News

Gladstone in the News September 1, 2022

CDC Authorizes New Omicron-Specific Booster Shots against COVID

San Francisco Chronicle—Senior Investigator Warner Greene, MD, PhD, says that it makes more sense to boost immunity with the newly approved bivalent vaccines targeting Omicron than with vaccines that aim at long-extinct variants of the coronavirus.

Gladstone Experts COVID-19 Center for HIV Cure Research Infectious Disease Greene Lab

Article August 30, 2022

Here’s What You Should Know about Monkeypox

Gladstone scientists address the basics—and dispel misconceptions—about MPXV

Gladstone Experts MPXV Infectious Disease

Gladstone in the News August 29, 2022

A Better, Faster, More Effective Way to Edit Genes

Alex Marson, MD, PhD, director of the Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology, comments on breakthrough technology developed in his lab that will greatly facilitate the large-scale engineering of immune cells for cell-based therapies.

Gladstone Experts Genomic Immunology Marson Lab CRISPR/Gene Editing

Gladstone in the News August 12, 2022

What If Cells Kept Receipts of Their Gene Expression?

Wired—Measuring which genes are on and which are off in a cell usually requires killing it, meaning any measurement is simply a snapshot in time. Seth Shipman explains how his lab has circumvented this problem by re-engineering parts of a bacterial immune system to create a record of molecular events within a cell.

Gladstone Experts Data Science and Biotechnology Shipman Lab CRISPR/Gene Editing

Gladstone in the News August 2, 2022

New DNA ‘Camcorders’ Can Record ‘Movies’ of a Cell’s Development Through Time

Singularity Hub—Genomics tools allow scientists to get a glimpse of what genes are turned on in a cell at one particular moment, but understanding how genes are turned on or off over time, and in what order, has been impossible. Gladstone Investigator Seth Shipman has developed a biological recorder that keeps track of these events, offering a window into how cells change over time.

Gladstone Experts Data Science and Biotechnology Shipman Lab CRISPR/Gene Editing

Gladstone in the News July 26, 2022

Why Federal Government Is Putting Second COVID Boosters ‟On Hold” for People under 50

ABC7 News—The federal government plans to roll out a new vaccine against the BA.5 Omicron variant now predominant in the US early this fall. Senior Investigator Warner Greene, MD, PhD, says that you might want to hold off for your next booster shot until you can get this new vaccine, which will offer better protection against currently circulating variants.

Gladstone Experts COVID-19 Center for HIV Cure Research Infectious Disease Greene Lab

Gladstone in the News July 25, 2022

Researchers Find SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies Less Effective against Omicron

The Daily Californian—Senior Investigator Melanie Ott, MD, PhD, and collaborator Abdullah Syed, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Senior Investigator Jennifer Doudna, explain how they discovered that antibodies against early versions of the SARS-CoV-2 virus do not protect well against the now widespread and highly contagious Omicron variant, and recommend masking to avoid new infections.

Gladstone Experts COVID-19 Data Science and Biotechnology Infectious Disease Doudna Lab Ott Lab

Gladstone in the News July 19, 2022

Finding HIV’s “Sweet Spot”

NIH Director’s Blog—Recent work from the team of Gladstone Associate Investigator Nadia Roan, PhD, and their colleagues at The Wistar Institute is featured in this week's NIH Director's Blog. The work uncovers intriguing evidence for the role of sugars at the surface of immune cells in HIV infection.

Gladstone Experts HIV/AIDS Infectious Disease Roan Lab

Gladstone in the News June 30, 2022

Omicron Subvariants BA.4, BA.5 Are Spreading ‟Like Wildfire”, Becoming Dominant Strains in US

ABC7 News—As Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants overtake previous coronavirus variants across the United States, Gladstone Associate Investigator Nadia Roan, PhD, explains that their success may owe both to their ability to escape our immune system and to their accelerated replication rate. She suggests that more effort should be made to block infection at the level of the airways, the virus's entry point into our body.

Gladstone Experts COVID-19 Roan Lab

Gladstone in the News June 22, 2022

Cancer Research Institute Names Newest Class of Lloyd J. Old STARs, Today’s Visionaries in Cancer Immunotherapy Research

Cancer Research Institute—The Cancer Research Institute recently announced its newest cohort of Scientists Taking Risks (STAR) funding for high risk/high reward research in tumor biology. Of the six recipients, three are core members of the Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology: Kole Roybal, Ansuman Satpathy, and Matthew Spitzer.

Awards Gladstone Experts Genomic Immunology

Gladstone in the News June 14, 2022

Why We’re Still Living With ‘Wily’ COVID a Year After California’s Reopening

San Francisco Chronicle—A year has passed since California dropped most public health restrictions related to COVID-19, but the pandemic isn’t over. Senior Investigator Warner Greene notes that the virus is still spreading effectively, and people can be infected repeatedly with different subvariants.

Gladstone Experts COVID-19 Infectious Disease Greene Lab

Gladstone in the News May 29, 2022

Fever, Body Aches, Loss of Smell: New COVID Study Charts Evolution of Symptoms

San Francisco Chronicle—A study in the Mission District of San Francisco tracked how COVID-19 symptoms have changed over the course of the pandemic. Gladstone virologist Nadia Roan explains that the Omicron variant infects the upper respiratory tract and triggers a localized immune response, which may in part explain why individuals infected during the Omicron wave were less likely to experience severe illness.

Gladstone Experts COVID-19 Infectious Disease Roan Lab

Gladstone in the News May 28, 2022

Covid Was Vanishing Last Memorial Day. Cases Are Five Times Higher Now.

Washington Post—Even as COVID restrictions are easing, case numbers are rising around the country. Melanie Ott, director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology, explains that recent research from her group shows that individuals infected with the Omicron variant have limited natural immunity, and may still be susceptible to infection with Omicron subvariants.

Gladstone Experts COVID-19 Infectious Disease Ott Lab

Gladstone in the News May 20, 2022

Scientists Explain Why Getting Infected With Omicron Doesn’t Protect You From Other COVID Variants

ABC News—Gladstone virologists investigated the effect of the Omicron variant on the immune response. Melanie Ott describes her team’s discovery that previous infection with Omicron does not result in strong immunity to other known SARS-CoV-2 variants. However, as Nadia Roan explains, individuals who were vaccinated before becoming infected with Omicron did have a broadly protective immune response, emphasizing the importance of the vaccines in saving lives.

Gladstone Experts COVID-19 Infectious Disease Doudna Lab Greene Lab Ott Lab Roan Lab

Gladstone in the News May 18, 2022

UCSF Awarded $67.5 Million to Develop New Antiviral Therapies

UCSF News—Nevan Krogan, PhD, a senior investigator at Gladstone and the director of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at UC San Francisco, leads a vast, international collaborative effort to find drugs against COVID-19 called the QBI Coronavirus Research Group (QCRG). The group recently received $67.5 million from the National Institutes of Health, the largest such award in UCSF's history, to pursue work on coronaviruses and other viruses with pandemic potential.

Gladstone Experts COVID-19 Data Science and Biotechnology Krogan Lab