No. 21: GeneLab’s Liver Paper Published, Processed Data Studies, GeneLab at ASGSR, New Visualization and Analysis Platform

Newsletter No. 21: December 2019

Greetings from GeneLab!

New GeneLab Paper Shows Disruption of Lipid Metabolism in Mouse Liver

Spaceflight has several detrimental effects on the physiology of astronauts, many of which are recapitulated in rodent models. Mouse studies performed on the Space Shuttle showed dysregulation of lipid metabolism in liver. This dysregulation can potentially lead to increased chance of liver disease in astronauts due to the space environment. Read more…

New Studies Added to GeneLab Repository

GeneLab recently added three new studies to the GeneLab Data Repository.

Transcriptional analysis of kidneys from mice flown on the RR-7 mission

Transcriptional analysis of dorsal skin from mice flown on the RR-7 mission

Effects of Spaceflight on Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocyte Structure and Function

Interested in Differential Gene Expression results? GeneLab has added processed data to 11 GLDS studies. Click here for the full list: GeneLab Processed Studies.

GeneLab’s Strong Presence at ASGSR

GeneLab’s participation at the 35^th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Gravitation and Space Research (ASGSR), held November 20-23, 2019 in Denver, CO, received much attention. GeneLab began the week with a pre-conference Analysis Working Group (AWG) Workshop on November 19. Read summary below.

The 2nd Annual Analysis Working Group Workshop and Showcase

GeneLab hosted two meetings on Nov. 19, a day before ASGSR’s annual conference officially began. The morning began with a closed session for AWG members to provide current group statuses, discussion on current processing pipelines for various assays, and 12 roundtable topics where members spend 15 minutes at each table providing input and recommendations.

GeneLab’s afternoon session, the AWG Showcase, was open to all conference attendees. The showcase featured talks by members from each of the four AWG groups (plants, multi-omics, microbes, animals) demonstrating the various projects, tools, and papers in development. The showcase ended with a special presentation from invited speaker Stefania Giacomello, on Spatially resolved transcriptome profiling in human and spaceflight mouse hearts.

AWG members provided progress on the work and papers from each of the four groups: plants, multi-omics/systems biology, microbes, and animals.

Eliah Overbey Wins Publication Award

Eliah Overbey, a young scientist in the GeneLab Analysis Working Group, won the 6^th Annual ISS-National Lab Student Investigator Award for her publication, 
Mice exposed to combined chronic low-dose irradiation and modeled microgravity develop long-term neurological sequelae.

Talks, Posters and Demonstration

In addition to the AWG preconference meetings, the GeneLab team gave nine science talks and two investigator and undergraduate/graduate poster presentations throughout the week. GeneLab also demonstrated new components of the GeneLab Data Systems, the visualization portal and updated analysis platform. Attended by more than 60 members, Afshin Beheshti presented how users can query differential gene expression data, compare data through pair and volcano plots, and visualize the genes affecting pathways through the S-plot. For users looking to analyze data, Amanda Saravia-Butler demonstrated the functions, tools, and workflow for processing RNA-Seq data through the GeneLab analysis platform.

GeneLab’s Latest Software Release Delivers New Visualization Platform

On November 15, 2019, GeneLab delivered its latest software release of the only spaceflight-relevant omics database in the world, adding to its already large, annotated database, the ability to analyze omics data and visualize already processed data. GeneLab is forging the way to life science space data democratization, making the interpretation of complex omics easier and thus facilitating the GeneLab community to generate new hypotheses more quickly and accurately. Read more…

Upcoming Meeting

GeneLab will be represented at NASA’s Space Life Sciences exhibit booth at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, February 13-17, in Seattle, WA. Stop by and let’s talk processed omics data on GeneLab’s visualization platform.

Happy Holidays! See you in the New Year!

The GeneLab Team

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