News

Jacob Cavon Joins the Lab

Jacob Cavon, PhD student in the Molecular Engineering and Sciences program at the University of Washington, recently jointed the lab. Jacob graduated from Montana State University, Bozeman with a BS in Cell Biology and Neuroscience. During his undergraduate career and post-graduation he characterized the function of an S. pyogenes virulence factor protein and contributed to a strep throat infection mouse model in Dr. Ben Lei’s lab. Before starting graduate school,…

ISB Building at dusk

2023 Year in Review

Throughout 2023, ISB research has been published in impactful peer-reviewed journals and our scientists have been featured in major media outlets and popular podcasts. In this 2023 Year in Review, we showcase some of our most important and interesting highlights of the year.

‘1 in 1,000:’ Dr. Sean Gibbons Named Highly Cited Researcher for 2023

ISB Associate Professor Dr. Sean Gibbons was named a Highly Cited Researcher for 2023. It is the second consecutive year Gibbons has earned the distinction. The Highly Cited Research list is generated annually by Clarivate, which says: “Of the world’s population of scientists and social scientists, Highly Cited Researchers are 1 in 1,000.”

2023 ISB Virtual Microbiome Series

2023 ISB Virtual Microbiome Series Registration Now Open!

On October 11-13, 2023, ISB will host a virtual course and symposium on how the ecology of our guts protects us from pathogens. Both events are virtual and free. The intended audience for these events are graduate students, postdocs, principal investigators, industry scientists, educators, clinicians, or any other variety of microbiome-curious person from across the globe.

Lab awarded a Global Grant for Gut Health to study healthy aging

Revealing the unique signatures of healthy guts as we age The Gibbons lab at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, US, and collaborators will use their Global Grant for Gut Health to explore the unique gut microbial compositional signatures, gut microbial functional gene signatures, and associated blood metabolites in healthy elderly people.

Alyssa Easton Joins the Lab

Alyssa Easton recently joined the lab as a PhD student from the Molecular Engineering Program at the University of Washington. Alyssa is originally from Indiana, where she completed her BS in biological engineering at Purdue University. During her time at Purdue, Alyssa worked on gene dysregulation in aging photoreceptors with Dr. Hana Hall. She also interned at the SIBYLS Beamline at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to validate AI-predicted protein structures…

Beyond the Scale: How Multiomics and Biological BMI Can Help Achieve Optimal Health

ISB researchers have constructed a biological BMI that provides a more accurate representation of metabolic health and is more varied, informative and actionable than the long-used classical BMI. ISB Senior Research Scientist Dr. Noa Rappaport discussed biological BMI in a Research Roundtable presentation. 

Building a Better BMI

ISB researchers have constructed biological body mass index (BMI) measures that offer a more accurate representation of metabolic health and are more varied, informative and actionable than the traditional, long-used BMI equation. The work was published in the journal Nature Medicine. 

Dr. Sean Gibbons Promoted to Associate Professor

Dr. Sean Gibbons – an expert in microbial ecology and evolution, computational systems biology, the human gut microbiome and its impacts on health, and head of ISB’s Gibbons Lab – has been promoted to Associate Professor. “Sean’s achievements since joining ISB in 2018 as a Washington Research Foundation Distinguished Investigator have been spectacular,” ISB President Dr. Jim Heath said. “With his focus on the microbiome, he brought a whole new…

The Gut Microbiome’s Supersized Role In Shaping Our Metabolome

ISB researchers have shown which blood metabolites are associated with the gut microbiome, genetics, or the interplay between both. Their findings, published in the journal Nature Metabolism, have promising implications for guiding targeted therapies designed to alter the composition of the blood metabolome to improve human health.

Seattle Science Foundation and ISB

ISB and Seattle Science Foundation Partner to Create Video Series

What are multi-omics? Why does our microbiome matter? What’s the difference between genetics and genomics? What is a digital twin? ISB and Seattle Science Foundation have partnered to create videos answering questions like these and more, showcasing ISB scientists and their work.

2022 ISB Virtual Microbiome Series

2022 ISB Virtual Microbiome Series Announced

Our multi-day microbiome-themed virtual course and symposium is back for the third year! ISB is hosting a two-day course on October 12 & 13, 2022, followed by a symposium on October 14, 2022 on global perspectives in microbiome research. Both events are virtual and free. The intended audience for these events are graduate students, postdocs, principal investigators, industry scientists, educators, clinicians, or any other variety of microbiome-curious people from across the globe.

Kat Ramos Sarmiento Joins the Lab

Kat Ramos Sarmiento joins the lab as a Research Associate. Kat recently graduated with a B.S. in Microbiology from UCSD. She began her laboratory career as a laboratory assistant at Garage Brew Co., where she managed yeast strains, tracked fermentation, and monitored checkpoints in the brewing process. Later, during her time at UCSD, she was a Research Assistant in the Dutton Lab, where she studied the microbial communities that reside…

NIH Logo

Gibbons Lab Awarded NIH R01 to Explore Precision Nutrition

The ecological structure of the human gut microbiome helps determine nutritional and phenotypic responses to diet. However, a clear mapping does not yet exist between diet, gut microbial ecology, gut microbial community metabolism, and human metabolic phenotypes. This proposal, entitled “CyberGut: towards personalized human-microbiome metabolic modeling for precision health and nutrition“, provides five years of funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the design and testing of an…

Bugs vs. Drugs: How Our Microbiomes Can Explain Our Response to Statins

ISB Assistant Professor Dr. Sean Gibbons talked about the science behind statins in our most recent Research Roundtable virtual presentation. His talk was titled “Bugs vs. Drugs: How Our Unique Gut Microbiomes Shape Our Personalized Responses to Statins.”

Drs. Serdar Turkarslan and Christian Diener

ISB Honors Researchers Who Give Back to STEM Education

This year, two deserving scientists were bestowed recognition for giving back to STEM education. Dr. Serdar Turkarslan is the recipient of the JoAnn Chrisman Award for Distinguished Service to STEM Education, and Dr. Christian Diener was awarded the Dr. Christine Schaeffer Award for Exemplary Service to STEM Education. 

Sean Gibbons

Interview with Sean in Nature Computational Biology

Dr. Sean Gibbons, assistant professor at the Institute for Systems Biology and a Washington Research Foundation Distinguished Investigator, discusses with Nature Computational Science how he uses computational science to gain insights into the gut microbiome and to address the major challenges of this field, as well as his advice to young LGBTQIA+ scientists.

Gut Microbiome Composition Predictive of Patient Response to Statins

New ISB research shows that different patient responses to statins can be explained by the variation in the human microbiome. The findings were published in the journal Med, and suggest that microbiome monitoring could be used to help optimize personalized statin treatments.