TUSM
Summer 2013
The Insight is back, just in time
for the crippling heat.
SACKLER INSIGHT
Editors
Jesse Peterson
Katelee Barrett
Samantha You
Reflections on the 2013 Boston Marathon
Inside this issue:
The Boston Marathon
1
Tufts’ Ten Year Plan
3
Career Paths
6
Spelunking
9
Biomedical Business Club
12
Department News
15
Horoscopes
18
SGSC News:

GET READY FOR THE RELAYS!!! This year’s relays will take place
on July 26. Come make your program
proud and enter the raffle! If your
department has artists in residence,
make sure to get your t-shirt designs in
to your GSC rep ASAP.

The GSC has held many successful social events this season. Sackler
joined the Medford GSC-hosted softball
tournament, held an end of year Cinco
de Mayo social at Fajita’s and Ritas, and
led a St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl. The
Wine and Cheese in the Fishbowl was
supremely classy, and the Easter Egg
hunt was a surprising hit. Students will
be finding eggs hidden in J508 for years
to come. The candy-filled eggs should
still be ok but the sashimi-filled ones
should probably be microwaved.

Once again, Sackler Outreach
provided help to those in need at Rosie’s
Place in what has become a regular
Sackler tradition.

The GSC has been working with
the Health and Safety Office to ensure
that our students are up-to-date with
safety policy, and future training programs will incorporate the suggestions
and concerns of our students.

The InSight would like to thank
Marina Freytsis and Rachel Liberman
for serving as GSC President and Vice
President, respectively. Should they seek
political office, the InSight will do its
best to cover up their collective scandals,
such as JaharisGate and all of those nice
Halliburton parties.
Micaella Panessiti
Preparation
I knew I wanted to join the Tufts Marathon Team by the end of my first year as a
Sackler student. I thought that it was the
perfect year, since I was turning 26 the
same month of the marathon (I was actually born on Marathon monday 26 years
prior!) I started training with the team in
September, attending most of their Sunday morning runs. I was officially selected in December. The hardest months of training were in
January and February when the weather was snowy and cold. However, I knew that every Sunday
morning run completed brought me that much closer to my goal of running the marathon. The
Tufts Marathon Team Coach, Don Megerle could not have been any more encouraging, uplifting
and supportive through the hard training months.
The Marathon Run
The day of the marathon promised to be perfect
weather for the event. It was slightly cloudy when we
started, but the sun broke through by the time I made
it to mile 9, where the Tufts families were waiting for
us with signs. My mom held up a sign that read "Go
Micaella! Born on Marathon Monday 1987!" I gave
my dad a hug and quickly sprinted off. I still had 17
miles to go! I felt great physically and mentally right
through Heartbreak Hill where I saw Josh Cordiera
(Recent Tufts graduate/Post-Doc in the Rios lab) at
mile 22. His big cheer and high fives kept me positive.. I was almost done!
From Boston College to the finish line, I finally understood why every person doesn't run a marathon.. It was HARD. My legs felt like lead weights, and
every step was a sharp reminder of how sore I was. However, I knew I was so close to the finish line and that this
was an experience I was never going to forget, so I kept
running! The closer to the finish line I got, the louder the
crowds screamed. Claire Metrick (Biochemistry student)
had 2 big "GO MICAELLA!" signs that I saw, and when I
ran over the only thing I could think to say was "I can't
wait until this is over!" A few miles down the road, I
turned onto Boylston and the crowd was CRAZY! I was
sprinting to the finish line, as "fast" as I could (although in
Page 2
InSackler
InSackler
Thoughts on the 2013 Boston Marathon Continued
retrospect, I was probably not going that fast.) When I finished, I was beyond exhausted, but feeling more elated than I ever had in my
entire life. I couldn't believe I had just RUN the Boston Marathon!
The Explosions
Judging by the time in the background of the last pictures taken of me, I crossed the finish line within a minute of the first bomb explosion. I met the Tufts coach soon after I crossed, and he walked with me for 10-15 steps, congratulating me and quite frankly, helping me
walk. He patted me on the shoulders and said "Great job, now go get a banana and your medal!" 5 seconds later, I heard the boom. The
ground shook and it was so loud that it pounded the inside my chest. I turned around and saw the cloud of dust about 50 yards away and
heard the first screams. My instant reaction was RUN. GET OUT OF THERE! So that's what I did. After running 26 miles, I started
sprinting. From behind me, I heard the second explosion and thought I'VE GOT TO GET OFF THIS STREET! Not knowing if there
were any more bombs, I jumped the barricade and ran perpendicular past the Medical tent. I ran straight to the predetermined location
where I was supposed to meet my parents. Of course, when I got there, I realized that there was no time for my parents to see me finish
(the Tufts bus transported them from mile 9 to the finish) AND make it to the meeting place before me. Panicked, I realized my parents
might have been at the finish line at the blast site. I frantically ran around looking for someone with a cell phone that I could use. 15
minutes of crushing fear and three phone calls and voicemails later, I finally got through to my dad and we soon met at the meeting location. I have never been happier to see them.
It turns out my parents were inside one of the store fronts trying to get closer to the finish line when I crossed it. My dad's cell phone
buzzed with the tracking information that I had finished AS they heard the first explosion. Their reaction was, "Micaella is at the finish
line, so we have to go there." They ran down the street towards the blast site, and they saw the injured people and the blood on the
ground, not knowing if I was safe or not. Police ushered them off the road and away from the carnage, which is when they got my first
voicemail. It took some time for them to travel through the crowds to our meeting place.
Overall, I have tried not to let the tragic events ruin the pride and sense of accomplishment I deserve to feel after running the Boston
Marathon, in less than 4 hours! It's a shame that so many runners didn't get the change to finish. Also, even though I'm constantly reminded of the day, I am appreciative of the positive and supportive outpouring for the victims. It's a day I am never going to forget, and
it has strengthened my relationships with my family and friends who have emotionally supported me since then.
I don't intend on running the Boston Marathon with the Tufts team next year because I'd like another student to have the opportunity to
partake in such a life changing experience. However, I have already signed up for a marathon in the Fall. I'm so proud to be Boston
Strong :)
Sackler Insight
InSackler
Page 3
Tufts’ Ten Year Plan– Where does Sackler Fit?
Jesse Peterson
As most Sackler students and faculty are aware, Tufts University under the leadership of President Monaco and Provost Harris
has been gathering focus groups with the goal of drafting its ten-year development plan. In March, the administration circulated a lofty
Prelude to the Strategic Plan (available here: http://strategicplan.tufts.edu/) in order to give a context to the final report. While the Prelude is
not intended to be a comprehensive blueprint for the administration’s strategy, it does give a summary of the focus group conclusions
and elaborates on Tufts’ mission statement: “Tufts University is a student-centered, research university committed to excellence
in the creation and application of knowledge. Our ethos is inspired by a passion for collaboration, a commitment to accessibility and inclusion, and a drive to innovate. We have profound impact on the world.”
