November 2009

Pathology & Laboratory Medicine News Items

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.

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