CHE 598 Seminar: Biological Systems Engineering: Enabling Threat Agnostic Biodefense

About the event

SPEAKER: Dr. Becky Hess, Senior Biomedical Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

BIOGRAPHY:

Becky Hess is a senior biomedical scientist with over 15 years of experience engineering microbial and eukaryotic systems using advanced engineering tools such as CRISPR/Cas to serve as reporters for the human host response. Her area of focus at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is host response to disease caused by cancer, pathogens, or environmental insults (such as chemicals). Since joining PNNL, she has developed high throughput multi-omics analyses of host tissues in response to pathogens, cancer therapeutics, and nanoparticles which includes transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics, and phospho-proteomics. Through these efforts, she has been able to elucidate critical molecular pathways and individual nodes  within pathways that are responsible for the different phenotypes observed in disease states. Using these approaches, she has   developed a high throughput screening assay for assessing pathogenic vs. nonpathogenic bacteria from soils, assessed oxidative stress in host cells from nanoparticle exposure, and quantified the phosphorylation dynamics in the context of the EGFR-MAPK pathway in cancer cells.

ABSTRACT:

Threat agnostic detection strategies and prediction of human health outcomes following threat exposures are next to none. Countermeasure development based on host signaling networks are needed to protect the warfighter from novel, emerging, and engineered threats. A rapid response to biological threats requires an understanding of pathogenicity, activity, and virulence to inform appropriate countermeasure selection. By using biological systems engineering strategies, we can develop high throughput screening assays for pathogens and toxins, understand their modes of action, and inform appropriate countermeasure selection and development. In this seminar, I will discuss strategies used to develop a phenotyping pipeline for bacterial pathogens from soils, methods for developing a cell free biosensor for pathogen and toxin activity, and methods for interrogating host cell networks to identify countermeasure targets following pathogen exposure.