Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology
Points of Interest
January, 2013
Honors and Awards
Angela Arensdorf (Rutkowski Lab) was awarded a $300 Travel award from the
Graduate Student Senate to attend the annual American Society for Cell Biology
meeting in San Francisco, December 15-19.
Dr. John Engelhardt was the recipient of the following honor and award:
The 2012 University of Iowa Graduate College Fall Commencement Address
The 2012 Liupan Mountain Friendship Award, Ningxia Foreign Experts Bureau, Ningxia,
P.R.C. (Commends foreign experts for their contributions to Ningxia's economic
construction.)
John Fisher (Graduate Student, Engelhardt Lab) successfully passed his thesis
defense on October 29 in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. The title of his
thesis was "Ferret CFTR Processing and Function."
Chris Groen (Tootle Lab) won one of the poster awards at the MCB Retreat on October
27th at the Brick Arch Winery. His poster was entitled “Drosophila nurse cell dumping
reveals a novel interaction between prostaglandin signaling and Fascin.”
Chris also received an ASCB travel award to attend the 2012 American Society for Cell
Biology meeting in San Francisco, CA, December 15-19.
Laura Rogers (Graduate Student, Dupuy Lab) successfully passed her thesis defense
on October 30 in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. The title of her thesis
was "Cancer Gene Discovery and Immunosurveillance Studies Using Sleeping Beauty
Mouse Modes."
Andrew Spracklen (Tootle Lab) won the best talk award at the MCB Retreat on
October 27th at the Brick Arch Winery. His talk was entitled “Calling the Shots:
Prostaglandins Temporally and Spatially Regulate Actin Remodeling During Drosophila
Nurse Cell Dumping.”
Scott Tyler (Engelhardt Lab) won one of the poster awards at the MCB Retreat on
October 27th at the Brick Arch Winery. His poster was entitled "Spontaneous Dominant
Genetic Alteration in Inbred C57BL6 ΔF508/ΔF508 Mice Protects From Death At
Weaning."
Appointments
Drs. Darren Hoffmann and Nathan Swailes were appointed as Co-Course Directors
for the Foundations Course in the new Medical Curriculum to start in the Fall of 2014.
Dr. Justin Sipla was appointed as a Co-Course Director for the MOHD 2 Course in the
new Medical Curriculum to start in the Fall of 2014.
Special Presentations/Seminars
Angela Arensdorf (Rutkowski Lab) presented a poster entitled, "Transcriptional
repression and the Unfolded Protein Response: The role of C/EBPB in regulating Il4ra
expression during endoplasmic reticulum stress” at the annual American Society for Cell
Biology meeting in San Francisco, December 15-19.
Dr. John Engelhardt presented “Genetic Modeling of Lung Diseases in the Domestic
Ferret” at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, January, 2013.
Chris Groen (Tootle Lab) was selected to give a platform presentation at the Midwest
Drosophila meeting entitled, “Drosophila nurse cell dumping reveals a novel interaction
between prostaglandin signaling and Fascin” by Christopher Groen, Andrew Spracklen,
Tiffany Fagan and Tina Tootle. The meeting was in Monticello, IL, on November 2-3.
Dr. Tina Tootle taught a Developmental Reproduction class at Magee and gave a
seminar at the Magee Women’s Research Institute’s Work in Progress Seminar on
“Prostaglandins – master regulators of actin remodeling” in Pittsburgh, PA, on October
8th.
News relating to projects
The new Gross Anatomy Laboratory technology upgrade is now fully operational. It
includes video recording capability through the lab and a touchscreen which centrally
controls 8 new flat-panel monitors, higher-efficiency lighting and audio/video feeds. The
project was headed up by Dr. Justin Sipla, and has been an ongoing collaborative
project of ACB faculty and staff and a large team of university experts and outside
contractors over the last two years.
The following papers were published by faculty in the department from October until
present. If you have an article that has been published, but it is not listed here, please
submit it to Laurie Jewell in the main office for inclusion in the next newsletter.
