Curbing the Threat of Infectious Disease
The threat of infectious disease has become ever more apparent with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The variability in COVID-19 disease severity has broadened the focus of infectious disease research from the traditional pathogen to the dynamic and complex relationship between the pathogen and host. Borrowing lessons from immuno-oncology, researchers are learning to treat the host as well as the pathogen, modulating the immune system to fine tune the host response and avoid systemic hyperinflammation and organ damage.
Challenges
We understand the critical challenges you face in your research when evaluating how pathogens infect, how the host responds to infection, and how to develop effective vaccines and treatments. Infected samples are complex and usually dominated by host cells, making pathogen detection a challenge. Disease severity and morbidity can be confounded by underlying conditions and/or an abnormal immune response. Efficient and robust techniques are needed to track transcriptional and proteomic changes from a variety of sample types. Spatial profiling of biomarkers for organ damage and immune infiltration within tissue can yield crucial insights when paired with more traditional gene expression analysis of disease progression, treatment response, and immunity.
Featured Solutions
NanoString offers an infectious disease toolbox of high-plex gene expression panels and proteomic assays across both the nCounter® and GeoMx® Digital Spatial Profiling (DSP) platforms that can be used with multiple sample types, including Formalin-Fixed, Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) tissue sections, and enables research on pathogenesis and the host response in both humans and model organisms. Choose an off-the-shelf nCounter Gene Expression Panel or customize it with a Panel Plus spike-in to add pathogen probes. Spatially profile tissue samples with the host immune content in the GeoMx DSP RNA and Protein assays and add custom markers for pathogen(s) and host marker(s) of interest.
Publications
SARS-CoV-2 infection induces a long-lived pro-inflammatory transcriptional profile
Background: The immune response to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in COVID-19 patients has been extensively investigated. However, much less is known about the long-term effects of infection in patients and how it could affect the immune system and its capacity to respond to future perturbations.
Eicosapentaenoic acid influences the pathogenesis of Candidaalbicans in Caenorhabditiselegans via inhibition of hyphal formation and stimulation of the host immune response
The intake of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, including eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), is associated with health benefits due to its anti-inflammatory properties. This fatty acid also exhibits antifungal properties in vitro.
Safety and Tolerability of Bacteriophage Therapy in Severe Staphylococcus aureus Infection
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