Work in Progress(WIP)
Tuesdays,(:00am-10:00am, Room C2303 MCN
Where Are they Now? - Featured Alumni from our Division's Programs
Joseph Conrad, Ph.D.
We are always proud of our past trainees and are eager to highlight graduates in this section! This month we are featuring Dr. Joseph Conrad, a student who came from the laboratory of Dr. Spyros Kalams. Here we’ll highlight his success in merging his passions for scientific research and global health.
A two-year stint in the Peace Corps in Zambia after college exposed Joseph to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and was a motivating factor in his decision to join the Kalams Lab. During his time there he contributed to both the immunology and virology fields in his studies of HIV-specific T cell responses. After graduating from the M&I Department in 2011 he completed two post-doctoral fellowships: one with Vanderbilt’s Institute for Global Health and then in the Chemistry Department with Dr. David Wright. Joseph has since joined the Chemistry Department as faculty and is a Vanderbilt Faculty Research Scholar and regularly travels back and forth from Nashville to Zambia.
What do you currently do?
Joseph: As faculty I’ve begun a fellowship with the Vanderbilt-Zambia Network for Innovation in Global Health Technologies. I am working to develop new technologies for disease diagnosis in low resource settings. Currently I am working to develop tests to identify asymptomatic malaria infections and also for a test that can be used for early infant diagnosis of HIV infection.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
Joseph: I love the opportunity to work at the intersection of basic science, human subjects, and global health research in a very applied field where basic findings can be rapidly moved into testing and practice.
What advice would you give to current students in the department?
Joseph: Try as much as possible to retain focus on the things that drive you to do your work. I think it’s hard to live and work in science research based only on dedication to new data or positive results. For me, maintaining a connection to motivating factors is essential. Don’t give up maintaining that just because it doesn’t immediately jive with the well-trod path of scientific progression.
What is your favorite memory from your time as an M&I graduate student?
Watching professors fall asleep in RIP…just kidding! Playing summertime beer cricket with labmates.
Division Announcements
- Molecular Pathogenesis division meeting: September 29, 2015 room A-5305 MCN, 3:00pm. Chalk Talk - Maria Hadjifrangiskou,PhD
- September 11- 2nd Friday Happy Hour - Hosted by Link lab, room TBA. This is now open to all members of the new Molecular Pathogenesis Division
- A total of 31 publications describing work by labs within the Division of Molecular Pathogenesis have been posted on NCBI in the last month. Links to each of them are shown below
5. DNA Methylation Predicts Progression of Human Gastric Lesions.Schneider BG, Mera R, Piazuelo MB, Bravo JC, Zabaleta J, Delgado AG, Bravo LE, Wilson KT, El-Rifai W, Peek RM Jr, Correa P. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2015 Aug 12. pii: cebp.0388.2015. [Epub ahead of print]
16. Local Effects of Human PCSK9 on the Atherosclerotic Lesion. Giunzioni I, Tavori H, Covarrubias R, Major AS, Ding L, Zhang Y, DeVay RM, Hong L, Fan D, Predazzi IM, Rashid S, Linton MF, Fazio S. J Pathol. 2015 Sep 3. doi: 10.1002/path.4630. [Epub ahead of print]
21. A newborn with severe skeletal dysplasia. Maalouf FI, Coggins SA, Phillips JA 3rd, Stefanescu BM, Weitkamp JH. Arch Dis Child Educ Pract Ed. 2015 Aug 25. pii: edpract-2015-308719. doi: 10.1136/archdischild-2015-308719. [Epub ahead of print][Epub ahead of print]
22. Phosphoenolpyruvate Is a Metabolic Checkpoint of Anti-tumor T Cell Responses. Ho PC, Bihuniak JD, Macintyre AN, Staron M, Liu X, Amezquita R, Tsui YC, Cui G, Micevic G, Perales JC, Kleinstein SH, Abel ED, Insogna KL, Feske S, Locasale JW, Bosenberg MW, Rathmell JC, Kaech SM. Cell. 2015 Aug 26. pii: S0092-8674(15)01025-9. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2015.08.012. [Epub ahead of print]
"Inhibition of Wnt/beta-catenin pathway promotes regenerative repair of cutaneous and cartilage injury"
Bastakotyet al.,FASEB J. 2015 Aug 12. pii: fj.15-275941.
Acute wounds related to trauma, surgery, or burns are a major medical problem, driving approximately 11 million emergency room visits every year in the United States.
When mammalian skin is wounded, it lacks the capacity to regenerate and as a result, healing is accompanied with a fibrotic scar.
Thus, interventions that would enhance or direct regenerative as opposed to fibrotic pathways may serve as a therapeutic avenue in the future.
Bastakoty et al. sought to identify signaling pathways involved in regeneration and evaluate their ability to be modulated as a means to promote regeneration without excessive scarring
Using two murine injury models, the authors determined that the Wnt pathway is upregulated in response to cutaneuous injury, by 2-5 days post injury. The conserved Wnt/β-Catenin pathway is a group of signal transduction proteins that regulate stem cell pluripotency and cell fate decisions during development. Well-characterized inhibitors exist that block the pathway at specific steps
Bastakoty and colleagues used three different Wnt pathway inhibitors in their models and observed that inhibition of Wnt promoted wound closure in the ear-punch wound model.
The impact of eventually developing a therapeutic (such as a topical application of an agent that promotes regenerative cutaneous repair) would be tremendous, as it would significantly improve the quality of life of thousands of burn and trauma survivors. Studies like the ones in this paper, begin to address this amazing possibility.
Comments/suggestions to: maria.hadjifrangiskou@vanderbilt.edu, helen.chomicki@vanderbilt.edu
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