LA JOLLA—Salk Institute researchers, as part of a worldwide initiative to revolutionize scientists’ understanding of the brain, analyzed more than 2 million brain cells from mice to assemble the most complete atlas ever of the mouse brain. Their work, published December 13, 2023 in a special issue of Naturaleza, not only details the thousands of cell types present in the brain but also how those cells connect and the genes and regulatory programs that are active in each cell.
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute marks 50 years as a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Designated Cancer Center with good news: NCI has renewed the designation and grant support for another five years.
LA JOLLA—Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers—only about one in eight patients survives five years after diagnosis. Those dismal statistics are in part due to the thick, nearly impenetrable wall of fibrosis, or scar tissue, that surrounds most pancreatic tumors and makes it hard for drugs to access and destroy the cancer cells.
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute has appointed Adam Bowman to the Programa de Becarios Salk, where he will join current Salk Fellow Talmo Pereira. Joining in March 2024, Bowman is an applied physicist who develops new technologies for optical microscopy.
LA JOLLA—Each year in the United States there are more than 3 million cases of peripheral neuropathy, wherein nerves outside of the brain and spinal cord are damaged and cause pain and loss of feeling in the affected areas. Peripheral neuropathy can occur from diabetes, injury, genetically inherited disease, infection, and more. Salk scientists have now uncovered in mice a mechanism for repairing damaged nerves during peripheral neuropathy. They discovered that the protein Mitf helps turn on the repair function of specialized nervous system Schwann cells.
LA JOLLA—Salk Professors Joseph Ecker, Ronald Evans, Satchidananda Panda, Rusty Gage, and Kay Tye, as well as Assistant Professor Jesse Dixon, have been named to the Highly Cited Researchers list by Clarivate. The 2023 list includes 6,849 researchers from 67 countries, all of whom demonstrate “significant and broad influence reflected in their publication of multiple highly cited papers over the last decade.” This is the ninth consecutive year that Ecker and Gage have made the list. Joseph Nery, a research assistant II in the Ecker lab, was also included on the list.
LA JOLLA—Regulatory T cells are specialized immune cells that suppress the immune response and prevent the body from attacking its own cells. Understanding how these cells work is key to determining how they might be manipulated to encourage the destruction of cancer cells or prevent autoimmunity. Cell behavior is influenced by chromatin architecture (the 3D shape of chromosomes) and which genes are accessible to proteins—like Foxp3, which promotes regulatory T cell development.
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute has appointed Jerry Sheehan as the Institute’s chief information officer (CIO). He will assume the position December 4. Sheehan served most recently as vice president and CIO at San Diego State University, where he led the development and deployment of information technology infrastructure and services for research, instruction, and administration.
LA JOLLA—For the twelfth consecutive time, the Salk Institute has earned the highest ranking—4 out of 4 stars—from Charity Navigator, America’s largest independent charity and nonprofit evaluator. The coveted ranking indicates the Salk Institute has demonstrated strong financial health and commitment to accountability and transparency, outperforming most other charities in the United States with respect to executing best fiscal practices and carrying out its mission in a financially efficient way.
LA JOLLA—Salk Institute researchers, as part of a larger collaboration with research teams around the world, analyzed more than half a million brain cells from three human brains to assemble an atlas of hundreds of cell types that make up a human brain in unprecedented detail.
LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute has named two highly accomplished scientists to join its faculty as Miembros no residentes, a group of eminent scientific advisors who guide the Institute’s leadership.
LA JOLLA—Profesor Asistente del Instituto Salk Christina Towers received a five-year, $2.85 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award from the NIH Common Fund’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program. Towers received one of 58 New Innovator Awards this year.
LA JOLLA—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.
LA JOLLA—El movimiento ofrece una ventana a cómo funciona el cerebro y controla el cuerpo. Desde la observación con portapapeles y bolígrafo hasta las técnicas modernas basadas en inteligencia artificial, el seguimiento del movimiento humano y animal ha avanzado mucho. Los métodos actuales de vanguardia utilizan inteligencia artificial para rastrear automáticamente partes del cuerpo a medida que se mueven. Sin embargo, el entrenamiento de estos modelos sigue consumiendo mucho tiempo y está limitado por la necesidad de que los investigadores marquen manualmente cada parte del cuerpo cientos o miles de veces.
LA JOLLA (25 de septiembre de 2023)—Profesores asistentes del Instituto Salk Christina Towers y Deepshika Ramanan fueron nombrados V Scholars por la V Foundation for Cancer Research. Cada uno recibirá $600,000 durante tres años para financiar sus objetivos únicos de investigación sobre el cáncer.
LA JOLLA—La inmunoterapia, que utiliza el propio sistema inmunitario del cuerpo para combatir el cáncer, es una opción de tratamiento eficaz, pero muchos pacientes no responden a ella. Por lo tanto, los investigadores del cáncer buscan nuevas formas de optimizar la inmunoterapia para que sea más efectiva para más personas. Ahora, científicos del Salk Institute han descubierto que manipular un paso temprano en la producción de energía en las mitocondrias, las "centrales eléctricas" de la célula, reduce el crecimiento de tumores de melanoma y mejora la respuesta inmunitaria en ratones.
LA JOLLA—Incluso para las células T "asesinas", células inmunitarias especializadas, la búsqueda y destrucción de células cancerosas durante todo el día puede ser agotadora. Si los científicos logran comprender por qué las células T "asesinas" se agotan, podrán crear células más resistentes para combatir el cáncer.
LA JOLLA—Los cánceres de páncreas se encuentran entre los tipos de tumores más agresivos y mortales, y durante años, los investigadores han luchado por desarrollar medicamentos eficaces contra estos tumores. Ahora, investigadores del Salk han identificado un nuevo conjunto de moléculas que impulsan el crecimiento de los tumores en el adenocarcinoma ductal pancreático (PDAC), el tipo más común de cáncer de páncreas.
El sábado 19 de agosto, en la 27.ª edición anual de «Symphony at Salk», un público repleto de patrocinadores y miembros de la comunidad disfrutó de la sensacional interpretación de la Sinfónica de San Diego, dirigida por el director Sean O’Loughlin, junto con la invitada especial Jennifer Hudson.
LA JOLLA—Científico médico del Instituto Salk Jesse Dixon ha sido nombrado Becario del Premio de la Fundación Rita Allen, una distinción otorgada a científicos biomédicos cuya investigación promete extraordinariamente revelar nuevas vías para avanzar en la salud humana.
