Dr. Robert Schwartz is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and of the Department of Physiology, and Biophysics, and Systems Biology at Weill Cornell Medicine. He completed his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. His thesis work was on the derivation of stem cell derived hepatocytes and in vitro liver model systems. He completed his insternship and residency in Internal Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis/Barnes Jewish Hospital. His fellowship in Gastroenterology and Hepatology with a focus on hepatology was completed at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. He did a postdoc at MIT and his research continued to focus on the development of stem cell derived hepatocytes as a model system to study human liver disease and for clinical therapy. In his own lab at Weill Cornell Medical College he has continued to focus his work on the clinical translation and research applications of stem cell derived hepatocytes and primary human hepatocytes. In recognition of his work, he was an University of Minnesota Doctoral Dissertation Fellow, an AGA Research Scholar, a UEG Rising Scholar, a Bohmfalk Clinical Scholar, and an Irma Hirsch Trust Scholar. He has >50 peer-reviewed papers and scholarly works that have been featured in Nature, Cell, Nature Chemical Biology, Cell Stem Cell, Journal for Clinical Investigation, and Gastroenterology. He is an inventor on three patents.
Understanding the complex interplay between a pathogen and the host response is important to developing effective vaccines and therapeutics. The nCounter® Analysis System and GeoMx® Digital Spatial Profiler (DSP) from NanoString enable researchers to rapidly perform high-plex experiments in key areas of biology that answer questions related to the effect of pathogen infection at the molecular, cellular, tissue, and individual level. The nCounter has been utilized in hundreds of publications on pathogens and the associated host response, including in several recent studies on COVID-19.
NanoString has developed an 1,800+ RNA panel for GeoMx DSP to facilitate spatial gene expression profiling of the SARs-CoV-2 virus and host response and is currently developing a five-antibody custom protein module for spatial protein analysis. These assays will include SARs-CoV-2 viral markers and the ACE2 receptor, among other receptors, proteases, cell markers, and viral response markers.
In this webinar, Joseph Beechem, Ph.D., NanoString Chief Scientific Officer & Senior Vice President, Research and Development, will open by summarizing recent insights into how the host responds to SARs-CoV-2 and Christopher E. Mason, Ph.D., Associate Professor Weill Cornell Medicine, will conclude by discussing a recent investigation into spatial gene expression differences seen in COVID-19 lung tissue vs. non-COVID-19 lung tissue and healthy controls.
Learning Objectives:
1. Learn how bulk gene expression assays and spatial biology can be used to study COVID-19
2. Understand how the host immune system responds to SARs-CoV-2 infection
3. Learn about gene expression changes seen in COVID-19 lung samples vs. healthy controls