Congratulations to Prof Kholodenko and Dr Rukhlenko who have used an innovative approach to developing mechanistic immune therapies.
SBI researchers, Profs. Boris Kholodenko, Walter Kolch and Dr. Oleksii Rukhlenko developed a novel approach, termed cSTAR (cell State Transition Assessment and Regulation) and published in Nature in September last year.
cSTAR uses diverse omics data to map cell states, model transitions between them, and purposefully control cell state transitions and cell fate decisions by therapeutic drugs. Now, in collaboration with the USA colleagues from Boston University and 
Altius Institute, Prof. Kholodenko and Dr. Rukhlenko applied cSTAR to pinpoint small molecule therapeutics that improve the control of M. tuberculosis infection by immune system. 
The ability to identify distinct immune cell states and direct their transitions toward phenotypes associated with resistance to diseases addresses the unmet need for developing mechanistic immune therapies.
Using transcriptomics data and the unique cSTAR approach, the researchers distinguished TB-susceptible and TB-resistant immune response patterns in mice and identified compounds that enhance the resistance of the TB-susceptible mice to virulent M. tuberculosis, converting susceptible to resistant states. The article describing this work is published in Science Advances.
Prof. Kholodenko highlights the potential impact of this research, stating ''Our novel approach delivers new targets and potential therapeutics that help immune system to cope with TB infection as host directed therapies''.
The below figure represents resistant (latent TB) and susceptible (acute TB) states and drug combination, which switches susceptible phenotype to the resistant one.
