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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Identification Of Candidate Microbial Biomarkers Of Disease And Design Of Engineered Microbial Therapeutics For The Gut Microbiome, Aura Lucia Ferreiro
Identification Of Candidate Microbial Biomarkers Of Disease And Design Of Engineered Microbial Therapeutics For The Gut Microbiome, Aura Lucia Ferreiro
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
The human gut microbiome is a compositionally and functionally diverse community of microorganisms that profoundly influences the health of the host. Deep characterization of gut microbiomes via high-throughput sequencing has identified associations between the gut microbiome and disease states, and spurred development of engineered microbial therapeutics. Successful translation of these research efforts to the clinic will involve i) consideration of how engineered microbes behave and adapt in the gut, towards the implementation of biosafety mechanisms, and ii) identification and validation of microbial biomarkers of disease. This dissertation describes both investigative (Chapter 2) and engineering (Chapters 3 and 4) approaches to …
Mapping Transcription Factor Networks And Elucidating Their Biological Determinants, Yiming Kang
Mapping Transcription Factor Networks And Elucidating Their Biological Determinants, Yiming Kang
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
A central goal in systems biology is to accurately map the transcription factor (TF) network of a cell. Such a network map is a key component for many downstream applications, from developmental biology to transcriptome engineering, and from disease modeling to drug discovery. Building a reliable network map requires a wide range of data sources including TF binding locations and gene expression data after direct TF perturbations. However, we are facing two roadblocks. First, rich resources are available only for a few well-studied systems and cannot be easily replicated for new organisms or cell types. Second, when TF binding and …
Differentiating Human Embryonic Stem Cells In Micropatterns To Study Cell Fate Specification And Morphogenetic Events During Gastrulation, Kyaw Thu Minn
McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations
During mammalian embryogenesis, the first major lineage segregation occurs when embryonic epiblast, and extraembryonic trophectoderm and hypoblast arise in the blastocyst. In the next fundamental and conserved phase of animal embryogenesis known as gastrulation, extraembryonic cells provide signals to epiblast to instruct embryonic patterning, and epiblast gives rise to germ layers ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm, that will establish all embryonic tissues. Proper specification and morphogenesis of germ layers during gastrulation is vital for correct embryonic development. Due to ethical and legal restrictions limiting human embryo studies, human gastrulation is poorly understood. Our knowledge of human gastrulation has largely been derived …