February 2009

Announcements:

  • BU Pathology in the TOP TEN — The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine of Boston University School   of Medicine and Boston Medical Center has been informed that we are in the top ten in the number of abstracts accepted for presentation at the 2009 United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology annual meeting. Over 430 academic institutions from across the world, including 230 from the United States, submitted nearly 2800 abstracts to this year’s meeting making pathology’s accomplishment all the more noteworthy. We are not just in the top 10%, we are among the top ten institutions. The Department is pleased to have 3 oral presentations, an invited lecture and multiple accepted posters at this year’s meeting. To see the list of accepted abstracts see the December Newsletter.
  • Mallory Institute Reunion: Daniel Remick, MD, Chair of the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine is pleased to announce that on Sunday March 8th, the department will host a reception and tour of the new pathology laboratories at 670 Albany Street, Boston MA starting at 6:30 pm.  Shuttle buses will run from the USCAP Annual Meeting at the Hynes Convention Center to the Boston University Medical Campus.  All current and former members of the Mallory Institute and departmental faculty, residency training program and support staff are welcome.  In addition, four wall-mounted panels describing the Mallory Institute of Pathology and its rich history will be unveiled outside the 3rd floor Anatomic Pathology Laboratories.
  • Sudha Natarajan, PhD (Remick Lab) successfully defended her thesis on January 12th  at the University of Michigan, Department of Molecular and Cellular Pathology. The title of her dissertation is “Pulmonary Innate Immune Modulation in the Pathogenesis of Allergic Asthma” Yay!!!
  • Michael O’Brien, M.D., M.P.H. will be honored on March 7, 2009 with the National University of Ireland, Galway, Medtronic Alumni Award for Healthcare and Medical Science. The Alumni Awards recognize individual excellence and achievements among the University’s more than 65,000 graduates worldwide. The awards program boasts an impressive roll call of 57 outstanding graduates who have gone on to honor their alma mater
  • A new Informatics Didactic Curriculum is being developed for the residency program under the supervision of Drs. Karen Quillen, Lija Joseph, and Carl O’Hara — with help from Dr. John Lee (Chief Resident).  In Clinical Pathology an LIS (laboratory information system) didactic series is underway with inaugural lectures beginning in February.  Scheduled lecturers include Dr. Nancy Miller, Medical Director, LIS; Silvia MacMurdo MT (ASCP), LIS Administrator; and invited speakers from other institutions.  Residents also will have the opportunity to participate with the LIS team on a variety of projects, and to observe other LIS and IT (information technology) activities.  In Anatomic Pathology didactics in image processing and telepathology are planned.  Assigned readings and completion of a CAP Virtual Informatics College course will be another part of the curriculum experience.
  • GO GREEN WINNERS from this year’s Holiday Pot-Luck Party!
    • Debbie Kiley: Lunch with the Chair
    • Bethany Tierno: Lunch with the Chair
    • Shinichiro Kurosawa: Yummy Chocolates
    • Barbara Nikolajczk: Yummy Chocolates
    • Peter Lee: Yummy Chocolates
    • Nader Rahimi: A BRAND NEW BU/BMC Pathology & Lab Medicine Umbrella

WELCOME to NEW FACES!

  • Sid Nakani in the Panchenko Lab
  • Sun Young-Oh in the Kurosawa Lab

Presentations:

  • Martin Kroll will be speaking at the Northeast section of AACC in February and at the NERCE meeting in April
  • Marc Lenburg spoke at the British Thoracic Oncology Group’s 2009 Annual Meeting in Dublin, Ireland on January 30th.  The title of his talk was “Airway epithelial gene expression in the diagnostic evaluation of smokers with suspect lung cancer.”
  • Zach Hunter (Master of Arts in Pathology) presented “Familial Predispositions in Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia” at the Hematologic Neoplasia & Immunologic Therapies  Seminar and Series
  • In March Ivana Delalle will be presenting: Vanderburg C and Delalle I: Exosomal miRNAs profiles in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Keystone Symposium “The Molecular Basis of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder”, Keystone, CO, March 2009.

Posters:

  • Zachary Hunter, PhD student, had a poster this past December at the American Society of Hematology meeting: “IgA and IgG Hypogammaglobulinemia Is a Constitutive Feature in Most Waldenstrom?s Macroglobulinemia Patients and May Be Related to Mutations Associated with Common Variable Immunodeficiency Disorder (CVID)”  Steven Treon, Zachary Hunter, Bryan Ciccarelli, Yangsheng Zhou, Christina Hanzis, Robert Manning, Leukothea Ioakimidis, Lian Xu, Christopher Patterson and Massimo Morra
  • Marc Lenburg presented two posters at the Genes and the Environment Initiative Annual Meeting in Bethesda, MD on January 14th.  The posters were entitled “Non-invasive gene expression biomarkers of airway response to tobacco exposure” and “Non-invasive miRNA biomarkers of airway response to tobacco exposure”.

Publications:

  • “Metastatic Interdigitating Dendritic Cell Sarcoma Masquerading as a Skin Primary Tumor: a Case Report and Review of the Literature”. Lee JC, Christensen T, O’Hara CJ. Am J Dermatopath. 2009 31(1):88-93
  •  Christian Weber is the Section Editor for Current Opinion in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Obesity. He wrote an article: “Regulation and signaling of human bombesin receptors and their biological effects” H Christian Weber and an editorial in the February 2009 issue.

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