While the Prelude does give an overview of the university-wide goals and objectives, it contains surprisingly few direct references to Sackler students and faculty (The Prelude does speculate on the importance of graduate students as a whole to the success of
Tufts, but Sackler is explicitly mentioned once throughout the entire 40-page document). Outside of a few points on the success of the
Silk bioengineering program and the Carnegie designation of Tufts as a Research University of Very High Activity, most information relevant to Sackler students is restricted to Appendix B: Research and Scholarship. However, Provost Harris and President Monaco have repeatedly stressed the need for student input during the planning process, and they are hoping that the Sackler community will take a more
active role than it has in the past. The focus group conclusions, summarized and interpreted below, identified the following themes as
areas in which to improve Tufts’ research environment:
Improve Departments, Centers and Institutes
Many Sackler students emphasize the collaborative nature of research here
as a key reason for their choosing Sackler. The Prelude points to the proposed Tufts Innovation Institute (TII) as an exciting example of restructuring that would promote opportunities for collaborative research. This
Institute will consist of interdepartmental teams focused on the investigation of Microbes and the Human Condition. By combining efforts across
disciplines, the TII may be more attractive from a federal and private funding standpoint and may foster innovative approaches that would otherwise
be unfeasible. However, it is not yet clear what role Sackler will have in
the TII (Microbiology at the Medical School is mentioned , but Sackler is
never identified in the document printed here: http://ase.tufts.edu/
faculty/meetings/2012-2013/ase/02-06-13/innovation.pdf).
Reevaluate the Current Funding Model to Schools, Centers,
and Institutes to Encourage Large, Interdisciplinary, and
Multicenter Research
Sackler is proud to represent one of the rear legs of Jumbo the
Elephant. We also appreciate knowing exactly which region of our
Although this section is brief, it is of tremendous practical importance to
the Boston campus. As the financial infrastructure of the school struggles mascot is “active.”
to accommodate an increasingly unstable funding environment, removing
financial barriers to collaboration will relieve some of the pressure on individual research groups and will be critical to the success of the
school.
Enhance Infrastructure to Support Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Ties with Industry
Sackler students and faculty may be among the most experienced members of the Tufts community with respect to bridging academic
resources and financial support from the private sector. In addition to our relationships with local and international pharmaceutical and
biotech companies, a quick perusal of the patents granted to Tufts in 2012 (http://www.tufts.edu/central/research/ResearchNews/
patents.htm) reveals a prominent Sackler presence. The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Working Group proposed the following points
to improve Tufts’ ability to tap into these resources, and ideally Tufts administration will call upon our experience when approaching
these proposals:
• creating linked "innovation spaces" on all three campuses;
• expanding the Office for Technology Licensing and Industry Collaboration (OTL&IC) by creating satellite offices on the Medford and Grafton
campuses;
• expanding OTL&IC's business and marketing research efforts to help investigators move their patented and licensed inventions and
technology out into the world with concomitant generation of revenue;
• implementing systematic improvements and updates to websites for faculty/laboratories/centers/institutes to assist the OTL&IC in
attracting external funding and collaborative sources;
• stimulating innovation by an increase in pilot project and invention seed grants;
Pag
S
ck
e l e4r I n S i g h t
InSackler
Newsletter Title
Page 4
InSackler
Tufts’ Ten Year Plan continued
creating a venture fund with outside support to assist entrepreneurship and the bringing life to inventions;
• revising criteria for promotion of faculty to include recognition of innovation in its various forms; and
• recognizing and rewarding innovation in the training progress of graduate students and postdocs.
Expand Support for Research Disciplines and Facilitate Their Application to Interdisciplinary Research
This section of the Prelude continues to expand upon Tufts’ commitment to fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, but importantly it
acknowledges the difficulty inherent in managing these collaborations on a macroscopic scale. If Tufts is too heavy-handed in its approach, restricting our autonomy may diminish the advantage of having specialized schools and departments within the Tufts community.
Increase Existing Ph.D. Programs
This proposal is seemingly in conflict with the current financial climate and it is unclear which schools would be affected.
Expand Graduate Programs in Quantitative Areas
This point speaks directly to a recently-polled concern at Sackler. Increasing faculty and resources devoted to quantitative biology and
statistical analysis will no doubt be of great help to Sackler students and will go far in strengthening Tufts’ reputation as a world-class research university.
Balance of Research and Scholarship with Teaching and Service
This proposal seeks to reward faculty members who give up research time to teach and contribute to program administration. This is
particularly relevant to faculty members in the Sackler school, as nearly every class is taught by professors maintaining active research
laboratories.
Mentoring of Research
This section of the Prelude addresses an issue that is immediately relevant to student training at Sackler. Many Sackler students have
stressed that they would prefer strong mentoring skills among faculty to be rewarded appropriately when considering promotions and
tenure. This would ensure that in addition to financial goals and publication quotas, Tufts would remain committed to providing the best
training possible for future generations of research scientists.
While some of the concerns of Sackler students have been mentioned in the Prelude, it is clear that we must take an active and outspoken
role in contributing to Tufts’ Plan for the Future or else risk becoming increasingly isolated from the Medford campus. With this in
mind, the Sackler GSC responded to the Prelude with a written letter to Provost Harris reprinted on the following page.
Did you know
That the Sackler GSC has funding for new student clubs?
Are you interested in starting a new club or joining an existing one?
Contact your GSC program rep for more information!
Sackler InSight
InSackler
Tufts’ Ten Year Plan continued
Page 5
May 17, 2013
Sackler GSC response to Prelude to The Strategic Plan
Dear Provost Harris,
The graduate student council of the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Research has read and discussed the Prelude to the
Strategic Plan. In response, we have a few comments, concerns, and suggestions:
The prelude discusses sharing of resources and centralization of administration. We think that these concepts could help us
greatly if we were considered in the restructuring. There is an obvious divide between Medford and Boston campuses financially and administratively. Many resources are available on the Medford campus, such as career services, seminars and social events, which we do not
have access to. Ultimately, we feel Sackler students have neither the benefits of the Medford AS&E nor those of the medical school. In
fact, we often feel excluded, as neither members of Tufts University nor Tufts Medical Center/Medical School. We are especially concerned about access to career counseling. It is classically argued that our mentors and committees serve this purpose, but the reality is that
these individuals have chosen to stay in academia and therefore have little real-world knowledge of how to enter any career outside of
academia. Most of our students plan to find jobs in biotech, pharma, consulting, regulatory affairs, etc., but generally do not have the resources to learn about these careers or how to break into them.