Dr. Botond Banfi
Pezzulo AA, Tang XX, Hoegger MJ, Alaiwa MH, Ramachandran S, Moninger TO, Karp
PH, Wohlford-Lenane CL, Haagsman HP, van Eijk M, Banfi B, Horswill AR, Stoltz DA,
McCray PB, Jr., Welsh MJ, Zabner J. 2012. Reduced airway surface pH impairs
bacterial killing in the porcine cystic fibrosis lung. Nature 487:109-113.
Drs. Ramesh Bhalla and Nicholas Pantazis
Kouzoukas DE, Li G, Takapoo M, Moninger T, Bhalla RC, Pantazis NJ. 2013.
Intracellular calcium plays a critical role in the alcohol-mediated death of cerebellar
granule neurons. J Neurochem 124:323-335.
Dr. Martin Cassell
Carter CS, Vogel TW, Zhang Q, Seo S, Swiderski RE, Moninger TO, Cassell MD,
Thedens DR, Keppler-Noreuil KM, Nopoulos P, Nishimura DY, Searby CC, Bugge K,
Sheffield VC. 2012. Abnormal development of NG2(+)PDGFR-alpha(+) neural
progenitor cells leads to neonatal hydrocephalus in a ciliopathy mouse model. Nat Med
18:1797-1804.
Dr. John Engelhardt
Huang Q, Deng X, Yan Z, Cheng F, Luo Y, Shen W, Lei-Butters DC, Chen AY, Li Y,
Tang L, Soderlund-Venermo M, Engelhardt JF, Qiu J. 2012. Establishment of a reverse
genetics system for studying human bocavirus in human airway epithelia. PLoS Pathog
8:e1002899.
Olivier AK, Yi Y, Sun X, Sui H, Liang B, Hu S, Xie W, Fisher JT, Keiser NW, Lei-Butters
DC, Zhou W, Yan Z, Li G, Evans TIA, Meyerholz DK, Wang K, Stewart ZA, Norris AW,
Engelhardt JF. 2012. Altered Insulin Secretion and Impaired Endocrine Pancreas
Function at Birth in Cystic Fibrosis Ferrets. J Clin Invest 122:3755–3768
Ramsey BW, Banks-Schlegel S, Accurso FJ, Boucher RC, Cutting GR, Engelhardt JF,
Guggino WB, Karp CL, Knowles MR, Kolls JK, LiPuma JJ, Lynch S, McCray PB, Jr.,
Rubenstein RC, Singh PK, Sorscher E, Welsh M. 2012. Future directions in early cystic
fibrosis lung disease research: an NHLBI workshop report. Am J Respir Crit Care Med
185:887-892.
Sui H, Olivier AK, Klesney-Tait JA, Brooks L, Tyler SR, Sun X, Skopec A, Kline J,
Sanchez PG, Meyerholz DK, Zavazava N, Iannettoni M, Engelhardt JF, Parekh KR.
2012. Ferret Lung Transplant: An Orthotopic Model of Obliterative Bronchiolitis. Am J
Transplant.
Dr. Fang Lin
Ding Y, Fang L. S1pr2/G13 signaling controls myocardial migration by regulating
endoderm convergence. Development (in press).
Dr. Thomas Rutkowski
Chikka MR, DeZwaan McCabe D, Tyra HM, Rutkowski DT. 2013 C/EBP homologous
protein (CHOP) contributes to suppression of metabolic genes during ER stress in the
liver. Journal of Biological Chemistry (in press).
Dr. Tina Tootle
Groen CM, Spracklen AJ, Fagan TN, Tootle TL. 2012. Drosophila Fascin is a novel
downstream target of prostaglandin signaling during actin remodeling. Mol Biol Cell
23:4567-4578.
Please share news of your activities with Laurie Jewell for distribution as Points of
Interest. This information is circulated through the Department and forwarded to Health
Science Relations for university-wide publication.