• Bryan Belikoff MD/PhD Candidate, Remick Lab, who has just started as a pre-doc on the hematology training grant, has just won a travel award to a national meeting. The committee can feel good about selecting a great applicant who has already paid off dividends.
• Dr. Carmen Sarita-Reyes has just been appointed member of the Education Committee of the Society of Pediatric Pathology beginning March 2010 for a three year period.
• Dr. Michael Roehrl received a 1-year Junior Investigator Institutional Research Grant from the American Cancer Society. The title of the grant is “Tissue Proteomic Discovery of Biomarkers of Colorectal Adenocarcinoma”.
• Dr. Ivana Delalle has been invited to lecture on March 30.  She will be guest of Professor Charles Duyckaerts at Hospital La Salpetriere, Paris, France.
• Dr. Lija Joseph has been appointed as an academy advisor at the BU school of medicine. She is also coordinating a session at the APC national meeting at seattle this july. “Diagnostic Rotation:  Time for a new requirement”
• Madhu Jagannathan PhD candidate been accepted to do an oral presentation at the 97th Annual Meeting of The American Association of Immunologists, May 7th-11th in Baltimore, MD.

Publications – Accepted

• Michael Greene Phd Candidate abstract titled: “Histopathologic and Serologic Evidence for a Role of the Molecular Chaperone Clusterin in Amyloidotic Cardiomyopathy.” has been accepted for presentation at the XIIth International Symposium on Amyloidosis April 18th-21st in Rome, Italy. In addition he has been awarded The Chip Miller Memorial Junior Research Travel Award by the Amyloidosis Foundation.
• Dr. Remick has a Paper accepted in the journal SHOCK.  “UNTREATED TYPE 1 DIABETES INCREASES SEPSIS-INDUCED MORTALITY WITHOUT INDUCING A PRE-LETHAL CYTOKINE RESPONSE”
  • Marcin F. Osuchowski,*† Florin L. Craciun,* Elizabeth Schuller,* Corneliu Sima ,‡ Robert Gyurko,‡ and Daniel G. Remick* Departments of *Pathology and ‡Laboratory Medicine and Periodontology and Oral Biology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and †Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Experimental and Clinical Traumatology, Vienna, Austria
• Sun-Young Oh PhD from the  Kurosawa Lab had a publication accepted to the Journal of Neurochemistry this month. J Neurochem. 2010 Jan 20 [Epub ahead of print] “Cell-type Dependent Modulation of Notch Signaling by Amyloid Precursor Protein. Oh SY, Chen CD, Abraham CR.”
• Quadfecta – 4 submitted Abstracts 4 Oral Presentations at the Environmental Biology Conference.
  • A trifecta refers to selecting three winners in a row.  So while quadfecta is not a word, it accurately describes the outcome of the abstracts submitted to the 2010 Experimental Biology Meeting in Anaheim this April. Four Abstracts were submitted to the meeting from the Remick Lab and all four were selected for Oral Presentations. Here are the details:
    • “Oral Tolerance Reduces Pulmonary Inflammation in a Cockroach Antigen Murine Model of Allergic Asthma.”
      Louis Vaickus, Jacqueline Bouchard, Jiyoun Kim, Sudha Natarajan, Daniel G. Remick
    • “Binge drinking exacerbates asthmatic-like pulmonary inflammation in cockroach-allergen (CRA) induced allergic mice”
      Jacqueline Bouchard, Jiyoun Kim, Louis Vaickus, Daniel Remick
    • “Adenosine A2B Receptor Expression by Myeloid Cells Mediates Airway Inflammation in Asthma”
      Bryan Belikoff, Louis Vaickus, Michail Sitkovsky, and Daniel Remick
    • “Antibodies to TNF-α Soluble Receptors Exacerbate Airway Inflammation in a Mouse Model of Asthma”
      Jiyoun Kim, Louis Vaickus, Jacqueline Bouchard, Elizabeth Schuller, Daniel Remick

Publications – Published

• A manuscript by Kazem Azadzoi, M.D. et al entitled “Oxidative Stress and Neurodegeneration in Penile Ischemia” has been published in the March issue of the British Journal of Urology 105: 404-410, 2010.

• Audrey Quinn, Assistant Supervisor in the Microbiology Clinical Laboratory received her RN degree.  We all fill a little safer working when she is around….
• New initiative in bringing pathology to the third and fourth year medical students.    The education team in the department  is planning a creative curricular program integrating pathology in the radiology rotation for BUSM 3 students.   Specific lab exercises are being developed to simulate actual clinical case workup scenario one afternoon a month.   Please let Drs. Joseph (lija.joseph@bmc.org) or O’Hara (carl.ohara@bmc.org)  know if you are interested in participating in the planning and development of this new project.   We plan to launch it in fall of 2010.
• Fiona Chiem, a BU senior working with Dr. John Kim in the Remick Lab has won the “Student Research Award from the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program” (UROP) at Boston University.
• Liz Schuller, MA has been chosen to be the Research Internship Coordinator for the BU Summer Term Program.  This program places highly qualified high school seniors in laboratories for a six week period during the summer to conduct research in various fields.  Liz will be in charge of admission and lab placement.

