News

New Issue of Opportunities to Explore, Aug 3- Aug 7, 2020

Friday, July 31, 2020

The new issue of opportunities to explore is out now!

Read the Aug 3-Aug 7, 2020 Issue

IMV Grad Student Megan Ulbrich Wins the Melville A. Hare Award for Excellence in Teaching

Friday, June 5, 2020

Please join the department in congratulating Megan Ulbrich, this year’s winner of the Melville A. Hare Award for Excellence in Teaching.  This award is given annually by the Department of Microbiology and Immunology to a graduate student who has displayed outstanding qualities of mentoring and teaching in one or more MBI courses.  The award will be officially conferred at URMC Convocation in the late summer.

Megan is currently an IMV graduate student in Michelle Dziejman's lab working on multidisciplinary approaches to uncover novel effector protein functions. Megan grew up in Buffalo, NY and received her B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Pittsburgh. 

This week’s URMC Research Heroes featured the Maquat lab’s Tatsuaki Kurosaki, PhD, and Shuhei Mitsutomi, MS

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

 

This week’s URMC Research Heroes featured the Maquat lab’s Tatsuaki Kurosaki, PhD, and Shuhei Mitsutomi, MS, who were recognized today for their work on SARS-CoV-2.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA-QN7oAl07/

Both Tatsuaki and Shuhei have worked as members of the Maquat Lab (Center for RNA Biology and the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics) during the sequestration on SARS-CoV-2, collaborating with a lab at Harvard to determine the mechanism by which the virus inhibits human-cell nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) so as to express and replicate its RNA efficiency.

From Tatsuaki: “Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic, is a novel enveloped RNA virus carrying a large (~30 kb) positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome. Although human cells innately have an RNA surveillance pathway called nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) that generally protects cells from infection by many different types of viruses, little is known about how SARS-CoV-2 inhibits NMD to proliferate in human cells. We hope that our research helps to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 proliferation in human cells, eventually contributing toward the development of therapeutic strategies to combat COVID-19.”

Matthew Rook awarded a Joan Wright Goodman Dissertation Fellowship

Monday, June 1, 2020

Matthew L. Rook, M.S. (MacLean Lab) has been awarded a Joan Wright Goodman Dissertation Fellowship for 2020-2021!  This fellowship was endowed by Joan Wright Goodman, PhD class of 1952, to support doctoral students across disciplines in the sciences.  It is one of the University’s most competitive dissertation fellowships and is given to students who display exceptional ability and promise.  It is a testimony to the University’s commitment to supporting your scholarship. 

The award is $20,000, and must be used over at least 9 months between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021. Congrats Matthew!

Graduate Student Appreciation Week 2020

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Celebrating the more than 600 graduate students and postdoctoral appointees at the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry. Meet some of our grad and post doc researchers.

Timmy Li, URMC Epidemiology PhD Graduate in NY Post as "Hero of the Day"

Monday, April 13, 2020

Volunteer EMT Timmy Li normally spends his free time treating injured runners and cyclists in Central Park.

But as the Big Apple gets crushed with 911 calls due to the coronavirus pandemic, he’s now devoting his nights and weekends to far more serious emergencies, far outside the park’s borders.

“When it was declared a pandemic, I told myself, ‘as long I am not sick myself and as long as I’m available, I will continue to take shifts and calls,’” Li, 30, told The Post. 

“Pretty much every 911 call right now is COVID related. Almost everything. We still have the injuries, the car crashes, but almost everything is a potential COVID call.” 

The Queens resident, who also works full-time as a clinical researcher at Northwell Health, is part of the Central Park Medical Unit, a team of 150 volunteer EMTs who typically patrol the park’s 843 acres.

But as emergency calls skyrocket past previous records and hordes of EMTs call out sick, the team has now stepped up to handle emergency calls across Manhattan under the FDNY’s Mutual Aid system. 

“We’re working almost 24/7,” Li said. “It’s definitely challenging, physically exhausting, and mentally exhausting knowing that a lot of people are dying.”

The medic, who holds a doctorate in epidemiology, said his unit is used to disaster response, but the coronavirus is a whole different monster.

“We have responded to things like 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, the blackout and the heat wave last summer. And those feel a little different in that those, the risk of me getting infected or injured was low. But this is very real,” Li said.