(From left) Amy Herr, chief technology officer of the CZ Biohub Network; Shana Kelley, president of CZ Biohub Chicago; Sandra Schmid, chief scientific officer of CZ Biohub SF; and Joe DeRisi, president of CZ Biohub SF.
From the start, the Biohub has been committed to collaboration and taking on large and complex scientific challenges—and learning from what works, and what doesn’t. So, we were pleased to share our experiences with Shana Kelley, who was recently named president of the new CZ Biohub Chicago, and to get to know her better during her visit to the SF Biohub last month.
During Shana’s visit to San Francisco, she shared her vision for CZ Biohub Chicago and spent time with our leadership team as well as our group and platform leaders to learn about our science model and how we’ve approached our work so far.
Conveniently coinciding with Shana’s visit, we hosted our twice-yearly Biohub Inter-lab Confab to gather our whole community—students, postdocs, and staff scientists from the labs of Biohub Investigators and Biohub group and platform leaders; Biohub leadership, staff, and fellows; and our colleagues from across the CZ Biohub Network and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. It was a rewarding opportunity to learn about new approaches and styles of doing science (trogocytosis, a little-understood phenomenon in which cells nibble off and absorb bits of one another’s membranes, popped up as an unexpected theme!). As always, our confabs offer lively discussion and opportunities to establish fresh collaborations across our community.
JOE DeRISI, PH.D.
President
SANDRA SCHMID, PH.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
Spotlights
Investigator spotlight: Meet Mark Skylar-Scott
A CZ Biohub Investigator and assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, Skylar-Scott credits Biohub support with allowing him to pursue risky projects that might not be funded through conventional research grants. He is working on two bioprinting projects, one on optogenetic 3D bioprinting, in which novel photoactive
enzymes are used to create natural biological scaffolds, and a second on rewiring gene expression in cells based on the wavelengths of light that they’re exposed to, so that they can ultimately pattern stem cells, layer by layer, in 3D. His work aims to enhance the function and scale of bioprinted cardiac and vascular tissues, and eventually to build complete human hearts. “Having access to unrestricted funds like the Biohub’s is incredibly helpful because it allows us to test our riskiest stuff, get it to a point of seed funding, and then potentially graduate it to a more sponsored research grant,” he says. “To me that type of funding is worth at least double, because it’s so much more nimble.” Learn more.
life / science
STORIES FROM CZ BIOHUB
High Risk, High Reward: Shana Kelley on Building a New Biohub With experience in startups, nanotech, chemistry, and more, Shana Kelley is ready to lead a team at the new CZ Biohub in Chicago as it aims to unlock the mysteries of inflammation and the human immune system. Read about Kelley’s ambitious goals for CZ Biohub Chicago.
News & Events
Cracking the Puzzle of Lower Respiratory Tract Infection in Children
Lower respiratory tract infection (LTRI), which includes conditions such as pneumonia, is a leading cause of death in children worldwide. Now, a team of researchers at CZ Biohub San Francisco, UCSF, University of Colorado, University of Arkansas, and CZI Science have used machine learning and metagenomics to diagnose pediatric LRTI and identify its causes with very high accuracy, far exceeding current approaches. Read more.
June 23: Physician–Scientist Research Symposium
This Symposium aims to bring together physician–scientists from UCSF and Stanford University, with CZ Biohub SF as the convergence point, in order to build a research community of early-career physician–scientists and advocate for the continued engagement of physicians in scientific discovery. The symposium features talks by Biohub’s Physician–Scientist Fellows and a panel discussion of Stanford and UCSF faculty on recommendations to promote the physician–scientist workforce. Click to learn more and register.
Shana Kelley, president of CZ Biohub Chicago, was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Congratulations to Shana and all of the new members!
A team of scientists at CZ Biohub SF, led by Manuel Leonetti, were honored last month for an article on OpenCell, which won Select Science’s Scientists’ Choice Award for Life Sciences Editorial Article of the Year. Check out thearticle, and diveintoOpenCell.
An open-source FACS automation system for high-throughput cell biology
bioRxiv, Wiener, et al.
A research team at CZ Biohub SF found themselves in need of a tool to automate fluorescence cell sorting—so they built it. This open-source automation of fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) eliminates operator errors and can cut hands-on time by 93%, enabling truly high-throughput cell biology.
Validation of a murine proteome-wide phage display library for the identification of autoantibody specificities
bioRxiv, Rackaityte, et al.
A breakdown in immune tolerance to self-antigens leads to autoimmune diseases, which are frequently characterized by the presence of autoantibodies. Defining the specificity and origins of autoantibody responses is key for developing diagnostics and therapeutics for this family of diseases. New research from CZ Biohub SF indicates that a proteome-wide mouse library using phage display immunoprecipitation and sequencing (PhIP-seq) can offer a comprehensive view of autoreactive landscapes in models of these human diseases.
MultiSero: An Open-Source Multiplex-ELISA Platform for Measuring Antibody Responses to Infection
Pathogens, Byrum, et al.
Serology can provide valuable diagnostic and epidemiological data on antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination. A CZ Biohub team including Shalin Mehta, John Pak, UCSF’s Bryan Greenhouse, and Stanford’s Manu Prakash, as well as Vida Ahyong, Cristina M. Tato, Ivan E. Ivanov, Jenny Folkesson, and Eric Waltari, among other collaborators, built an open-source tool that opens the door to high-quality, high-throughput serosurveillance studies in low-resource settings.
We’re hiring! Check out our open positions in both Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network is a group of nonprofit research institutes that bring together physicians, scientists, and engineers with the goal of pursuing grand scientific challenges on a 10- to 15-year time horizon. These institutes partner with Chan Zuckerberg Science in its goal to understand the mysteries of the cell and how cells interact within systems. This collaboration will bring us closer to our mission to cure, prevent, or manage all disease by the end of the century. To learn more, visit www.czbiohub.org.
Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, 499 Illinois St., San Francisco, CA 94158
