News
Professor and Department Head Dr. Carol Gregorio was recently elected to the position of Councilor for the Association of Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Neurobiology Chairpersons.
Dr. Donata Vercelli, an expert on the impact of germs that affect our health, delivers the keynote address at the University of Arizona Arthritis Center’s 18th annual “Living Healthy With Arthritis” conference. Other topics include optimal aging, pain management, lupus, dietary strategies, battling infection and the fact-filled, fun “Joint Health Jeopardy.”
The Arizona Wildcat ice hockey team will raise awareness for cancer and contribute proceeds to the UArizona Cancer Center when it faces Missouri State on Saturday, Jan. 18, at the Tucson Arena. Honor a loved one by buying a jersey to support cancer research.
In a new study of organelle biogenesis from the laboratory of Gregory Rogers, PhD, former CMM student and postdoc Tiffany McLamarrah and colleagues characterize an early step in centriole duplication.
Internationally distinguished immunologist Dr. Janko Nikolich-Zugich, co-director of the UA Center on Aging, received a $4.5 million federal award to study how stress on our immune system can impact how we age.
Michelle Ennabe, CMM Master's Student, is one of three Masters Awardees of this year's prestigious Centennial Achievement Award.
In this newest study from the laboratory of Gus Mouneimne, PhD, Julieann Puleo and colleagues discovered that EVL, the Ena/VASP protein, is crucial for actin polymerization at focal adhesions (FAs). Importantly, they determined that EVL-mediated FA actin polymerization regulates FA maturation and mechanosensing, which are significant steps in mechanically-directed motility and durotactic invasion. This work is a significant contribution to our understanding of how cells interact with their microenvironment in normal and pathological contexts. PMID:31594807
Work from Donata Vercelli, PhD's laboratory recently featured in the Washington Post shows that living in traditional farming environments means living in a place that is extremely rich in microbes — the right microbes that our immune system has evolved to live with and learn from. The constellation of organisms found in soil and on farm animals programs how a child responds to allergens throughout her lifetime.
A majority of the human genome consists elements called transposable elements – the fossils of evolutionary battles between ancient viruses and their human hosts. The human genome silences these elements by creating a specialized structure called heterochromatin on top of them. Dr. Keith Maggert and graduate student Farah Bughio's study in PNAS shows that heterochromatin is not as stable and reliable a protector as was previously thought, and instead turns on and off randomly and repeatedly throughout life, allowing transposable elements the freedom to once again move around the genome and cause damage.
Asthma and COPD are the most commonly diagnosed chronic lung diseases in the United States. While it is now recognized that a percentage of severe asthmatics develop fixed airway obstruction, little is known pertaining to the basic underlying mechanisms of this progression. Dr. Ledford's research will examine the role of club cell secreted protein (CC16) in the context of airway infection as a previously overlooked link in understanding this progression. These studies may provide a novel therapeutic approach for treating individuals with low circulating CC16 in order to prevent lung function decline over time.
Anne Cress, PhD, and Gregory Rogers, PhD, received the prestigious NCI Provocative Questions Initiative grant to study molecular mechanisms of genomic alterations that contribute to early stages of prostate cancer initiation and progression. As co-PIs of this multi-PI (MPI) award, they lead an investigative team that includes Drs. Noel Warfel and Ray Nagle to investigate a link between hypoxia and organelle instability.
Curtis Thorne, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and doctoral student Carly R. Cabel recently undertook an ambitious study to determine whether therapeutic targeting of LRP6 – a cell-surface receptor protein that mediates cell growth of its surrounding tissue environment - was a suitable treatment strategy for colon cancer, thus challenging the current scientific dogma and approaches to patient care. The results of Dr. Thorne and Ms. Cabel's experiments were published in a letter in the June 2019 issue of Developmental Cell.
Curtis Thorne, PhD, and UA doctoral student Carly Cabel validated findings from a 2018 collaborative study that identified a possible new therapeutic target for colon cancer – after a Harvard lab challenged the initial results.