We have a few ideas about how these sorts of resources could be shared and fostered. The least that could be done is to give us
access to the career counselors in Medford. Developing better communication between the campuses would also make us feel more connected and expose Sackler to opportunities on the Medford campus, such as seminars. Creating a listserve for all biology/life science students to disseminate information would easily accomplish this. We would also be grateful for assistance in tapping into the alumni network to make connections, generate job prospects and develop career trajectories. Perhaps alumni events could be organized for Sackler
and AS&E students together (perhaps also including graduate students from other schools) to share the resources. Assistance in job
placement would also be appreciated. A good place to start this is to invite local biotech and pharma employers to a job fair that would be
open to students from all campuses. Finally, we think the creation of a centralized graduate student organization would be beneficial to
resource sharing and collaboration. Getting representatives from each graduate school to meet at least a few times per year will help to
identify broad needs and specific places for shared resources, as well as enhance our social networks and comradery.
While we support a unified administration across campuses, we are concerned that totally centralizing administration will be to
our detriment. From what we can tell, “centralizing” will basically move higher-order administration to Medford. We need to maintain
some of this structure on our campus to avoid having important decisions made for us. For example, the closing of the Jaharis café last
year was a financial decision made staff in Medford that few on our campus supported as it took away a resource we highly depended on.
While we see the benefit of streamlining and centralizing administrative costs and resources, we still require some autonomy, as our needs
cannot be accurately determined by people who do not work on our campus.
In regard to faculty tenure decisions, we would like to see the promotion of faculty who are excellent mentors, not just those
who are able to obtain grants and publications. With the current funding situation, it has become increasingly difficult to place our students in labs. It is therefore imperative that the faculty we have are willing to prioritize their funding to educate Sackler students. Additionally, faculty participation on student thesis committees should be rewarded and weighed in promotion decisions.
Finally, many of our students are interested in teaching in the future; however, teaching opportunities seem to be few and far
between on our campus. Few medical school classes require our assistance and we are not invited to TA undergraduate courses. Perhaps
poor communication about the opportunities that do exist is a problem: some programs receive more information about opportunities
than others. We would like to see more teaching opportunities and uniform advertisement of those available to us. Furthermore, we see
the opportunity to TA on the Medford campus as an opportunity for collaboration, which you seek to increase. By exposing undergraduates to our research we can encourage them to include our faculty in the research projects being conducted by Medford faculty, perhaps
through co-mentorship arrangements.
Thank you for taking the time to consider our comments and suggestions as you move forward with the strategic plan for Tufts
University. We would welcome a meeting in person with you if you would like to discuss this further.
Sackler Gradudate Student Council
Marina Freytsis, President
Rachel Liberman, Vice President
Jennifer Hogan, Treasurer
Page 6
InSackler
InSackler
Recent Career Paths Events & Call to Serve
Cecile Rouleau, Neeru Bhardwaj, Catherine Weindel, Jennifer Hogan
Entrepreneurship & academia, private sector career diversity, and emerging
drug development models
Recent Career Paths events included a discussion on May 8 of entrepreneurship
and innovation with William Bachovchin, professor of biochemistry at TUSM/
Sackler & co-founder of Arisaph Pharmaceuticals, Rajendra Kumar-Singh, associate
professor of ophthalmology at TUSM/Sackler & co-founder of Hemera Biosciences,
and Andrew Plaut, research and clinical physician at Tufts Medical Center & founder
of IGAN Biosciences. Panelists shared with the audience their paths to start-up creation through tech transfer, venture capital, angel investment, patent law and discussed
the relationship between faculty inventors and the university.
On April 25, Sackler graduates Whitney Amyot, consultant at Lumleian, Kristin Stephan, medical writer at Vertex, Marina Penney, clinical biomarker lead at Vertex, and Brenda Eustace, associate director of cell & molecular oncology at Vertex, gave advice on networking
and job searches, and discussed day to day life in industry, transitioning to positions off the bench and career progression.
On April 10, Kenneth Kaitin, professor and director of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, gave a seminar cosponsored by Careers Paths and the Tufts Biomedical Business Club on the pressures faced by industry and the changing drug development models. The discussion included the impending patent cliff, the end of the blockbuster drug development model, new partnerships
between companies and between companies and academic centers.
A look back at two years of Career Paths events
Over the past two years, the Career Paths committee of the Sackler Graduate Student Council (SGSC) organized many events where
students learned about the diversity of careers available to life sciences graduates. Topics have included, among others, academic and private sector careers, teaching, research, consulting, business development, entrepreneurship, writing careers and research funding sources.
At the request of students who filled out a survey early this year, the presentation series also included skills seminars such as writing and
presenting. This year Career Paths events were video conferenced, thanks to Ed Media, to permit students from the Maine campus to
attend remotely; the committee has taken this remote connection opportunity to invite students from Medford and Grafton to each
event.
Call for volunteers: get involved!
Three of the four members of Career Paths are ending their two-year term on the GSC this spring. If you like exploring career options
or wish to learn more about particular careers, please consider joining the GSC to organize Career Paths seminars. Since our school
does not offer career services, these student-driven events are our only mechanism to explore professional horizons.
Beyond career seminars, GSC members are busy all year organizing social events, including barbecues and pub crawls, meeting with
librarians to enhance library services, setting up community service opportunities in local schools and homeless shelters, and this year
meeting with university officials, including President Monaco, to provide feedback on the university strategic planning. The GSC is vital
to our school: please get involved!
Career Paths Events: A retrospective of 2011-12 and 2012-13
05/08/2013 ‒ Faculty entrepreneurs
William Bachovchin, Professor of Biochemistry at TUSM/Sackler, Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer & Co-Founder of Arisaph Pharmaceuticals
Andrew Plaut, Research and Clinical Physician & Professor of Medicine at Tufts Medical Center, Founder and
Chief Medical Officer of IGAN Biosciences
Rajendra Kumar-Singh, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Co-Founder of Hemera Biosciences
04/25/2013 ‒ Sackler graduates in industry
Whitney Amyot, Consultant, Lumleian
Kristin Stephan, Medical Writer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals
InSackler
Sackler Insight
Page 7
Career Paths Continued
Marina Penney, Clinical Biomarker Lead, Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Brenda Eustace, Associate Director, Cell & Molecular Oncology, Vertex Pharmaceuticals
04/10/2013 ‒ Current issues in drug development and bioinnovation
Ken Kaitin, Professor and Director of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development
03/19/13 ‒ Writing seminar entitled: “Why we write (well)”
Guillermo Kolter, Professor of Microbiology & Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School
02/11/13 ‒ How to succeed in a foreign country
Masha Fridkis-Hareli, Faculty Emmanuel College, Associate Scientific Director, Taligen Therapeutics (Alexion)
01/30/13 ‒ Presentation skills seminar
Gail Begley, Associate Academic Specialist & Director of Pre-health Program, Northeastern University
10/16/12 ‒ Presentations Providing Career Tools for Scientists: “How to choose your next lab”
Joanne Kames, Executive Director, Addgene
5/10/12 ‒ Academic careers: Sackler graduates in academia
Welkin Johnson, Associate Professor, Boston College
Michael Court, Associate Professor, Tufts Sackler
Maribel Rios, Associate Professor, Tufts, Sackler
4/19/12 ‒ Careers in industry
Shuji Sato, Group Leader, Cell Signaling Technology
Andrew Leger, Sr. Scientist, Rare Diseases, Genzyme/Sanofi
Kouki Harasaki, Director of Finance & Business Development, Novartis
2/27/12 ‒ Funding sources, fellowships and internships
Vicki Johnson, Co-founder, ProFellow.com
2/8/12 ‒ Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research, Presidential Post-doctoral Fellowship Program
W. Ross Tracey, Associate Director
Aaron Nelson, Sr. Investigator II
Sonya Fonseca, Postdoc Fellow
1/25/12 ‒ Entrepreneurship seminar
David Greenwald, Co-founder, Relay Technology Management
Brigham Hyde, Co-founder, Relay Technology Management
Doug McMillin, Founder, Axios Biosciences
Robert McGrath, Founder, Labtiva Inc.
Johannes Fruehauf, Founder, ViThera Laboratories
Anthony Baldor, Director, ViThera Laboratories
12/7/11 ‒ Overview of careers in life sciences
Lauren Celano, CEO and Founder, Propel Careers
11/16/11 ‒ Industry research: Tufts graduates
Jill Donelan, Scientist II, Millenium Pharmaceuticals
Maryann Giel-Moloney, Director, Sanofi Pasteur
Aaron Nelson, Sr. Investigator II, Novartis
InSackler
Sackler InSight
Page 8
Science News
Jesse Peterson
See-through Brains. Next up, Crystal Skulls
A group of researchers at Stanford University/HHMI led by Karl Deisseroth have developed a method to render tissue optically transparent. This method, aptly named CLARITY, employs a detergent (SDS) and electrophoresis to remove lipids that would otherwise
block the passage of light, while at the same time preserving tissue structure by hybridizing proteins with monomeric acrylamide. This
process effectively replaces the cell membranes with a hydrogel that is permeable to both light and to molecular probes. Perhaps the
most striking example of CLARITY's promise is that researchers may now visualize entire neural circuits within intact whole brain.
+
=
Official NIH Budget Cuts Announced; Welcome to the Red Wedding.
As budget cuts continue to push academic researchers into a corner, the official figures of the 2013 NIH budget cuts have been released. As a result of the recent sequester, the budget was reduced by $1.55 billion, a 5% decrease from 2012. NIH has been forced to
eliminate 1300+ grants from the original 34,900 that would have be awarded this year, including 700+ that would have been new competing grants. Existing awards have in many cases been reduced by around 10%, and the NIH has been hesitant to suggest that those awards
may ever return to their original amounts. Starting with grants awarded in 2012, NIH will no longer increase yearly amounts to accommodate for inflation. The NIH currently invests nearly $30.9 billion annually in medical research, 80% of which goes directly to extramural research grants. In its current state, the FY2014 budget proposed by the White House would seek to modestly increase the overall
NIH grant budget to $31.33 billion with major emphasis on new-and-competing grants.
HIDE YOUR CHILDREN FROM CICADAPOCALYPSE
2013 sees the return of the Brood II 17-year periodical cicadas, which are estimated to number in the tens of billions. The familiar cicada
mating call, produced by males vibrating a drum-like appendage against their abdomen, may reach 100 decibels. Nymph cicadas emerge,
shed their crunchy brown exoskeletons, mate, lay eggs, and die within the span of a few weeks. The young produced by this mating cycle
will then burrow back into the ground and remain their for another 17 years. Researchers have recently determined that cicadas can periodically switch between 13 and 17 year cycles, and individual cicadas seem able to adapt to the cycle of their surrounding brood, though
the mechanism behind this switch remains poorly understood.
Pag
S
ck
e l e9r I n S i g h t
InSackler
Newsletter Title
Page 9
Spelunking with PPET
Emmanuel Pothos
Photography credits: Christina Deliyiannis, Malek Najjar, Keluo Yao,
Emmanuel Pothos
As part of the effort to appreciate the place we all live in and
work and to refresh our daily routine with outdoor activities,
PPET graduate students Hussein Babsail, Christina Deliyiannis,
Amanda Gross, Malek Najjar and his wife Souad, MBS student
Stefania Buonocore, TUSM medical student Keluo Yao, PPET
program director Emmanuel Pothos and a group of MIT students visited the Clarksville cave in upstate New York on November 10, 2012. This was the second trip from Tufts University
to the cave, as Yao and Pothos also led a team of TUSM medical
students to a similar trip a couple of years ago. Through safety
and lighting equipment provided by the Boston Grotto of the
National Speleological Society and permission granted by the
Northeastern Cave Conservancy, the owner of the cave, to Boston Grotto members Emmanuel Pothos and Keluo Yao, the
group of 19 people
The famous Lake room near the North entrance. Water
entered the cave
is on the average 12’ deep depending on the season.
through the Ward
(main) entrance and were able to successfully explore all three separate
passages leading to the North entrance and its serene lake room, the
Gregory entrance and the Thook entrance.
Passages to the Gregory and Thook entrance are characterized by tight
squeezes (two of them are appropriately named “chest compressor” and
“cork screw”) and often traversing in waist-high water. This is a cave
ideal for beginner cavers due to the tight crawlways and water stream
passageways often measuring seven feet high and fifteen feet wide. No
rappelling is required , it is strictly a horizontal caving location. It is rare
for a single group to cover all sections of the cave in one 4-hour visit as
the Tufts group did. Clarksville Cave is located in the center of the village of Clarksville in Albany County, upstate NY, about 4 hours from
Boston by car. Its 4800 feet of non-commercialized passages are usually
A healthy hibernating bat hanging from the
accessed through a small boulder-rimmed sinkhole. Historically and still
ceiling of the cave near the Lake room. A sig- today, the cave has served as an important recreational, business and scinificant photo of sorts as bats are not regularly entific resource for the community. A steady stream of adventurers have
observed in Clarksville Cave and bat colonies explored Clarksville Cave since at least 1811. Today, caver traffic is
in the Northeast were recently reduced in size found in the cave every weekend and some evenings. In the last several
because of the White Nose syndrome..
years, significant progress has been made on the detailed hydrologic, bio-
Sackler InSight
InSackler
Page 10
Spelunking with PPET Continued
logic and geologic analysis of the cave and its tributary watershed. During our trip, we were fortunate to observe
and photograph bats in hibernation and managed to locate some inscriptions from the 1800s. The trip ended with
dinner at the historic June’s diner right next to the cave entrance.
Top row: Left: Amanda, Christina and Stefania in the Perry Avenue section of Clarksville Cave.
Center: Amanda, in almost sparkling clean white, after the exit from the cave. It is not clear what is in the boot.
Right: Hussein ready to tackle the Ward entrance of Clarksville Cave.
Bottom Row: Left: Christina, crawling in a tight passage in the Ward section of the cave.
Center: Stefania exiting the cave.
Right: Malek and Souad keep up the good spirits near the Ward entrance.
InSackler
Sackler InSight
Page 11
Summer Events Calendar
Whether you are looking for a break from
the summer heat or you need to lay low
until the Stewart Gardner case goes cold
again, the Insight has you covered.
"The Jeweled Net: Views of Contemporary Holography"
Bruno Mars + Fitz & The Tantrums
June 5 Through Sept 28 @ MIT Museum
in Inman Square
Opening Night at Tanglewood: AllTchaikovsky Program
Theater and Art:
Toshio Shibata
July 5 @ Tanglewood
Alan Uglow: Standards and Portraits
June 5 Through Oct 6 @ Peabody Essex
Museum in Salem
June 5 Through July 14 @ MIT List Visual
Arts Center in CAMBRIDGE
A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood with Garrison Keillor
"Art of the White Mountains"
June 29 @ Tanglewood
June 5 Through July 7 @ Museum of Fine
Arts in Mission Hill
Music:
Barry McGee
The Postal Service
June 5 Through Sept 2 @ Institute of
Contemporary Art in
Waterfront
June 12 @ Bank of America Pavilion in
Waterfront
"Brilliant Beginnings: The Athenaeum and the Museum
in Boston"
June 5 Through Aug 3
@ Boston Athenæum
in Downtown
"Character Study"
Twin Shadow + Elliphant
June 26 @ TD Garden in Downtown
An emotional Beyonce waves stick at TD
Garden crowd.
June 12 @ Paradise Rock Club in Boston
Son Volt
June 13 @ Paradise Rock Club in Boston
Mikal Cronin
June 17 @ Great Scott in Allston-Brighton
Barry McGee
Big Boi
Mahler Symphony No. 3
July 6 @ Tanglewood
Belle and Sebastian + Yo La Tengo
July 9 @ Bank of America Pavilion in Waterfront
June 5 Through March 31 @ DeCordova
Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln
June 19 @ Paradise Rock Club in Boston
Man or Astro-Man? + Jacuzzi Boys
Beyoncé: "The Mrs. Carter Show
World Tour"
"Chinese Lacquer 1200–1800"
June 19 @ The Sinclair in Cambridge
July 23 @ TD Garden in Downtown
June 5 Through Sept 8 @ Museum of Fine
Arts in Mission Hill
Fleetwood Mac
New Kids on the Block + 98 Degrees +
Boyz II Men
Dead Sea Scrolls: Life in Ancient
Times
Sting
July 25 @ Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester
June 21 @ Bank of America Pavilion in
Waterfront
Jay Z & Justin Timberlake: Legends of
Summer Tour
June 5 Through Oct 14 @ Museum of
Science in Boston
June 21 @ Comcast Center in Mansfield
"Divine Depictions: Korean Buddhist
Paintings"
Aug 10 @ Fenway Park in Fenway
Bill Cosby
June 5 Through 23 @ Museum of Fine
Arts in Mission Hill
Dec 1 @ Wilbur Theatre in Theater District
"Jewels, Gems, and Treasures: Ancient
to Modern"
Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte
June 5 Through June 1 2014 @ Museum
of Fine Arts in Mission Hill
The Boston Pops performs a Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration
Michelangelo: Michelangelo: Sacred
and Profane, Master Drawings from
the Casa Buonarroti
June 22 @ Tanglewood
June 5 Through 30 @ Museum of Fine
Arts in Mission Hill
"Wilco's Solid Sound Festival Day 1"
with The Relatives + White Denim +
Yo La Tengo
June 21 @ MASS MoCA in North Adams
June 27 @ The Great Hall, Faneuil Hall
Tanglewood Music Center - Brass Extravaganza
June 30 @ Tanglewood
Page 12
InSackler
InSackler
Tufts Biomedical Business Club
Bina Julian
Bringing You the Business Side of
Science Since 2008
--
The Tufts Biomedical Business Club (TBBC) is an active, business-oriented organization
made up of PhD, MD, and MD/MBA students. Our main mission is to educate our members
on the business implications of their research and the career opportunities that exist beyond the bench. This year, to further our mission, we launched the TBBC LinkedIn group
and the TBBC Case Study Group (see below for more details). Our invited speakers came
from a wide range of backgrounds and enterprises, but with one common thread – they all
obtained their doctorate and made the transition from the bench to business. Several of
our guests were vice presidents or senior executives, sharing incredibly unique and valuable perspectives with the TBBC audience. We are looking forward to crafting next year’s
event line up and are looking for more speakers. If you know a Tufts alum, friend, colleague or acquaintance who’d share advice and their story of transitioning from the bench
to business contact a TBBC Executive Committee member! As always, the entire Tufts
community is welcome to join TBBC and attend our many events. We hope to see you
there!
InSackler
Sackler InSight
Page 13
Tufts Biomedical Business Club Continued
On September 10th, 2012 TBBC’s LinkedIn group page
was launched. Our membership continues to grow daily as
more Tufts graduate and medical students, postdocs, and alum
connect with us. Our members actively share links to events,
articles, career fairs and more.
Join our network today!
TBBC’s Case Study Group
Led by Colleen McNamara since its start in January 2013, each week the CSG examined a new framework for solving consulting cases. Adam Wieschhaus will take on CSG lead this summer, so contact him
if you are interested in participating!
Meet TBBC’s Executive Committee:
Sohini Mazumdar
Colleen McNamara
Michael Baldwin
Faith WallaceGadsden
Jennifer Nwankwo
Andrew Coppage
Bina Julian
Sackler InSight
InSackler
Page 14
Sackler School Events Calendar
June 11
Biochem Research Seminar Cecile Rouleau
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
June 11
Micro Research Report Stephanie Mitchell
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
June 12
Gene, Immuno, Micro Seminar - Bryan Krantz
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
June 13
Micro Research Report - Elsa
Bou Ghanem
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
June 13
PPET open Thesis Committee Meeting - Diane Guerrero
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
June 14
27th Annual Joseph H. Nicholson, MD Lecture
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
June 18
Micro Research Report Neeru Bhardwaj
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
June 20
Micro Research Report - Tena
Rolan
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
June 25
Micro Research Report - Eddie Geisinger
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
June 26
Gene, Immuno, Micro Semi-
nar - Kyu Rhee
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
June 28
MORI Seminar Series - Sorab
Dalal
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
July 2
Micro Research Report - Priya
Vanaja
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
July 26
SACKLER RELAYS!!!!!!!!!
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOO
September 9
CMP Seminar - Lars Dreier
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
September 25
Erin’s Corner
Have you ever stumbled onto a moldy plate, only to marvel
in the beauty of the contaminant?
