BCRs (antibodies) and TCRs (T cell receptors) are the recognition molecules of our immune system; the molecules they bind are called antigens. BCRs and TCRs are similar in many ways, but their differences form the core of how self and non-self are recognized.
I always look forward to sharing the Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) database issue. This year's blog topic is immunology. The NAR archive lists 31 immunologic databases, but only seven or so are active, and others are not listed in the NAR archive. Read the blog learn more.
This year, I'm a little late with my post on the Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) database issue. While I was procrastinating, a pandemic broke out. So, unsurprisingly, this year's database topic is viruses. The NAR archive lists more than 32 databases related to viruses. Of these, 22 are still operational and five of the databases have information about SARS-CoV-2.
Lately I’ve been thinking about immunology, and not just because it is flu season, it is because Digital World Biology (DWB) is collaborating with Shoreline Community College to design a five-week bioinformatics course that will be component of their one year immuno-biotechnology certificate (1).
Containerization technologies like Docker are designed to solve challenges associated with installing and running complex software such as bioinformatics pipelines and web servers. Docker will change the world ... maybe. While clearly powerful and enabling, the magic of Docker can also be an overpromise. To understand why, you need to understand the “ The Law of Leaky Abstractions.”
Bioinformatics is full of unexpected adventures. Some are related to data discoveries, but many more are related to navigating the maize of software needed to implement a solution.
DNA sequencing-based immunoprofiling quantitatively measures AR diversity in samples by determining the sequences of V(D)J junctions. AR receptor diversity is vast due to a combinatorial rearrangement process that inserts a variable number of random DNA bases at each junction. In the sequencing process V(D)J junctions are amplified with V and J gene specific primers and, to be quantitative, differences in amplification rates that are due to primer sequences must be factored into each assay.
Immuno-bioinformatics is a fast growing subdiscipline of immuno-biotechnology. New technologies like immune-profiling and targeted cancer therapies are leading to job growth and demands for new skills and knowledge in biomanufacturing, quality systems, informatics, and cancer biology.
This October (9-11, 2019), I attended the 3rd NIBLSE conference entitled: "Integration of Bioinformatics into Life Science Education: Roadmap for the Future." It was held at " Hot Shops" in Omaha Nebraska, a space for artists to work, sell, and meet.
In early April 2019, the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB, Settle WA) hosted its 18th annual symposium. This year's theme focused on translational biology, which is the practice of commercializing research discovery. Over the two-day symposium, the audience was informed about the latest in the research and development of new ...
What's in a test? Or better yet what's in 55 SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 molecular diagnostic tests? Plenty. 55 FDA EUAs indicate that nine different test formats are used, ranging from RT-PCR, to digital PCR, to isothermal amplification, to LAMP with a CRISPR enzyme.
"Eew!" Is how high performance computing (HPC) admins react to Docker, according to Dr. Vanessa Saurus when she described the motivation for developing Singularity [1] at the Cyverse Container Camp. Like Docker, Singularity allows one to package programs and their dependencies in ways that they can be run as virtual ...
Immuno-biotechnology an important field of biotechnology. With the advent of advanced DNA sequencing, and other technologies, immuno-biotechnology has significantly increased the use of computing technologies to decipher the meaning of large datasets and predict interactions between immune receptors (antibodies / T-Cell receptors / MHC) and their targets. Progress toward developing an immuno-bioinformatics course with Shoreline Community College is summarized in the attached presentation.
The technological Singularity is the moment beyond which "technological progress will become incomprehensibly rapid and complicated [1].” Hmmm. That sounds like bioinformatics.
Surviving the Singularity requires reducing complexity. This was the topic of a recent three-day Cyverse Container Camp hosted at the University of Arizona, Tucson AZ. I attended the ...
It would be unfair to teach an advanced bioinformatics class without getting into the weeds of command line interfaces (CLIs), heading, tailing, greping, and wc-ing files, piping programs together, and running a bioinformatics program and working with its output. Hence, in the final component of the immuno-bioinformatics class that we [Digital World Biology] are developing for Shoreline Community College will use cloud computing in the CyVerse environment to run IgBLAST.
Immunoprofiling is the quantitative measurement of antigen receptors (ARs; antibodies or T-cell receptors) in a sample and is a hot area in biotechnology. Immunoprofiling is used to assess the diversity of antigen receptors (ARs: antibodies and T-Cell receptors) and how this diversity changes in response to allergens, infections, or vaccines. In cancer therapy, Immunoprofiling is used to develop biomarkers and understand how an individual’s immune cells fight tumors, and predict individuals' response to immunotherapy.
The numbers of SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 diagnostic tests are exploding. These tests detect either viral RNA or antibodies to virus particles. But, which is best? That, of course, depends on what question is being asked.
