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Getting A Good Look: Researchers Collaborate to Move Biomedical Research Further, Faster

Monday, November 17, 2014

Four individually accomplished investigators, in four labs, are working toward one goal. The URMC is increasing collaboration among its scientists in order to move biomedical research further, faster. In the process, it’s winning support from the National Institutes of Health.

Deborah J. Fowell, PhD, is very familiar with Leishmania major, a particularly nasty parasite that infects the skin of twelve million people around the world, including more than seven hundred US soldiers who returned from Iraq with “Baghdad boil.” David J. Topham, PhD, is well known for all things-influenza. MinSoo Kim, PhD, is pretty handy at turning living T-cells different colors with beams of light. And James F. Miller, PhD, likes to sit in on cross-talk between T-cells and the molecules that help push them into action.

Read More: Getting A Good Look: Researchers Collaborate to Move Biomedical Research Further, Faster

Researchers Receive $4 Million to Study Common and Costly Cause of Death: Sepsis

Thursday, October 9, 2014

A diverse team of immunologists, engineers and critical care clinicians at the University of Rochester Medical Center received $4 million from the National Institutes of Health to study sepsis, an over-the-top immune response to an infection that leads to organ failure and death in about one third of patients. Beyond administering antibiotics, fluids and other supportive measures, physicians have no specific treatment to stop the syndrome, which is the most expensive condition treated in U.S. hospitals, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Read More: Researchers Receive $4 Million to Study Common and Costly Cause of Death: Sepsis

Closing in on the immune system

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Most of the images that researchers use to help them understand the immune system are essentially snapshots. Despite advances in medical technology, the images don't show much activity, which limits researchers' understanding of how the immune system works.

A cell could seem like it's communicating with this other cell, but it's just there, says Deborah Fowell, University of Rochester associate professor of microbiology and immunology. That really tells us nothing about how they interact in the tissue.

But a study under way at the UR could lead to new imagining techniques that would allow clinicians to view the immune system in real time — while it's actively responding to an infection or fighting a disease.

Read More: Closing in on the immune system

NIH Awards Team of U of R Scientists $9 Million to Study Immune System in Action

Friday, July 18, 2014

Since the early days of Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb, Rochester-area innovators have been making astounding discoveries in optics and imaging. Researchers at the University of Rochester are beginning a major study that will add to the region’s imaging expertise, while also advancing global understanding of how the body’s immune system works.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a five-year, $9 million Research Program Project Grant (PO1) to scientists in the School of Medicine and Dentistry to adapt and develop cutting-edge imaging techniques, allowing them to view the immune system while it is fighting infection and disease.

Read More: NIH Awards Team of U of R Scientists $9 Million to Study Immune System in Action

Yelena Lerman Receives Medical Faculty Council Travel Award

Monday, June 23, 2014

Yelena Lerman is the recipient of the Medical Faculty Council Travel Award in Basic Science Research for Spring 2014. Yelena is in her sixth year of the Pharmacology PhD program under the mentorship of Dr. Minsoo Kim in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology. Yelena gave an oral and poster presentation of her work on “Exacerbated tissue homing of neutrophils during sepsis and TLR2-induced cytokine production are regulated by integrin a3b1” at the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) meeting in May 2014. Her work evaluated the surface expression kinetics of b1 and b3 integrin heterodimers on neutrophils during sepsis in both mice and humans. She showed that only integrin a3b1 is significantly upregulated during sepsis. Previous studies suggested a role for IL-10 as a regulator of the transition from mild sepsis to irreversible septic shock. Thus, sepsis progression could be modulated by altering IL-10 release and α3β1 upregulation.

Tara Capece Receives Trainee Poster Award at 2014 AAI Meeting

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Graduate student, Tara Capece received the Trainee Poster Award at the 2014 AAI Immunology Conference for her work, Regulation of the integrin LFA-1 in T cell activation.

Tara is currently working on LFA-1 in T cell activation and migration in Dr. Minsoo Kim's lab. The Kim lab is focused on understanding how T cells and neutrophils home to and migrate within tissues.

Patrick Murphy Receives Trainee Abstract Award at 2014 AAI Meeting

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Graduate student, Patrick Murphy received the Trainee Abstract Award at the 2014 AAI Immunology Conference for his work, Apoptotic cells suppress TNF production by tissue resident macrophages through a CD73-dependent mechanism.

Patrick is currently working on Purinergic regulation of macrophage inflammatory responses in Dr. Rusty Elliott's lab. The Elliott lab is focused on understanding 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.

Yelena Lerman Receives Trainee Abstract Award at 2014 AAI Meeting

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Graduate student, Yelena Lerman received the Trainee Abstract Award at the 2014 AAI Immunology Conference for her work, Exacerbated tissue homing of neutrophils during sepsis and TLR2-induced cytokine production are regulated by integrin a3b1.

Yelena currently works in Dr. Minsoo Kim's lab.

Young-min Hyun Receives 2014 AAI Early Career Faculty Travel Grant

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Young-min Hyun, a research assistant professor in Minsoo Kim's lab, has received the 2014 AAI Early Career Faculty Travel Grant. Hyun's research focuses on leukocytes migration from blood vessel to inflamed tissue through endothelial cell layer and basement membrane.

URMC Researchers Win $3M Influenza Grant

Thursday, April 10, 2014

University of Rochester Medical Center researchers have won a $3 million grant to support influenza research. The award from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is going to support ongoing research by New York Influenza Center of Excellence, a 7-year-old flu research center led by URMC scientists John Treanor M.D. and David Topham, Ph.D..

This award is an acknowledgement of the highly productive contributions our center has made to the overall understanding of how the immune response to flu is regulated, Treanor said.

Yuexin Xu Receives HHMI Translational Medicine Award

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Yuexin Xu, a graduate student in Minsoo Kim's lab, has received the HHMI translational medicine award at the University of Rochester Annual Poster Competition 2014 for her work Optogenetic control of chemokine receptor signal and T-cell migration.

Tara Capece Awarded NIH/NIAID F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Fellowship

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Tara Capece, MS/MPH was awarded an NIH/NIAID F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Fellowship for the grant titled: Regulation of the integrin LFA-1 during T cell migration and activation. Tara, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in , Minsoo Kim's lab, was awarded a two and a half year fellowship from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease to investigate how the integrin LFA-1 is modulated by chemokine signals and T cell receptor signals to serve different functions, as the former induces cell migration while the later mediated stable cell-to-cell contact. Answering these questions will provide novel insight for vaccine and immunomodulatory drug design.

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

Michael R. Elliott Receives 2012 Creative and Novel Ideas in HIV Research Grant

Friday, December 7, 2012

Michael R. Elliott, Ph.D. was recently announced as a recipient of a Creative and Novel Ideas in HIV Research (CNIHR) research grant at the XIX International AIDS Conference in Washington D.C. The CNIHR program is jointly sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the NIH-supported Centers for AIDS Research (CFARs) and the International AIDS Society (IAS) with the aim to promote innovative research and novel ideas from early stage investigators whose primary focus has previously been in fields of scientific inquiry other than HIV. Dr. Elliott will work with Stephen Dewhurst, Ph.D. to complete a research project, entitled Apoptotic cell clearance signaling and HIV-associated inflammation. An interview with Dr. Elliott describing this project can be viewed below: