Postdoc Journal

Periodontal disease is characterized by chronic inflammation of the gingiva (gum tissues) caused by infection with anaerobic bacteria. In older adults, progression of disease can lead to tooth loss, inadequate nutritional intake, and a higher risk of other chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus. As the proportion of older adults continues to grow over time and rates of tooth loss decline, prevalence and severity of periodontal disease will increase. While much is known about risk factors for disease onset, gaps remain in our understanding of factors that could influence disease progression...

Western scientists have steadily been gaining interest in phage therapy since the mid-1980's due to the rising problem of antibiotic resistance. Its introduction in the 20(th) century by Felix d'Herelle marked the beginning for the uses of bacteriophages as antibacterial agents. However, a lack in understanding phage biology, as well as the arrival of broad-spectrum antibiotics deprioritized using phage therapy to treat bacterial infections in the West. With the advent of molecular biology, we are now better able to understand the predator-prey relationships with which phage co-evolve with their hosts as well as the specificity of phage-host interactions which could lend itself into personalized treatments for infection...

Estrogens have been shown to protect against various diseases and disastrous metabolic consequences of poor diets. Although a large body of research demonstrates estrogen's ability to control food intake, adipogenesis, and oxidative stress, research regarding the effects of estrogens on hepatic lipogenesis, steatosis, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is only now accumulating. Estrogen deficiency in both human and rodent models directly results in the upregulation of hepatic lipogenic signaling - in both serum and hepatic triglyceride content - which leads to the development of fatty liver...

A glomerulus is the network of capillaries that resides in the Bowman's capsule that functions as a filtration unit of kidney. The glomerular function ensures that essential plasma proteins are retained in blood and the filtrate is passed on as urine. The glomerular filtration assembly is composed of three main cellular barriers that are critical for the ultrafiltration process, the fenestrated endothelium, glomerular basement membrane and highly specialized podocytes. The podocytes along with their specialized junctions "slit diaphragm" form the basic backbone of this filtration assembly...

Macroautophagy (autophagy) is a conserved cellular pathway that regulates the degradation of long-lived proteins, protein aggregates, and cellular organelles. Autophagy is essential for maintaining neuronal homeostasis; however, neuronal autophagic efficiency decreases with age. Therefore, aging is one of the greatest risk factors for development of Alzheimer's disease (AD), a slowly progressing form of neurodegeneration that develops over the course of 10-20 years prior to the onset of overt clinical symptoms...

Complex gene regulatory networks, not individual genes, control cellular function. Genes and gene products act together to determine cellular phenotypes. Estimation of these networks is necessary to understand cellular mechanisms, detect differences in gene regulation between cell types, and predict cellular response to interventions. A plethora of algorithms have been developed to infer network structure from experimental data. Here we provide a general introduction to the estimation of gene regulatory networks and the classes of proposed algorithms...