About

Ian Burbulis, Ph.D. Investigator Email: iburbulismolsci.org Tel: 510-981-8752

Research Statement:

Designer molecules of defined structure hold great promise as chemical probes to investigate biological systems, new surface coatings and polymers, reagents for disease diagnosis and molecular therapeutics. We use protein, DNA, and carbohydrate building blocks to fabricate molecular tools to answer fundamental questions in basic research, biosensor fabrication, clinical and public health. We implement a mixture of organic, biochemical and recombinant techniques to accomplish these goals. Listed here are descriptions of two projects currently underway in my lab.

Investigating the chemistry of carbohydrates in ovarian and prostate cancers: translate quantitative knowledge of carbohydrate alterations into early diagnosis and cell therapy:

Early cancer detection saves lives.

The identity and abundance of glycans attached to specific circulating blood proteins are known to change before overt cancer symptoms but the value of using these changes for diagnosis is largely unavailable because state-of-the-art methods to decipher these residues requires expensive equipment, technically challenging protocols, and generally yields qualitative information. To address this unmet need, we are creating probes to quantify discrete glycans attached to proteins and cells so that informative signatures may be discovered and used to aide early ovarian and prostate cancer diagnosis. The tools we are crafting here will provide means to investigate the biochemical roles carbohydrates play in health and disease. Through the Innovative Molecular Analysis Technologies (IMAT) program, the National Cancer Institute (1R21CA140143-01) is enabling the discovery of carbohydrate biomarkers that comprise clinically relevant signatures to capture the diagnostic value inherent to changes in protein glycosylation.

Key words; Ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, glycans, glycosylation, early diagnosis.

New chemical probes to enhance comparative genomics of Francisella tularensis: translate immune response signatures into knowledge of vaccine efficacy.

We have created probes that enable extremely sensitive quantitative serology (Burbulis, Yamaguchi et al. 2007). Here, we are using these probes to investigate the immune response of mammals to Francisella tularensis, a facultative intracellular pathogen that causes an incapacitating, potentially fatal pneumonia known as tularemia. This agent is among the most infectious pathogens known. It infects >250 species and if inhaled via airborne route, <10 vegetative cells are sufficient to establish a lethal infection. We are helping to identify specific virulence factors for generating targeted immunity. This work will directly result in better vaccines for this class-A pathogen, faster assays for assessing F. tularensis exposure, and serve as an analytical platform to analyze other disease agents.

New methods to investigate multiple species of biomarkers simultaneously.

We are collaborating with scientists from VTT and the VTT/MSI center for bioengineering to create methods for enabling the quantitative analysis of nucleic acids and proteins simultaneously. We are applying these methods to investigate the specificity and selectivity prostate cancer biomarker signatures. We envision this technological approach to improve cancer diagnosis and the analysis of biological systems in general.

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