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CVBI Students Receive Young Investigator Award at NYIC

Monday, October 21, 2013

CVBI students, Tara Capece (Minsoo Kim lab) and Chris Anderson (Rusty Elliott lab), received the AAI Young Investigators Award at the 2013 Upstate New York Immunology Conference (NYIC).

The Kim lab Understanding how T cells and neutrophils home to and migrate within tissues is a major focus of our research, and the Elliott lab understand the signaling pathways that regulate how phagocytes locate and engulf apoptotic cells and how this process impacts the immune system in normal and disease states.

Tara Capece and Patrick Murphy Appointed to Immunology Training Grant

Thursday, August 15, 2013

CVBI students, Tara Capece (Minsoo Kim lab) and Patrick Murphy (Rusty Elliot lab), were appointed to a position on the Immunology Training Grant (T32 AI007285). There was considerable competition with many strong candidates. The center would like to congratulate both on such a distinct honor.

CVBI Postdoctoral Fellow Receives Vaccine Fellowship Award

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Milan Popovic, a post-doctoral fellow in Minsoo Kim's Lab, was awarded the 2013 Rochester Vaccine Fellowship award. Selection for the fellowship was a unanimous decision by three independent reviewers who praised Milan for his outstanding achievement in vaccine-related research.

Mosmann Awarded Novartis Prize for Basic Immunology

Monday, July 1, 2013

Tim R. Mosmann, Ph.D., Director of the David H. Smith Center for Vaccine Biology and Immunology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, was awarded the 2013 Novartis Prize for Basic Immunology. He shares the prize, which is awarded every three years for breakthrough contributions to the fields of basic and clinical immunology, with Robert L. Coffman, Ph.D., Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Dynavax.

The prize was awarded for Mosmann and Coffman’s research on how the body responds to different invaders, for example, bacteria versus parasitic worms. In the early 1980’s, they zeroed in on a group of white blood cells called helper T cells or TH cells, which communicate with other cells to activate the immune system and wipe out intruders. They discovered that TH cells fall into two distinct groups: TH1 cells, designed to eliminate bacteria and viruses; and TH2 cells, which are more effective against extracellular organisms, like worms and other parasites.

When Tim started this research, scientists thought that helper T cells could be divided into at least two subgroups, but no one had been able to prove this, said Stephen Dewhurst, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Medical Center. Tim elegantly showed that these cells could be divided into two subsets that produced different secreted proteins (cytokines) and that had different functions – a finding that profoundly changed the way people think about the immune system.

Read More: Mosmann Awarded Novartis Prize for Basic Immunology

Deborah Fowell Wins Provost’s Multidisciplinary Award

Friday, June 14, 2013

Five diverse research projects at the University were selected as recipients of the sixth annual Provost's Multidisciplinary Awards. The initiative provides $250,000 each year to support faculty research that crosses disciplines. Among the recipients were Microbiology and CVBI associate professor, Deborah Fowell, in collaboration with Jane Sottile (Medicine, Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute) for their project entitled, Extracellular Matrix Composition As A Critical Regulator of The Immune Response.

Read More: Deborah Fowell Wins Provost’s Multidisciplinary Award

Tara Capece Wins Second Place at Graduate Student Society Poster Competition

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Tara Capece, a CVBI student in Minsoo Kim lab, won Second Place at the Graduate Student Society Poster Competition in recognition of outstanding presentation of thesis work The competition was held in the Sarah Flaum Atrium in April and involved students from all graduate programs at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Congratulations Tara!

World Intellectual Property Organization Publishes Minsoo Kim Patent

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

The World Intellectual Property Organization (Wipo) has published a patent entitled, Photoactivatable Receptors and Their Uses by CVBI associate professor Minsoo Kim. The patent abstract states, Provided herein is a chimeric photoactivatable polypeptide comprising an opsin membrane receptor, wherein an intracellular domain of the opsin membrane receptor is replaced with a corresponding intracellular domain of a chemokine receptor, a sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor or an ATP receptor and uses thereof. Further provided are methods of treating cancer, injury of the nervous system, autoimmune disease, and graft rejection comprising administering to the subject a cell that expresses the chimeric photoactivatable polypeptide and exposing the cell to a visible light source.

Read More: World Intellectual Property Organization Publishes Minsoo Kim Patent