News

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.

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.

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.

Stephen Dewhurst, Ph.D., has been named vice dean for research at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. A faculty member since 1990 and past senior associate dean for basic research, Dewhurst will lead the School’s research strategic planning process and help advance its research priorities by identifying areas of excellence in which to make strategic investments; strengthening the research infrastructure; improving education and training; and promoting collaborations and alliances that will result in increased research funding.

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!

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: