Lab is sponsor
The nature of anthrax disease and how small-molecule drugs might be developed to prevent it is the focus of a talk March 17 in Santa Fe.
Ekaterina Nestorovich, a staff scientist with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, will present "Defending Against Anthrax: Cell Membrane Channels and Drug Design" at 7 p.m. at the Santa Fe Complex, 624 Agua Fria Street, in the Santa Fe Railyard.
Her talk is the fifth in a new series of "q-bio" talks sponsored by the Laboratory’s Center for Nonlinear Studies (T-CNLS) focused on the emerging scientific field of quantitative biology.
Anthrax disease is one of the oldest diseases known to humankind. This acute infectious disease is caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis.
Anthrax infections are difficult to treat because flu-like symptoms appear only after the bacteria have multiplied inside the human host and started to produce a toxin that eventually causes death, Nestorovich said. If antibiotics are applied at this stage, the infection can still be lethal because of the accumulation of the toxins.
An effective therapeutic approach would include simultaneous blocking of bacterial growth by antibiotics and neutralization of anthrax toxins with antitoxins, she said. A key step in the origin and development of anthrax is the secretion of proteins that form channels or openings on the surface of a host target cell, Nestorovich said. “These channels allow toxins to enter the host cell, which contributes to the symptoms of B. anthracis infection,” she said.
According to Nestorovich, ongoing studies of channel structure and function have yielded promising new approaches to therapy and prevention of anthrax and could soon lead to the development of small-molecule drugs that block the action of anthrax toxins.
Nestorovich will be introduced by William Hlavacek of Theoretical Biology and Biophysics (T-6).
The lectures are intended to feature accessible introductions to various aspects of quantitative biology and provide in-depth discussions of specific problems.
All lectures are free and open to the public. For more information about the lecture series, go to the q-bio public lecture series Web page.
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