You’re not alone!
Visit beautifulmold.tumblr.com for more
examples of, well, beautiful mold!
And join the fun by e-mailing your own beautiful mold
submissions to erin.green@tufts.edu
Gene, Immuno, Micro Seminar - David Friedman
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
October 3
5th Annual Neuroscience
Symposium & William Shucart Lecture
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
October 16
Gene, Immuno, Micro Seminar - Peter Turnbaugh
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
November 6
8th Annual Jeffrey M. Isner,
MD Endowed Memorial Lectureship
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
InSackler
Sackler InSight
Page 15
Department News and Publications
Sorry if we missed you! EMAIL US
FOR NEXT TIME!!!
try. 2013 Jan 15;3:e212.
tored by Dr. Alan Kopin.
Neuroscience
Jacob TC, Michels G, Silayeva
L, Haydon J, Succol F, Moss SJ.
2012. Benzodiazepine treatment
induces subtype-specific changes in GABAA receptor trafficking and decreases synaptic inhibition. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA
109: 18595-18600.
Jennifer Nwankwo, mentored by
Dr. Athar Chishti, was selected
as one of the three 2013 nominees from Tufts University for
an HHMI International Student
Research Fellowship. The proposal focused on validation of
therapeutic targets for sickle cell
disease.
Neuroscience welcomes new
students Andrew Coleman,
Matthew Kelley, Manasa Parakala, Amy Shafqat, and
Michaela Tolman!
Cinzia Metallo (graduate student in Barry Trimmer’s lab)
won first place in the Tufts
$100K Business Plan Competition last week. Her project
name is Myoelectra and involves an electromyographic
device specifically designed to
record activity from facial muscles.
Thomas Papouin, PhD
(postdoc in Phil Haydon’s lab)
was awarded a 3 years grant
from the Human Frontier Science Program.
Congratulations to Neuro student Tyler Hickman on his recent marriage!
Kathleen (Katie) Griffin joined
the Neuroscience Department
in mid-January as our new Staff
Assistant.
Megan Morgove has left the
Center for Neuroscience Research (CNR) to move to Portland, Oregon (and will be dearly
missed). Kimberly Maguschak
is her replacement and will be
starting on May 1st as the new
CNR Manager.
PPET
The Board of Trustees has approved the Master’s of Science
in Pharmacology and Drug Development degree program proposed by PPET. The new 2-year
degree curriculum and training
opportunities in the basic and
clinical science of Pharmacology
are designed to attract diverse
categories of candidates, including international students and
candidates from the pharmaceutical industry. Acquiring research experience is one of the
prime objectives of the new
degree curriculum. The inaugural class for the new degree will
start ing Fall 2013. Related links:
http://sackler.tufts.edu/
Academics/Degree-Programs/
MS-Programs/PharmacologyandDrug-Development-Microsite
http://now.tufts.edu/newsreleases/tufts-universityintroduces-new-master’s-prog
Goodwin PR, Juo P. 2013. The
scaffolding protein SYD-2/
Liprin-α regulates the mobility
and polarized distribution of
dense-core vesicles in C. elegans
motor neurons. PLoS One.
2013;8(1):e54763.
The program welcomed Christina Deliyiannis, Amanda Gross
and Alexandra Taracanova in
Fall 2012 as the incoming Ph.D.
candidates. The class is progressing well through course
requirements and currently prepares for the qualifier examination.
Hines DJ, Schmitt LI, Hines
RM, Moss SJ, Haydon PG.
2013. Antidepressant effects of
sleep deprivation require astrocyte-dependent adenosine mediated signaling. Transl Psychia-
The program also welcomed
second-year student Bina Julian,
who transferred from Neuroscience to PPET in order to pursue her interests in the pharmacology of GPCRs. Bina is men-
2013 Sterling Visiting Professorship
and Lecture in Honor of late Dean L.
Lasagna: On March 14, 2013,
PPET invited Dr. Irving Kirsch,
Professor of Psychology at
Plymouth University, UK and
Associate Director of the Program in Placebo Studies at Harvard Medical School and Beth
Israel Deaconess Medical Center, as the Sterling Visiting Professor and Lecturer to visit
TUSM and give a widely attended lecture on
“The Emperor's New Drugs:
Medication and Placebo in the
Treatment of Depression”.
This year’s seminar topic was in
tune with the longtime research
interests of the late Professor
and Dean Louis Lasagna, in
whose honor the Sterling lecture
takes place on an annual basis.
Asadi S, Alysandratos KD, Angelidou A, Miniati A, Sismanopoulos N, Vasiadi M,
Zhang B, Kalogeromitros D,
Theoharides TC. 2012. Substance P (SP) induces expression
of functional corticotropinreleasing hormone receptor-1
(CRHR-1) in human mast cells. J
Invest Dermatol. 132: 324-329.
Greenblatt DJ, Zhao Y, Hanley
MJ, Chen C, Harmatz JS, Cancalon PF, Gmitter FG Jr. 2012.
Mechanism-based inhibition of
human Cytochrome P450-3A
activity by grapefruit hybrids
having low furanocoumarin content. Xenobiotica. 42: 11631169.
Hanley MJ, Masse G, Harmatz JS, Court MH, Greenblatt DJ. 2012. Pomegranate
juice and pomegranate extract
do not impair oral clearance of
flurbiprofen in human volunteers: Divergence from in vitro
results. Clin Pharmacol Ther.
92: 651-657.
Hanley MJ, Masse G, Harmatz JS, Cancalon PF, Dolnikowski GG, Court MH,
Greenblatt DJ. 2012. Effect of
blueberry juice on clearance of
buspirone and flurbiprofen in
human volunteers. Br J Clin
Pharmacol. 2013 Apr;75
(4):1041-52.
Oakes B, Hoagland-Henefield
M, Komaroff AL, Erickson
JL, Huber BT. 2013. Human
endogenous retrovirus-K18
superantigen expression and
human herpesvirus-6 and human herpesvirus-7 viral loads
in chronic fatigue patients.
Clin Infect Dis. 2013 May;56
(10):1394-400.
Sismanopoulos N, Delivanis
DA, Alysandratos KD, Angelidou A, Vasiadi M, Therianou
A, Theoharides TC. 2012. IL-9
induces VEGF secretion from
human mast cells and IL-9/IL
-9 receptor genes are overexpressed in atopic dermatitis.
PLoS One. 2012;7(3):e33271.
Zhang B, Asadi S, Weng Z,
Sismanopoulos N, Theoharides TC. 2012. Stimulated
human mast cells secrete mitochondrial components that
have autocrine and paracrine
inflammatory actions. PLoS
One. 2012;7(12):e49767.
InSackler
Sackler InSight
Page 16
Sackler News & Pubs continued
Microbiology
De Jesús DA, O'Connor TJ,
Isberg RR. 2013. Analysis of
Legionella infection using RNAi
in Drosophila cells. Methods
Mol Biol. 954: 251-264.
