that are preferentially turned on or off in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. The work has already provided evidence to suggest that certain species of herpesviruses contribute to the development of the disease.