6/18/2018
The annual Pathology Research Day event at the University of Rochester Medical Center was held on Monday, June 11, 2018.
The day included more than 50 poster presentations in addition to 12 oral presentationsgiven by Pathology residents and fellows, and graduate students in the Cell Biology of Disease Ph.D. Program.
This year’s keynote speaker was Andrew Folpe, M.D. who is professor and consultant for Anatomic Pathology at Mayo Clinic. His engaging and informative talk was titled, “Phosphaturic Mesenchymal Tumors: What I Have Learned.” A video recording of the keynote is available online (note: UR login is required to view).
The graduate program gave out several awards at a special reception at the end of the day, per below.
View Event Photos
Graduate Program Awards
- Outstanding Academic Excellence by a First Year Student – David Villani, MS
- Outstanding Program Contribution – Sarah Catheline, MS
- Robert Mooney Thesis Award – Irena Lerman, Ph.D.
Travel Award for Oral Presentation
Poster Presentation Travel Awards
- Robert Hoff, MS
- Allison Li, MS
- Xi Lin, MS
- Robert Maynard, MS
Resident Awards
Oral Presentation Awards
- Mushal Noor, M.D.
- Nisha Patel, D.O.
- Phoenix Bell, M.D.
3/26/2018
The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at URMC was well represented at the annual meeting of the U.S. and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP) in Vancouver, BC, Canada from March 17-23.
There were a total 47 members of URMC Pathology who authored or co-authored at least one abstract that was accepted for presentation at the conference. These included primarily faculty, residents and some staff. A full list of poster presentations and abstracts is available here.
In addition to poster, platform, and short course presentations, the department was also pleased to host a successful alumni reception at the Fairmont Waterfront on March 19 for the third consecutive year.
View a photo gallery of USCAP 2018
6/13/2017
The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine hosted its annual Research Day event on Monday, June 12, 2017.
The day-long event featured a wide variety of oral and poster presentations by Pathology graduate students and residents on research topics ranging from osteoarthritis, to lymphoma, pregnancy, and much more.
Perry J. Blackshear, MD, D. Phil, gave the keynote address. He is the Deputy Chief of Signal Transduction Laboratory and Head of the Post-Transcriptional Gene Expression Group for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
An awards dinner followed the event, in which faculty recognized top presentations and gave a special sendoff to departing residents and fellows. Pathology Chair, Dr. Bruce Smoller, also gave two special awards to faculty.
Graduate Program Awards
- Outstanding academic Excellence by a First Year Student - Olivia Marola
- Outstanding Contribution to the Pathology PhD Program - Richard Bell
Travel Awards
Oral Presentation
Poster Presentations
- Richard Bell
- Jerry Saunders III
- Zachary Murphy
- Brianna Shares
Residency Awards
Oral Presentations
- Third place - Hani Katerji, MD
- Second place - Sohaib Abu-Farsakh, MD
- First place - Sachica Cheris, MD
Faculty Awards
- Eric A. Schenk Award for Excellence in Teaching - Luis De Las Casas, MD
- Chairman's Award - Caroline Dignan, MD
See More:
View a photo gallery of Research Day
Download list of presentations
5/31/2017
Second-year Pathology graduate student Madison Doolittle won second place in the School of Medicine and Dentistry’s graduate student poster competition on May 17.
The annual event, hosted by the Graduate Student Society, includes entries from graduate students across disciplines as an opportunity to showcase their research in their respective fields.
Madison was the lead author the abstract titled, “Investigating the Role of Zbtb40 in the Genetic Regulation of Osteoporosis” in which he and fellow researchers examined the genetic determinants of bone mineral density used to diagnose osteoporosis.
He was awarded a $300 travel scholarship.
5/31/2017
Karen de Mesy Bentley (formerly Jensen), M.S., director of the Electron Microscopy Shared Resource Laboratory and faculty associate in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, has discovered something new about the behavior of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria and why it may resist antibiotic treatment and recur in patients who have had a hip or joint implant.
Bentley is the lead author in an NIH funded study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research (May 2017) where she utilized transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to examine the bones of mice with implant associated S. aureus chronic osteomyelitis.
While examining sections of bone under TEM high magnification, Bentley discovered that some bacteria were able to change shape and squeeze into submicron spaces which are called canaliculi. Her study describes round bacteria becoming rod-shaped to accommodate the submicron diameter space of canaliculi. The bacteria are then protected from treatment with traditional antibiotics delivered via blood vessels.
“When I saw this, I was shocked,” said Bentley. “Staph has never been described as being able to deform. It’s always been described as round, one micron in diameter to grow in clusters like grapes on a vine.”
Soon after documenting this bizarre shape shifting behavior in a mouse model, Bentley initiated studies on human S. aureus infected bone specimens and in December of 2016, discovered the same bacterial phenomenon occurs in human bone.
The initial findings explain, among other things, why a staph infection in humans may return despite weeks or months of antibiotic treatments and bone debridement when replacing an infected implant. It also explains why infections can recur, sometime years – even decades – later, after going undetected in the patient.
Bentley will soon be a co-investigator in a P50 NIH-funded grant working with the principal investigator, Edward Schwarz, Ph.D., the director of the Center for Musculoskeletal Research and his team to continue studies on human S. aureus chronic osteomyelitis specimens.
“If we can identify a gene that allows S. aureus to shift into rod shaped bacteria, then maybe we can develop a drug to prevent invasion of osteocyte canaliculi and also recurrence,” she said.