De Jesús DA, O'Connor TJ,
Isberg RR. 2012. Analysis of
Legionella Infection Using RNAi
in Drosophila Cells. Methods
Mol Biol. 954: 251-264.
Harmon DE, Murphy JL,
Davis AJ, Mecsas J. 2013. A
mutant with aberrant extracellular LcrV-YscF interactions fails
to form pores and translocate
Yops, but retains the ability to
trigger Yop secretion in response to host cell contact. J
Bacteriol. 2013 May;195
(10):2244-54.
Henzy JE, Coffin JM. 2013.
Betaretroviral envelope subunits are noncovalently associated and restricted to the mammalian class. J Virol. 87: 19371946..
Klein BA, Tenorio EL,
Lazinski DW, Camilli A, Duncan MJ, Hu LT. 2012. Identification of essential genes of the
periodontal pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis. BMC Genomics. 2012 Oct 31;13:578.
Mittal M, Pechter KB, Picossi
S, Kim HJ, Kerstein KO,
Sonenshein AL. 2013. Dual role
of CcpC protein in regulation
of aconitase gene expression in
Listeria monocytogenes and
Bacillus subtilis. Microbiology
159 (Pt 1): 68-76.
Pechter KB, Meyer FM, Serio
AW, Stülke J, Sonenshein AL.
2013. Two roles for aconitase in
the regulation of tricarboxylic
acid branch gene expression in
Bacillus subtilis. J Bacteriol. 195:
1525-1537.
Pierce JV, Dignard D, Whiteway M, Kumamoto CA. 2012.
Normal adaptation of Candida
albicans to the murine GI tract
requires Efg1p-dependent regulation of metabolic and host
defense genes. Eukaryot Cell.
2013 Jan;12(1):37-49.
Kwon H, Sun L, Cairns DM,
Rainbow RS, Preda RC,
Kaplan DL, Zeng L. 2013.
The influence of scaffold material on chondrocytes in inflammatory conditions. Acta
Biomater. 2013 May;9(5):656375.
CMDB
McGraw AP, Bagley J, Chen
W-S, Galayda C, Nickerson H,
Armani A, Caprio M, Carmeliet P, Jaffe IZ, 2013. Aldosterone increases early atherosclerosis and promotes
plaque inflammation through a
placental growth factordependent mechanism. J Am
Heart Assoc. 2013 Feb 22;2
(1):e000018.
Congratulations to Sana Mujahid for successfully defending
her thesis!
Congratulations to Professor
Jim Schwob on being named to
the NIH Council of Councils!
Barrett K, McCurley A, Jaffe
IZ. 2013. Direct contribution of
vascular mineralocorticoid receptors to blood pressure regulation. Clin Exp Pharmacol
Physiol. 2013 May 25.
Diskin S, Chen WS, Cao Z,
Gyawali S, Gong H, Soza A,
González A, Panjwani N. 2012.
Galectin-8 promotes cytoskeletal rearrangement in trabecular
meshwork cells through activation of Rho signaling. PLoS
One 7: e44400.
Hatini V, Kula E, Nusinow D,
Del Signore SJ. 2013. Essential
roles for stat92E in expanding
and patterning theproximodistalaxis of the Drosophila
wing imaginal disc. Dev Biol.
2013 Jun 1;378(1):38-50.
Hewitt KJ, Garlick JA. 2012.
Cellular reprogramming to reset
epigenetic signatures. Mol Aspects Med. 2013 Jul-Aug;34
(4):841-8.
Krolewski RC, Packard A,
Jang W, Wildner H, Schwob JE.
2012. Ascl1 (mash1) knockout
perturbs differentiation of
nonneuronal cells in olfactory
epithelium. PLoS One 7:
e51737.
Myers RB, Rwayitare K,
Richey L, Lem J, Castellot JJ
Jr. 2012. CCN5 Expression in
mammals. III. Early embryonic mouse development. J Cell
Commun Signal. 6: 217-223.
Mujahid S, Nielsen HC,
Volpe MV. 2013. MiR-221 and
miR-130a regulate lung airway
and vascular development.
PLoS One. 2013;8(2):e55911.
Rainbow RS, Kwon H, Foote
AT, Preda RC, Kaplan DL,
Zeng L. 2013. Muscle cellderived factors inhibit inflammatory stimuli-induced damage in hMSC-derived chondrocytes. Osteoarthritis Cartilage.
2013 Apr 20. pii: S1063-4584
(13)00771-1.
Zhu C, Gupta A, Hall VL,
Rayla AL, Christensen RG,
Dake B, Lakshmanan A, Kuperwasser C, Stormo GD,
Wolfe SA. 2013. Using defined
finger-finger interfaces as units
of assembly for constructing
zinc-finger nucleases. Nucleic
Acids Res. 2013 Feb 1;41
(4):2455-65.
Biochemistry
Congratulations to Colleen
McNamara for successfully
defending her thesis!
Ezell SA, Tsichlis PN. 2012.
Akt1, EMSY, BRCA2 and type
I IFN signaling: A novel arm of
the IFN response. Transcription. 2012 Nov 1;3(6).
Ezell SA, Polytarchou C, Hatziapostolou M, Guo A, Sanidas
I, Bihani T, Comb MJ, Sourvinos G, Tsichlis PN. 2012. The
protein kinase Akt1 regulates
the interferon response through
phosphorylation of the transcriptional repressor EMSY.
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 109:
E613-621.
McNamara CR, Ahuja R,
Osafo-Addo AD, Barrows D,
Kettenbach A, Skidan I, Teng
X, Cuny GD, Gerber S, Degterev A. 2013. Akt regulates TNFα
synthesis downstream of RIP1
kinase activation during necroptosis. PLoS One. 2013;8
(3):e56576.
Stampfer SD, Heldwein EE.
2013. Stuck in the middle:
structural insights into the role
of the gH/gL heterodimer in
herpesvirus entry. Curr Opin
Virol. 3: 13-19.
Theoharides TC, Asadi S, Patel
AB. 2013. Focal brain inflammation and autism. J Neuroinflammation. J Neuroinflammation. 2013 Apr 9;10:46.
Vitu E, Sharma S, Stampfer
SD, Heldwein EE. 2013. Extensive mutagenesis of the HSV
-1 gB ectodomain reveals remarkable stability of its postfusion form. J Mol Biol. J Mol
Biol. 2013 Jun 12;425(11):205671.
Sackler InSight
InSackler
Page 17
Sackler News & Pubs continued
Physiology
This year’s J. Fred “Paulo” Dice
Memorial lecture was given on
Friday, April 12, 2013. The
speaker was Susan L. Lindquist,
PhD, Professor of Biology at
MIT & a member of the Whitehead Institute.
Her lecture was entitled: “The
multifaceted protein folding
problem: Intersection with cancer biology and therapeutics”.