Publications

• Weber HC. “Editorial overview: gastrointestinal regulatory peptides.”  Current Opinion  Endocrinology Diabetes Obes. 2010 Feb;17(1):31-2. PubMed PMID: 19996968.
• Flicker MS, Weber HC. “Endoscopic hemostasis in a case of bleeding from Zenker’s diverticulum.”  Gastrointest Endosc. 2009 Nov 16. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 19922922.
• Majumdar ID, Weber HC. ” Gastrointestinal regulatory peptides and their effects on fat tissue.” Current Opinion Endocrinology Diabetes Obes. 2010 Feb;17(1):51-6.  PubMed PMID: 19855273.
• Lazar HL, Joseph L, San Mateo C, Frame J, Cabral HJ, McDonnell M, Chipkin S. “Expression of Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase in Conduits Used in Patients with Diabetes Mellitus Undergoing Coronary Revascularization.” J Card Surg 2010; 25:120-126
• Pornpen Srisawasdi, PhD, Somlak Vanavanan, MSc, Charaslak Charoenpanichkit, MD, and Martin H. Kroll, MD “The Effect of Renal Dysfunction on BNP, NT-proBNP, and Their Ratio. ” American Journal of Clinical Pathology 2010; 133:14-23
• Martin H. Kroll, MD “Multiple Patient Samples of an Analyte Improve Detectionof Changes in Clinical Status” Archive of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. 2010;134:81–89
• Papageorgis, P., A.W. Lambert, S. Ozturk, F. Gao, H. Pan,  U. Manne, Y.O. Alekseyev, A. Thiagalingam, H. Abdolmaleky, M. Lenburg, and S. Thiagalingam. 2010.  Smad signaling is required for maintenance of epigenetic gene silencing during breast cancer progression. Cancer Res. 70(3): 968-978.
• Quiroz R, Joseph L, Sam F :” Serial Troponin-I Measurement as a Diagnostic and Therapeutic Tool in Chronic Myocarditis  submitted to the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.”   Submitted 1/19/10
• A manuscript by Kazem Azadzoi, M.D. et al entitled “Oxidative Modification of Mitochondrial Integrity and Nerve Fiber Density in the Ischemic Overactive Bladder” has been published in the January issue of the Journal of Urology 183 (1):362-369, 2010.

Announcements:

• The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine of Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center is pleased to continue its strong record of accepted abstracts at the annual meeting of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology. The 2010 meeting will be held March 20 to 26, 2010 in Washington DC. Daniel Remick, M.D., has been asked to serve on the abstract review panel for the annual meeting. Here is the list of accepted publications:

• Asthma Research from the Remick Lab is highlighted in Boston University’s 2009 Annual Report,   The information is listed as #18.
• Michael Roehrl, MD, PhD received a Travel Award for Mass Spectrometry: Applications to the Clinical Laboratory 2010 to the MSACL 2010 Meeting in March 2010
• Aditi Gurkar, PhD successfully defended her thesis  “ATM/ATR-mediated Phosphorylation of Rad18 is Required for Efficient S-phase Progression and Replication Fork Stability”on December 1, 2009

Presentations:

• Michael Roehrl, MD, PhD is has been invited to give a Platform Presentation (“Glycoproteomics of Lung Cancer”), at the USCAP 2010 Meeting

Publications-PUBLISHED:

• Robert Pistey, MD has a paper recently published in Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology 118 (11):817-826. Title: “Anatomy-Based Algorithms for Detecting Oral Cancer Using Reflectance and Fluorescence Spectroscopy.” Authors: Sasha McGee, PhD; Vartan Mardirossian, MD; Alphi Elackattu, MD; Jelena Mirkovic, PhD; Robert Pistey, MD, MA; George Gallagher, DMD, DMSc; Sadru Kabani, DMD, MA; Chung-Chieh Yu, PhD; Zimmern Wang, MD; Kamran Badizadegan, MD; Gregory Grillone, MD; Michael S. Feld, PhD:
• Mary Jo Murnane, PhD had an article published in the Dec 15 issue of the International Journal of Cancer:  “Active MMP-2 Effectively Identifies the Presence of Colorectal Cancer.” Authors: Mary Jo Murnane, Jinguo Cai, Sania Shuja, David McAneny,   Veronica Klepeis and John B. Willett
• Martin Steffen, MD, PhD, has had three paper recently accepted for publication.  BRAVO!

1. Nature Chemical Biology 2010 Jan;6 (1):4-5. doi:10.1038/nchembio.288. Title: “Biochemical networks: The evolution of gene annotation.” Authors: Simon Kasif1 & Martin Steffen2
2. Eukaryot Cell. 2009 Nov 30. Title: “Evidence for mucin-like glycoproteins that tether sporozoites of Cryptosporidium parvum to the inner surface of the oocyst wall.” Authors: Chatterjee A, Banerjee S, Steffen M, O’Connor RM, Ward HD, Robbins PW, Samuelson J.
3. Eukaryot Cell. 2009 Oct 16. [Epub ahead of print] Title:  “Suggestive evidence for Darwinian selection against asparagine-linked glycans of  Plasmodium and Toxoplasma.” Authors:.Bushkin GG, Ratner DM, Cui J, Banerjee S, Duraisingh MT, Jennings CV, Dvorin JD, Gubbels MJ, Robertson SD, Steffen M, O’Keefe BR, Robbins PW, Samuelson J.

Announcements

• Bryan Belikoff, MD/PhD candidate has recently been placed on the Hematology Training Grant.
• Grants:
  • Marten Steffen’s, PhD recently awarded Grand Opportunity Grant (1RC2GM092602-01; multi-PI: Steffen, Kasif, Roberts) has been highlighted in an NIH news release. The goal of the grant, entitled “SciBay: A New Methodology for Scientific Collaboration and Gene Function Determination,” is to catalyze experimental validation of gene function for genes with no known function in bacterial genomes. This grant will implement the experimental validation model proposed by co-PI Rich Roberts, the recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of introns.   We will form a consortium of experimental and computational biologists that would collaborate directly to test experimentally the predicted functions of high-priority genes of currently unknown function or specificity. This high profile initiative is our attempt to ameliorate a profound problem exacerbated by next generation sequencing methods.   If one were to sequence a newly discovered microbe today, the percentage of genes of unknown function would be very similar to that obtained a decade ago.   We anticipate that, in the near future, as the new methods become more widely used, and generate giga- and tera-bases of new sequence data, this problem will become quantitatively worse.   It is therefore imperative that we develop both new methods and opportunities for determining gene function.

Publications-ACCEPTED

• Marier Hernandez-Perez MD, one of our current residents, has a paper accepted for publication at The American Journal of Surgical Pathology Title:  “Distinctive Association of p16INK4a Over-expression with Penile Intraepithelial Neoplasia (PeIN)Depicting Warty and/or Basaloid Features: A study of 141 Cases Evaluating a New Nomenclature.”   Authors: Alcides Chaux, M.D.; Rolf Pfannl, M.D.; Belén Lloveras; María Alejo; Omar Clavero; Cecilia Lezcano; Nubia Muñoz; de Sanjosé Silvia, M.D., Ph.D.; Xavier Bosch; Marier Hernández-Pérez, M.D.; Elsa F Velazquez, M.D.; Antonio L Cubilla, M.D.

Announcements:

• Nancy Bucher Professorship. The Department is extraordinarily pleased to announce the Nancy L.R. Bucher Career Development Professorship Fund. The Board of Trustees of Boston University formally approved the professorship in October, 2009. The award was announced at the pathology research seminar by Richard Hotchkiss, M.D. on October 23, 2009. Dean Antman was in attendance for the announcement and seminar.The Department was able to raise money from multiple sources to fund this Professorship. The professorship is named for Dr. Bucher, a long time faculty member in the Department who has made significant scientific contributions to understanding of liver regeneration publishing dozens of articles in leading journals. Dr. Bucher is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has received the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the American Liver Foundation.Funds from the Bucher Professorship will be used to recruit a junior faculty member and provide salary support during the initial phase of their career. The Bucher Professorship will be rolling and allow the ongoing recruitment of new faculty.
• Strategic Plan developed and posted. A committee was formed in the spring of 2009 to develop a strategic plan for the Department. The committee was chaired by Daniel Remick, M.D. and staffed by Debra Kiley. Other committee members included Chris Andry, Ph.D., Lija Joseph, M.D., Martin Kroll, M.D., Michael O’Brien, M.D., and Jacqueline Sharon, Ph.D. The committee worked diligently throughout the summer to prepare a strategic plan. The steps included preparing a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Challenges review for Education, Anatomic Pathology, Laboratory Medicine and Research. The committee compared our Department to benchmark data available from the Association of Pathology Chairs and also did a comparison of the Department profile in 2004 and 2008. Input from the faculty was also solicited through direct conversations, internet surveys, and the development of an on-line discussion forum. Some of these investigative activities were successful, but the discussion forum was heavily utilized. The strategic plan has been completed, and it posted on the Department’s website here.
• Boston University has been awarded a grant from the Intersociety Council for Pathology Information to form a Pathology Interest Group. The funds from this grant will be used to promote activities to increase interest in a career in pathology among medical students. Dr. Lija Joseph needs to be thanked for her work in obtaining these funds. While the money goes to the Department, Dr. Joseph did all the work.
• From the Policy Committee: As policies are approved by the Chair they will be posted on the departmental website. The first two policies to be posted are: 1) The Professional Stipend Policy and 2) The Vacation/Professional Time-off Policy.
• Jackie Sharon’s pioneering research on recombinant polyclonal antibodies, which was patented and licensed by BU to the Danish company Symphogen A/S in 2001, was featured in the 2009 issue of the magazine Research at Boston University that was published in October. The story was part of an article about Technology Development at BU. As pointed out by the article, Symphogen is a rising star of biotech, employing 70 people in Copenhagen, who are developing recombinant human polyclonal antibodies against several infectious disease and cancer targets as well as human cells associated with certain immunologic diseases. The company’s most advanced product, currently in Phase 2 clinical trials, is a drug that would treat idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and hemolytic disease of the newborn, two immunologic diseases which involve uncommon susceptibility to bleeding.

Presentations:

• Madhu Jagannathan’s, PhD candidate abstract “Toll-like Receptor Cross Talk Specifically Regulates Cytokine Production by B cells from Chronic Inflammatory Disease Patients”   has been accepted for an oral presentation at the 3rd Annual MedImmune Research Abstract Competition in Gaithersburg, MD on Nov 14th 2009.
• Michael Roehrl, MD; PhD one of our new faculty members, has been invited to talk at the Association for Mass Spectrometry Applications to the Clinical Lab (MSACL), Conference Feb. 2010, San Diego, CA

Publications-ACCEPTED:

• Madhu Jagannathan, PhD candidate received news that her first author paper, “Toll-like Receptor Cross Talk Specifically Regulates Cytokine Production by B cells from Chronic Inflammatory Disease  Patients” has been accepted for publication in Journal of Immunology
  o Martin Steffen, PhD has had a paper accepted in PloS ONE: “A PREDICTIVE PHOSPHORYLATION SIGNATURE OF LUNG CANCER” authors; Wu, Cai, Rikova, Merberg, Kasif, Steffen
• Sandra Cerda, MD just had a paper accepted for publication in Pediatrics Journal. “Placental Inflammatory Response is Associated with Poor Neonatal Growth: A Preterm Birth Cohort Study”  Karen Mestan, M.D.1, Yunxian Yu, M.D., Ph.D.2, Nana Matoba, M.D.1, Sandra Cerda, M.D.3, Bethany Demmin, B.A.1, Colleen Pearson, B.A.4, Katherin Ortiz, B.A.4, Xiaobin Wang, M.D., M.P.H., Sc.D.2
• Michael Roehrl, MD; PhD one of our new faculty members, recently had his paper *. “Tissue proteomics reveals differential and compartment-specific roles for the homologs transgelin and transgelin-2 in lung adenocarcinoma and its stroma” Rho JH, Roehrl MHA,* Wang JY, accepted to Journal of Proteome Research 2009 (in press). *Corresponding authors.

Announcements:

• The New Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Strategic Plan is now posted on our web page.
• Joann Crain and Kathleen White from Lab Medicine have successfully completed the AACC Point of Care Specialist Certificate Program
• Elizabeth Schuller, MA successfully completed her thesis “Delayed Addition of Anti-oxidants Fails to Modulate Cytokine Production” and requirements  to receive her Masters in Pathology Degree in September
• A Student Research Award from the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) has been awarded to Fiona Chiem, a BU senior volunteering in the Remick Lab under the guidance of John Kim, PhD
• Welcome to NEW FACES:
  • Dr. Zhaohua Lu was appointed Instructor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Her research interests include immunology and infectious diseases. She will work in collaboration with Dr. Jacqueline Sharon on immunotherapy and immunoprophylaxis for tularemia
  • Dr. Kobra Rezazadeh-Gharahassanlou is a new post-doc in Nader Rahimi’s Lab
• Grants
  • Dr. Jacqueline Sharon received a 5-year, $5.5 million NIH contract award to identify and validate protective and pathogenic B cell epitopes in tularemia and determine the mechanisms of antibody protection or pathogenesis. The multi-investigator project includes Drs. Zhaohua Lu, Shinichiro Kurosawa, Deborah Stearns-Kurosawa and Daniel Remick from the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Drs. Catherine Costello and Joseph Zaia from the Department of Biochemistry, Dr. Barbara Seaton from the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, and Dr. Seshi Sompuram from Medical Discovery Partners LLC. Dr. Mercio PereiraPerrin of Tufts University School of Medicine will participate as Consultant, and Ms. Lyndianne Joseph from the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine will be the Contract Administrator
  • Marten Steffen, PhD is the PI of a recently awarded Grand Opportunity grant (1RC2GM092602-01; multi-PI: Steffen, Kasif, Roberts). The goal of the grant, entitled “SciBay: A New Methodology for Scientific Collaboration and Gene Function Determination,” is to catalyze experimental validation of gene function for genes with no known function in bacterial genomes. This grant will implement the experimental validation model proposed by co-PI Rich Roberts, the recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of introns. We will form a consortium of experimental and computational biologists that would collaborate directly to test experimentally the predicted functions of high-priority genes of currently unknown function or specificity. This high profile initiative is our attempt to ameliorate a profound problem exacerbated by next generation sequencing methods. If one were to sequence a newly discovered microbe today, the percentage of genes of unknown function would be very similar to that obtained a decade ago. We anticipate that, in the near future, as the new methods become more widely used, and generate giga- and tera-bases of new sequence data, this problem will become quantitatively worse. It is therefore imperative that we develop both new methods and opportunities for determining gene function.

Presentations:

• Carmen Sarita-Reyes, MD will be presenting a Perinatal Placenta Case at the Latin-American Society of Pediatric Pathology (SLAPPE) Perinatology Seminar at Antigua, Guatemala in October
• “Reduced adipose tissue inflammation represents an intermediate cardiometabolic phenotype in obesity” by Lija Joseph, MD has been accepted for presentation at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, to be held on Nov. 14 – 18, 2009 in Orlando, FL. This is an NIH funded research project that Dr. Joseph participate in collaboration with Dr. Noyan Gokce in the Department of Cardiology
• Dr. Louis Liou, Van Le and Yasmin Akbari attended the New England American Urological Association’s Annual Conference in Washington D.C. this past Friday (9/25/09).  Van and Yasmin presented posters and it went pretty well. 
  • Van Le, BA, first year student at BU School of Medicine: “Evaluating  microRNA Expression Integrity in FFPE Samples with qRT-PCR by Using  Patient-Matched Formalin-Fixed and Fresh-Frozen Tissues from Renal  Cell Carcinoma (RCC) Patients”
  • Yasmin Akbari, senior at BU undergrad: “Assessing the Potential of the  Htert Cell Line as a Model of Normal Bladder Urothelium via Analysis  of microRNA Expression”

 NEAUA Poster (.PDF)               Van’s Poster (.PDF)

• Zack Hunter, MA candidate just got word that he received 3 posters and Zach will talk as first author at this years meeting of the American Society of Hematology!
  • Poster 1: “Gene Expression Profiling Distinguishes Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia Patients Presenting with Familial Disease, Advanced IPSS Prognostic Score, and Previous Treatment with Rituximab”
  • Poster 2: “IgA and IgG Hypogammaglobulinemia Does Not Predict for Recurrent Infection Risk and Persists Despite Therapeutic Response in Patients with Waldentroms Macroglobulinemia”
  • Poster 3: “Micro-RNA Expression Profiling Reveals Distinct Correlates to Disease Pathogenesis, and Identifies Novel Pathways Involved in Tumor Cell Senescence and IL-12A Signaling”
  • Talk: “Genome Wide Association Studies of Familial Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia (WM) Reveals a Loss of GSTM1 Is Common in Families with a History of B-Cell Disorders but Not in Those with a History Specific for WM”

Publications- PUBLISHED:

• Mary Jo Murnane, PhD has an article “Active MMP-2 Effectively Identifies the Presence of Colorectal Cancer”   by Murnane MJ, Cai J, Shuja S,  McAneny D, Klepeis V and Willett JB) that has just been published online at the website for Wiley-Blackwell publications (wiley.com).  It will be coming out soon as a hard copy in a fall ’09 issue of the International Journal of Cancer

Publications-ACCEPTED:

• “Capzb2 Interacts with ß-tubulin to Regulate Growth Cone Morphology and Neurite Outgrowth David A. Davis¹, Meredith H. Wilson¹, Jodel Giraud², Zhigang Xie³, Huang-Chun Tseng², Cheryl England⁴, Haya Hersckovitz⁴, Li-Huei Tsai² and Ivana Delalle¹* was accepted by PLoS Biology, to be published in October 2009  Poster (.PDF)

Announcements:

• Kazem Azadzoi, M.D. has received funding from American Medical System for a term ending March 2011 to study “The Effects of Accessa Stimulation on Bladder Overactivity” in an Experimental Model of Pelvic Ischemia
• The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Society President’s Award for Best Overall Trainee/Resident Presentation 2nd Place was awarded to Bryan Belikoff, MD/PhD candidate for his presentation entitled “Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Prevents Lung Inflammation in the Absence of Adenosine A2A Receptor Signaling” at this year’s international UHMS Scientific Meeting Las Vegas, NV
• Marc Lenburg, PhD presented a talk at the Genes and the Environment Initiative meeting in Raleigh-Durham, NC entitled “Non-invasive Gene Expression Biomarkers of Airway Response to Tobacco Exposure” on August 3rd
• News from Abroad: Rocco Richards, MA, graduate of our Master’s in Pathology program has arrived safely at Medical School in Grenada – he writes “Just went through my first week of classes – it’s been a hectic week. The island is gorgeous. Everywhere I look, I see blue waters or beautiful mountains. …The campus is real nice, the facilities and lecture halls are great. BU classes really did prepare me for this semester. Many students here haven’t done or seen nearly half of what I did while at BU.”
• Thomas Thomou, PhD successfully defended his thesis “Homeobox Gene Expression Profiles Demarcate Regional Identity of Human Fat Depots” on August 4th
• Welcome to NEW FACES:
  • Danielle Day – Kurosawa Lab
  • INCOMING STUDENTS
    • PhD Students
      
      • Philip Bondzie
      • Evan Chiswick
      • Clarissa Koch
      • John “Jed” Mahoney
    • Masters Students
      • Nik Bajaj
      • Mostafa Belghasem
      • Yi “Bessie” Liu
• From Jo-Anne Walsh in Dean Antman’s Office: “Congratulations to all of you in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine for being the 1st whole department to complete the Faculty Evaluation Confirmations. Just gave Dean Antman the news!!”

Presentations:

• David Chui, MD was invited to present at McMaster University, Regional Hematology Round, Hamilton, ON, Canada; June 26, 2009, “BCL11A and fetal hemoglobin”
• David Chui, MD was also invited to present at Congreso Iberoamericano de Drepanocitosis y Talassemia, Colegio de Medicos y Cirujanos de Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica; July 23, 24, 2009; “Regulation of Fetal Hemoglobin Synthesis: Recent Advances” and “Sickle Cell Disease – Interaction with Other Mutations”

Publications- PUBLISHED:

• American Journal of Hematology published: “Sickle cell disease caused by heterozygosity for Hb S and novel LCR deletion: Report of two patients” by Sara C. Koenig,1 Esmira Becirevic,1 Miriam S.C. Hellberg,1 Michael Y. Li,1 Jason C.C. So,3 Jane S. Hankins,4 Russell E. Ware,4 Lillian McMahon,2 Martin H. Steinberg,2 Hong-Yuan Luo,1,2 and David H.K. Chui1,2*

Publications- ACCEPTED:

• Zack Hunter, MA candidate has a first author paper accepted for publication by Hematologica! The paper is entitled “IgA and IgG hypogammaglobulinemia in Waldenström?s macroglobulinemia”
• Article title by John Cho, MD: “Utility of Hematologic and Volume, Conductivity, and Scatter (VCS) Parameters from Umbilical Cord Blood in Predicting Chorioamnionitis” has been accepted by International Journal of Laboratory Hematology. The coauthors are: Fernando Chaves MD, Thomas Ahern MPH, and Karen Quillen MD
• David Davis, PhD has a paper accepted by a PLoS Biology. “Capzb2 Interacts with ß-tubulin to Regulate Growth Cone Morphology and Neurite Outgrowth.” Authors: David A. Davis1, Meredith H. Wilson1, Jodel Giraud2, Zhigang Xie3, Huang-Chun Tseng2, Cheryl England4, Haya Hersckovitz4, Li-Huei Tsai2 and Ivana Delalle1*

Dear Colleagues,
 

I regret to inform you that our colleague Joseph John Vitale, MS, ScD, MD, professor emeritus, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Professor Socio-Medical Sciences and Community Medicine, passed away on August 18, at the age of 84.  Dr. Vitalle also served as BUSM Associate Dean, International Health Programs from 1978 to 1990, Director of Nutrition Education Programs at BUSM from1977 to 1995, and Professor of Nutritional Sciences at GSDM from 1976 to 1995.

Dr. Vitale was passionate about fostering and facilitating international student exchange health experiences.  He developed formal affiliations with medical centers in Mexico, Columbia, Ireland, Israel, Spain and China during his career and established the Vitale International Foundation for Medical Education/Exchange http://www.vifme.org/ in January 1996. This program provides financial assistance to qualified senior medical students who successfully complete an elective at a foreign medical center.

Dr Vitale graduated from Northeastern University with a BS in Biology in 1947 and earned his ScD from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1951. He received an Honorary Doctorate in Medicine from Health Science Institute in Medellin, Columbia.

He had over 100 original publications, 92 abstracts and papers presented, and had written eight book chapters and monographs. Dr. Vitale served on the editorial boards of a number of journals including American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the American Public Health Journal.

Dr. Vitale leaves his wife Gilda and two children. We are saddened by the loss of this admired colleague and grateful for his many contributions to our community.

Announcements:

• Dr. Chris Andry has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor. The Trustees and Dr. Robert Brown have recognized Dr. Andry’s “contributions to the work in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.” Congratulations Chris!
• BIG MOVE, thanks to Chris Andry’s diligent work: Pathology People moving to 670 Albany Street – 6th Floor, so if you are trying to find someone after August 1st:
  • Rachel Factor, MD — #4-5325 – Room #676
  • Jenny Gan, MD — #4-5358 – Room #670
  • Denise Johnson — #4-5310 – Room #671
  • Lija Joseph, MD — #4-4457 – Room #666
  • Michael O’Brien, MD — #4-4988 – Room #672
  • PATHOLOGY Office — #8-6990 – Room #671
  • SIGN OUT: MENINO — #x-xxxx – Room #673
  • SIGN OUT: NEWTON — #8-6995 – Room #674
  • Loraine Toorie — #4-7039 – Room #671
  • Huihong Xu, MD — #4-4283 – Room #669
  • Michael Roehrl, NEW FACULTY — #4-5329 – Room #667
• See photos of our new location at 670 Albany Street – 6th Floor below:

• Congratulations to Cynthia Harris in the department of Anatomic Pathology for her 40 years of service to Boston City Hospital/Boston Medical Center! Bravo!
• John Meyers, PhD successfully defended his thesis “UNIQUE CYCLIC NUCLEOTIDE SIGNALING IN CHRONIC LYMPHOCYTIC LEUKEMIA REPRESENTS A POTENTIAL NOVEL THERAPEUTIC TARGET” on July 20, 2009
• David Davis, PhD successfully defended his thesis “Actin Capping Protein Beta 2 Subunit (Capzb2) Function in Neurodevelopment and Neurodegeneration” on July 29, 2009.
• Welcome to NEW PEOPLE:
  • Michael Roehrl, MD, PhD, new faculty member
  • Somdutta Mitra, has joined Dr. Maria Panchenko’s Research Team
• Steve Bogen, MD received a newly issued U.S. Patent: U.S. Patent 7,553,67; Issued June 30, 2009.
• Strategic Planning Committee Begins Work. A strategic planning committee has begun work to evaluate the current status of the department and map future directions. The committee is chaired by Daniel Remick with administrative support provided by Debra Kiley. The committee members include Michael O’Brien, Martin Kroll, Lija Joseph, Jacqueline Sharon and Chris Andry. A password protected, on-line discussion forum will be available shortly to allow faculty, staff, residents and students the opportunity to provide input into the plans as they develop.

Presentations:

• Nader Rahimi, PhD was invited to give a talk at the Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Angiogenesis Conference held in Chester, England on July 14-17. This conference was organized by Biochemical Society Transduction. The title of Dr. Rahimi’s talk was “A novel role for protein ubiquitination in VEGFR-2 signaling and angiogenesis” and the text of his presentation will be published as a review article in Biochemical Society Transductions Journal.
• Resident Marier Hernandez-Perez’s M.D has had a poster accepted for presentation at the 46th Annual Meeting of The American Society of Dermatopathology (ASDP) for “PROTOTHECOSIS OF THE NAIL: A RARE SUBUNGUAL PRESENTATION OF ALGAL DISEASE” in Chicago, Illinois, October 2-5

Publications- PUBLISHED:

• SA Bogen, K Vani, B McGraw, V Federico, Iqbal Habib, R Zeheb, E Luther, C Tristram & SR Sompuram. “Experimental Validation Of Peptide Immunohistochemistry Controls.” 2009. Appl. Immunohistochem & Mol Morphol. 17(3):239-246.

Publications- ACCEPTED:

• A manuscript by Kazem Azadzoi, M.D. et al entitled “Oxidative Modification of Mitochondrial Integrity and Nerve Fiber Density in the Ischemic Overactive Bladder” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Urology
• A manuscript by Osuchowski, M, Teener, J, and Remick, D “Noninvasive model of sciatic nerve conduction in healthy and septic mice: Reliability and normative data.” has been accepted for publication in Nerve and Muscle.

Announcements:

• Walther Pfeifer, MD, will become Medical Director of the Clinical Flow Cytometry Laboratory of Laboratory Medicine, in July
• Lija Joseph, MD will be at the APC/PRODS meeting in Seattle, Washington this July 16th. She is co-chair of a 90 minute discussion on Integrated Curriculum to the pathology course directors. Lija will also be presenting results of the resident and junior faculty stress survey data to the pathology residency program directors.
  • http://www.apcprods.org/mtg/2009/CDS2009.pdf
  • http://www.apcprods.org/mtg/2009/PRODS2009.pdf
• Congratulations on passing the Qualifying Exams!

• Jackie Bouchard

• Heather Cohen

• Michael Durando

• Mike Greene

• Madhu Jagannathan

• Jillian Richmond

• Eligible students should start thinking about taking the next exam in January-February 2010 and get in touch with Dr. Burke at the latest October 2009
• Thank you to all faculty members who assisted with the qualifying exams, with a special gratitude to Bohdana Burke!
• On Monday, June 22, Carl O’Hara, MD and Lija Joseph, MD presented two posters on curricular integration at the John McMahon Medical Education Day
• Welcome to Our New Residents:
  • PGY-1:
    • Dr. Luisa Watts
    • Dr. Priya Alexander 
    • Dr. Joy Tan
    • Dr. Yanelba Toribio
  • PGY-2:
    • Dr. Dehua Wang
    • Dr. Hao Wu

• NEW PEOPLE:
  • Chaoxu Liu PhD, a postdoctoral scholar from China, has joined Dr. Azadzoi’s research team in the pathology laboratories
  • Joel Henderson’s new Lab Manager is Dr. Hui Chen, general internist from Wuhan, Hubei, China
• In Laboratory Information Service, Silvia MacMurdo will assume the Chair of the Regional Sunquest Users Group
• Janet Means, Administrative Director of Laboratory Medicine has passed her Black Belt written examination for the Juran training course in Lean Six Sigma. She had to attend four weeks of intensive training at the Juran institute. Her score topped her class of international participants.
• Janet Means and Neil O’Neill visited a Lean-designed Quest Laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia to learn about applying Lean Six Sigma principles to laboratory design. The information they gleaned validated many of the laboratory layout designs instituted for the new lab as well as provided impetus for making important changes in the final design.
• Bethany Tierno, MD will be starting her hematopathology fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess July 1st. Bethany wants to thank everyone for a great four years of residency, “I will miss you all! My e-mail address is bethanyjc@comcast.net, please keep in touch!”
• John Cho Lee, MD, Chief Resident received a United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology Pathologist-in-Training Award from the Society for Ultrastructual Pathology for this year’s USCAP meeting.
• John Cho Lee, MD, Chief Resident received an award from the University Of South Alabama Department Of Pathology for his USCAP poster presentation: Society for Ultrastructural Pathology Pathologist-in-Training Award.

Presentations:

• Barbara Nikolajczyk, PhD has been invited to speak at the 35th Annual New England Immunology Conference in Woods Hole Oct 24-25 2009. The topic will be “The Role of Toll-like Receptors in Type 2 Diabetes.” Web site is: http://neic.uchc.edu/ This is an excellent venue for grad students to present their work and talk to other regional immunologists.
• An abstract by Kazem Azadzoi, M.D. et al entitled “Oxidative Stress-Sensitive Genes and Mitochondrial Stress Regulate Neural Injury and Wall Degeneration in the Overactive Bladder” has been accepted for presentation at the International Continence Society Annual Meeting to be held in San Francisco in October 2009.
• Abstract/case study for poster presentation by our residents Marier Hernandez; Katherine Downey; and attending Sandra Cerda, “Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Lung Secreting Human Chorionic Gonadotropin and ß-Human Chorionic Gonadotropin in a Young Female Smoker” at CAP ’09, which is to be held in Washington, DC, on October 11–October 14
• Our resident, Kate Duhon Hartman, with Janet Means, Administrative Director, and Neil O’Neill, will present a poster at the AACC meeting entitled “Improving Oncology STAT CBC Turnaround Time by Means of Lean Six Sigma Process Improvement”
• Jianmin Gan, MD has had her abstract, “Histopathology of the pig lung after microwave ablation: report on ten cases” accepted for poster presentation at the 2009 American Society for Clinical Pathology Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois from October 28-November 1, 2009.
• Stephen Hammond, MD has had an abstract accepted for poster presentation at the College of American Pathologists meeting in Washington, DC, on October 11-14, 2009. “Using Amended Report Rates to Monitor Pre- and Post-Analytic Errors in an Anatomic Pathology Laboratory” Authors: Stephen Hammond MD, Chris Andry PhD, and Kathy Harkins.

Publications- ACCEPTED:

• A manuscript by Kazem Azadzoi, M.D. et al entitled “Oxidative Stress and Neurodegeneration in Penile Ischemia” has been accepted for publication in the British Journal of Urology
• The abstract/case study by our residents Marier Hernandez,; Katherine Downey; and attending Sandra Cerda, “Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Lung Secreting Human Chorionic Gonadotropin and ß-Human Chorionic Gonadotropin in a Young Female Smoker” will be published in the October 2009 issue of the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.
• Stephen Hatfield , Bryan Belikoff , Dmitriy Lukashev , Akio Ohta article: “The Anti-hypoxia-adenosinergic Pathogenesis Due to Collateral Damage by Overactive Immune Cells” has been accepted for publication in Journal of Leukocyte Biology
• Resident Stephen Hammond’s abstract “Using Amended Report Rates to Monitor Pre- and Post-Analytic Errors in an Anatomic Pathology Laboratory” will be published in the October 2009 issue of the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.

Pathology & Laboratory Medicine News Items

Announcements:

• You can watch our own Dr. Daniel Remick speak about his asthma and cockroach research on Channel 5/WCVB and Channel 4/WBZ  (both broadcasts were May 7, 2009)
  
• Welcome to two New Faculty Members
  • Joel Henderson, MD PhD, Assistant Professor
  • Catherine Valentine, MD; Assistant Professor
• June is PhD Qualifying Exams Month! This year June 18th will be the written part of the exam and June 25th the oral portion will take place. There are six students who will be taking these exams: Jackie Bouchard, Heather Cohen, Michael Durando, Michael Green, Madhu Jagannathan, and Jillian Richmond. The faculty working with this group of qualifying exam candidates is: Drs. Berse, Burke, Lerner, Murnane, O’Hara, Remick, Sharon and Slack. Good Luck to all!
• Jillian Richmond, PhD student, received Honorable Mention for the 2009 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program   Congratulations to you!
• Florin Craciun has won a Travel Grant Award to attend the Thirty-second Annual Conference on Shock, San Antonio, June 6-9, 2009. He will be presenting his abstract also (see below)

PRESS RELEASE: Top Notch choices in the lung: Airways have to cope with tasks as diverse as clearance of environmental particles, detoxification, and air humidification. These tasks are accomplished by a variety of cell types that populate the airways and include ciliated and secretory cells.  How these cell fates are established and balanced during development and during injury-repair in the adult is still an open question.  

A study from a research team led by Wellington Cardoso, MD, PhD (Pulmonary Center, Dept. of Medicine and Dept. of Pathology) sheds light into the mechanisms that control formation of secretory cells in the lung. They found that when the Notch pathway is inactivated in mouse mutant embryos, airways no longer form the secretory (Clara) cells and the airway epithelium becomes populated almost exclusively by ciliated cells.   The unbalance seems to result from the loss of a mechanism of cell fate choice triggered by Notch, called lateral inhibition. These findings not only help to understand how airways develop but they also give insights into how aberrant patterns of differentiation occur in diseases, such as asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The study is authored by Po-Nien Tsao MD (postdoc) and Michelle Vasconcelos (graduate student).  It appears in the current online edition of Development, and is highlighted in the cover. Dr. Cardoso is the Director of the Program in Lung Development and Progenitor Cell Biology, which harbors a multidisciplinary group that studies lung development and its intersection with disease. The Program has been funded by the NIH-NHLBI for 17 years.

Plate #2 – Excessive ciliated cells in airways of Notch mutant mice

P Tsao, MD; W. Cardoso, MD, PhD: and M. Vasconcelos, graduate student

Presentations:

• Dr. Karen Quillen spoke on “Safety and complications of therapeutic plasmapheresis” at the PEXIVAS Investigators’ meeting in Cambridge, United Kingdom on April 24, 2009.

Harry Potter fans will recognize "Platform 9 3/4" at King's Cross Station in London, where trains leave for Cambridge

Punting on the River Cam, with St. John's College, Cambridge, in the background.

• Bryan Belikoff’s, an MD/PhD student, abstract “HYPERBARIC OXYGEN THERAPY PREVENTS LUNG INFLAMMATION IN THE ABSENCE OF ADENOSINE A2A RECEPTOR SIGNALING” has been accepted for an oral and poster presentation at the 2009 Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Society Annual Scientific Meeting in Las Vegas, NV, June 24-27.
• Florin Craciun’s abstract was accepted for an oral presentation at the Thirty-second Annual Conference on Shock, San Antonio, June 6-9, 2009. INCREASED LOCAL NEUTROPHIL RECRUITMENT IMPROVES SEPSIS SURVIVAL & BACTERIA CLEARANCE. F. Craciun, M. Osuchowski, B. Belikoff, E. Schuller, and D. Remick.
• Marc Lenburg, PhD gave a talk entitled “Airway epithelial gene expression in the diagnostic evaluation of smokers with suspect lung cancer” at a symposium entitled Novel Tools for Risk Assessment and Early Detection of Premalignant Lesions and Cancer sponsored by Deutsche Krebshilfe in Bonn, Germany on May 7th.
• Dr. Jianmin  Gan’s abstract entitled: “CK 903 and p63 are useful markers in the differential diagnosis of atypical large glandular proliferations of the prostate” has been accepted as a POSTER PRESENTATION at the 22nd European Congress of Pathology to be held in Florence, Italy September 4-9, 2009.

Publications- PUBLISHED:

• A Manuscript by Kazem Azadzoi, MD et al entitled “Oxidative Stress and Molecular Reactions in Arteriogenic Erectile Dysfunction” was published in the April issue of Chonnam Medical Journal 45: 1-8, 2009 
• John Cho’s, current Anatomic Pathology Chief Resident, case report has been accepted and published via advance online publication (the print version will come out later).It’s titled “Erythroid/B-cell biphenotypic acute leukemia first case report with the following as citation” Leukemia advance online publication 21 May 2009; doi: 10.1038/leu.2009.105″ ()
• Remick DG: : “Old friends: pneumonia and interleukin-6” Critical Care Med 2009, 37:1809-1810
• Osuchowski MF, Connett J, Welch K, Granger J, Remick DG: “Stratification is the key: inflammatory biomarkers accurately direct immunomodulatory therapy in experimental sepsis” Critical Care Med 2009, 37:1567-1573
• Remick DG: “What’s new in Shock, February 2009?” Shock 2009, 31:111-112
• C Lee, S Yang, Y Zou and L Joseph: “Erythroid/B-cell biphenotypic acute leukemia first case report.” Leukemia advance online publication, 21 May 2009; doi:10.1038/leu.2009.105

Publications- ACCEPTED:

• Jean A. Nemzek DVM, and Jiyoun Kim PhD “Pulmonary Inflammation and Airway Hyperresponsiveness in a Murine Model of Asthma Complicated by Acid Aspiration” Journal of Comparative Medicine
• Noronha, AM, Liang, YM, Hetzel, J, Hasturk, H, Kantarci,  A, Stucci , A, Zhang, Y, Nikolajczyk, BS, Farraye, FA, and Ganley-Leal, LM.  2009. Hyper-activated B cells in human inflammatory bowel disease. (Accepted to J. Leukocyte Biol.)

• Eugen B. Petcu MD, Leonard Berman MD, Maria M. Opris MD, Valentin Ghiorghiu MD, Stanton C. Kessler MD, John Hayes MD, Harrison W. Farber MD, “Severe Pulmonary Hypertension in a Patient with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus complicated by exposure to Dexfenfluramine” has been accepted for publication in the next issue of the Romanian Journal of Legal Medicine (Vol 17, No 2, July 2009)