March 2012

Pathology & Laboratory Medicine News Items

 

Announcements:

  • The Nikolajczyk Lab’s work, “B Lymphocytes are Master Regulators of a Pro-inflammatory T Cell Balance in Obesity and Glucose Intolerance” was done in collaboration with the Denis Lab and has been selected for:
    • An oral presentation at the American Association of Immunologists Annual Meeting in Boston inMay. Anna Belkina will be presenting.
    • An oral presentation at the American Diabetes Association Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in June. Dr.Barbara Nikolajczyk will be presenting.
  • Dr. Daniel Remick presented the annual John F. Sander and Nancy K. Dunkel Lecture at Michigan State University, “The Inflammatory Response in Sepsis” on March 1st
  • MSU Students Listening to Dr. Remick’s Lecture
    MSU Students Listening to Dr. Remick’s Lecture

     

  • The Faculty Practice Plan has been re-organized with a new board of directors. Dr. Remick was elected to a 2year term to serve on the Board of Directors. He was also elected to the finance committee of the Faculty Practice Plan and was appointed to the CARTS group to negotiate with Boston Medical Center for purchasedphysician services. CARTS is Clinical Administrative Research Teaching and Strategic components of the physician services provided to BMC
  • Connors Lab members, Michael Greene, PhD candidate, Clarissa Koch, PhD candidate, and Dr. Lawreen Connors will be attending and presenting at the XIIIth International Symposium on Amyloidosis “From misfolded proteins to well-designed treatment” from May 6-10, 2012 at University Medical Center in Groningen, The Netherlands.
  • Clarissa Koch, PhD candidate will be presenting her poster, “Cardiotoxicity of pre-fibrillar transthyretin oligomers and attenuation by doxycycline” at the 13th International Symposium on Amyloidosis conference in Groningen in May 2012
  • Also Dr. Connors is so proud to tell you that Michael and Clarissa been granted Travel Awards from The Amyloidosis Foundation. Bravo Mike & Clarissa!
  • Dr. Lawreen Connors will be giving an oral presentation entitled “Senile Systemic Amyloidosis: a large cohort study detailing clinical features, laboratory results and survival” at the symposium in Plenary Session 8: Biology, clinics and prognosis in ATTR amyloidosis. This research was done in collaboration with the Denis Lab
  • Dr. Daniel Remick chaired an NIH special emphasis panel to review a Trauma Center grant. He also served on a total of 5 NIH study sections between December 2011 and March, 2012
  • Dr. Carmen Sarita-Reyes was a Program Chair for the Program Chairs Workshops presented at the Society for Pediatric Pathology 2012, Annual Meeting Program Chairs Spring Meeting in Vancouver, BC, Canada March 17-18, 2012
  • Congratulations are in Order!!!
    • Srimathi Srinivasan, PhD, successfully defended her thesis “MOLECULAR REGULATION OF VEGFR-2 EXPRESSION AND ACTIVATION IN ENDOTHELIAL CELLS” on Thursday, March 22nd
    • Edward Hartsough, PhD, successfully defended his thesis “Molecular Regulation of VEGFR-2 Function and Expression through Post-Translational Modifications” on Monday, March 26th
    • Kristina Perry, PhD, successfully defended her thesis “COPY NUMBER ABERRATIONS AND INTEGRATION OF GENOMIC ARRAY DATA IN PREINVASIVE BREAST CANCER” on Monday, March 26th
  • Dr. Carmen Sarita-Reyes was a panel member at The Office of Diversity of Multicultural Affairs, Latino at BUMC – A Conversation. The goal of this activity was to have a candid dialogue on the challenges and successes of Latinos at BUMC. The anticipation was that this exchange would greatly benefit students, residents, and faculty following the footsteps of our distinguished panelists. Individuals from all ethnicities and cultures were strongly encouraged to attend. The panel discussion was moderated by Assistant Dean Dr. Samantha Kaplan. Panelists included: Carlos Kase, MD, Professor and Chair of Neurology; Jane Mendez, MD, Associate Professor of Surgery; Gerardo Rodriguez, MD, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Carmen D. Sarita-Reyes, MD, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
  • Nancy S. Miller, MD has been invited to be a featured speaker at the “Culture-Independent Diagnostics Forum: Charting a Path for Public Health” to be held at the CDC in Atlanta, April 2012. The forum is being organized by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), to address potentially serious emerging issues in the area of infectious disease surveillance caused by the use of culture independent methods in clinical diagnostic laboratories

 

Publications: PUBLISHED

  • BUSM authors (Ivana Delalle, MD, PhD and Patricia Kao, PhD candidate, Delalle Lab) contributed in the human brains analysis in this study that involved both mouse model and human tissue: For the first time in human post-mortem brain samples of patients at different stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), histone deacetylase (HDAC) 2 levels are shown to be elevated, suggesting that a epigenetic blockade of cognitive functions documented in mouse models of AD might be at play in the human brains inflicted by AD. This increase of HDAC2 leads to reduced histone acetylation of genes important for learning and memory, which show a concomitant decrease in expression resulting in impaired cognitive functioning. Link

 

Publications: ACCEPTED

  • Nader Rahimi, Kobra Rezazadeh, John E. Mahoney, Edward Hartsough, Rosana D Meyer. Identification of IGPR-1 as a novel adhesion molecule involved in angiogenesis. Molecular Biology of the Cell, 2012
  • Jin L, Roehrl MHA, Xiao L, He X, Li H, Ge L, Shi B. Crystallization and preliminary crystallographic study of a trypsin-resistant catalytic domain of human calcineurin. Acta Crystallographica F, 2012
  • Jonathan S. Kingsbury, Thomas M. Laue, Susan F. Chase, and Lawreen H. Connors. Detection of high molecular weight amyloid serum protein complexes using Biological On-Line Tracer Sedimentation (BOLTS) Analytical Biochemistry