The Dice Memorial lecture is
given in honor of Dr. Dice, professor Emeritus and a member
of Physiology for 24 years.
Liberman R, Cotter K, Baleja J,
Forgac M. 2013. Structural Analysis of the N-terminal Domain
of Subunit a of the Yeast Vacuolar ATPase (V-ATPase) Using
Accessibility of Single Cysteine
Substitutions to Chemical Modification. JBC 2013 June 5.
Immunology
Congratulations to Daniel
Aridgides for successfully defending his thesis!
broblasts while exploiting TrkA
for cardioprotection against oxidative stress. Cell Microbiol.
2013 Feb 16.
Blum AM, Hang L, Setiawan T,
Urban JP Jr, Stoyanoff KM,
Leung J, Weinstock JV. 2012.
Heligmosomoides polygyrus bakeri
induces tolerogenic dendritic
cells that block colitis and prevent antigen-specific gut T cell
responses. J Immunol. 189: 2512
-2520.
Larkin BM, Smith PM, Ponichtera HE, Shainheit MG,
Rutitzky LI, Stadecker MJ. 2012.
Induction and regulation of
pathogenic Th17 cell responses
in schistosomiasis. Semin Immunopathol. 34: 873-888.
Leung J, Hang L, Blum A, Setiawan T, Stoyanoff K, Weinstock J. 2012. Heligmosomoides
polygyrus abrogates antigenspecific gut injury in a murine
model of inflammatory bowel
disease. Inflamm Bowel Dis.
Inflamm Bowel Dis. 2012
Aug;18(8):1447-55.
Aridgides D, Salvador R, Pereiraperrin M. 2013. Trypanosoma cruzi coaxes cardiac fibroblasts into preventing cardiomyocyte death by activating nerve
Growth Factor Receptor TrkA.
PLoS One. 2013;8(2):e57450.
Petnicki-Ocwieja T, Chung E,
Acosta DI, Ramos LT, Shin OS,
Ghosh S, Kobzik L, Li X, Hu
LT. 2012. TRIF mediates TLR2
dependent inflammatory responses to Borrelia burgdorferi.
Infect Immun. 2013 Feb;81
(2):402-10.
Aridgides D, Salvador R, Pereiraperrin M. 2013. Trypanosoma
cruzi highjacks TrkC to enter
cardiomyocytes and cardiac fi-
Smith PA, Merritt D, Barr L,
Thorley-Lawson DA. 2011. An
orthotopic model of metastatic
nasopharyngeal carcinoma and
its application in elucidating a
therapeutic target that inhibits
metastasis. Genes Cancer. 2:
1023-1033.
Thorley-Lawson DA, Hawkins
JB, Tracy SI, Shapiro M. 2013.
The pathogenesis of EpsteinBarr virus persistent infection.
Curr Opin Virol. 2013 May 15.
pii: S1879-6257(13)00057-6.
Tracy SI, Kakalacheva K, Lünemann JD, Luzuriaga K, Middeldorp J, Thorley-Lawson DA.
2012. Persistence of EpsteinBarr virus in self-reactive
memory B cells. J Virol. 86:
12330-12340.
Genetics
Glucuronosyltransferase
(UGT) 1A polymorphism
c.2042C.G (rs8330) is associated with increased human
liver acetaminophen glucuronidation, increased
UGT1A Exon 5a/5b splice
variant mRNA ratio, and
decreased risk of unintentional acetaminophen-induced
acute liver failures. J Pharmacol Exp Ther. 345: 297-307.
Foley CJ, Fanjul-Fernández
M, Bohm A, Nguyen N,
Agarwal A, Austin K, Koukos G, Covic L, López-Otín
C, Kuliopulos A. 2013. Matrix metalloprotease 1a deficiency suppresses tumor
growth and angiogenesis.
Oncogene. 2013 May 27.
Harwood BN, Fortin JP,
Gao K, Chen C, Beinborn M,
Kopin AS. 2013. Membrane
tethered bursicon constructs
as heterodimeric modulators
Austin KM, Covic L, Kuliopulos A. 2012. Matrix metalloprote- of the Drosophila GPCR
ases and PAR1 activation. Blood. rickets. Mol Pharmacol. 83:
814-821.
121: 431-439.
Congratulations to Xinxin Sun
and Karyn Austin for successfully completing their PhDs!
Cingöz O, Paprotka T, DelviksFrankenberry KA, Wildt S, Hu
WS, Pathak VK, Coffin JM.
2012. Characterization, mapping
and distribution of the two
XMRV parental proviruses. J
Virol. 86: 328-338.
Court MH, Freytsis M, Wang
X, Peter I, Guillemette C,
Hazarika S, Duan SX, Greenblatt
DJ, Lee WM; Acute Liver Failure
Study Group. 2013.The UDP-
Luo C, Sheng J, Hu MG,
Haluska FG, Cui R, Xu Z,
Tsichlis PN, Hu GF, Hinds
PW. 2013. Loss of ARF sensitizes transgenic
BRAFV600E mice to UVinduced melanoma via suppression of XPC. Cancer Res.
2013 May 6.
Sackler InSight
InSackler
Page 18
Now for Real Science: Horoscopes
Samantha You, Spiritual Guide
Taurus (April 21-May 21): Are you running a western blot? You will want to be extra careful otherwise a bubble might appear right over your band of interest.
Gemini (May 22-June 20): Take care not to yell at your experiment or you’ll suffer grave
consequences. Your rodents might bite, your cells may die, and your worms may crawl away.
Cancer (June 21-July 22): Sit strategically during your next lab meeting. Being in the direct
line of sight could lead to questions you are not ready for.
Leo (July 23-Aug 22): If you are trying to prioritize between experiments, take care not to leave the easy ones last. A disturbing result
there could ruin everything.
Virgo (Aug 23-Sept 22): If you in the middle of analyzing data, don’t forget to save and backup your data. Electronics are not on your
side.
Libra (Sept 23-Oct 22): A situation will arise where your opinion will be needed. Seize this opportunity to make everyone realize how
brilliant you are.
Scorpio (Oct 23-Nov 21): Don’t revel in the misfortune of others. Staying quiet could lead to exciting opportunities for your own career.
Sagittarius (Nov 22-Dec 21): You will make excellent progress on your favorite project, especially if you are imaging. A surprise microscopy session will yield great things.
Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 20): If you plan on doing repetitive pipetting soon, be sure to clear your mind of other matters. If your mind
wanders, so will your experiment.
Aquarius (Jan 21-Feb 18): You will be especially lucky with your next experiment. Choose carefully and have fun!
Pisces (Feb 19-March 20): While your research may feel stagnant, a breakthrough is around the corner. Listen to your colleagues and
you will find an answer.
Aries (March 21-April 20): You will be very conflicted about where to eat lunch next. Always choose dumplings over pizza.