Petri Dishes: From the BRI Director: August Issue

A Note From the Director

The Brigham research community is the key to the success of our research mission. Your outstanding work each day is what drives us forward towards our goal of a healthier world through scientific discovery.

This work deserves to be recognized and celebrated, so with this newsletter, we want to tell the stories of research at Brigham by featuring some of the winners and recipients of our awards and funding opportunities, highlights from our recent events and sharing the achievements of the research community with you.

Thanks,

Elizabeth Petri Henske, MD

 

Congratulations to Our NextGen Awardees!

Track A (“Affinity groups”): will accommodate requests for funding and staff support to convene a group of researchers with common exploratory interests.
Track B (“Collaboratives”): will accept applications for activities where a collaborative response is critical.

Track A 

Ross Berbeco, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Radiation Oncology
“Radiology/Radiation Oncology Mini Retreat”
Sarbarrama Sen, MD, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Newborn Medicine
“Neonatal Hypoglycemia Conference: Addressing Controversies and Achieving Consensus”
Jeffrey Duryea, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Radiology
“BWH Cross-Departmental Affinity Research Group for Machine Learning in Radiological Imaging”

Track B

Katherine Burdick, PhD, Member of Faculty, Dept. of Psychiatry
“International Consortium Investigating Cognition in Bipolar Disorder – ICONIC-BD”
Gerald Pier, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Medicine (Div. of Infectious Diseases)
“Development of a BWH Center for Evaluation of Immunologic and Anti-Microbial Products Using Human Infectious Disease Challenge Models”

Farewell and Best Wishes to Our Summer 2018 Undergraduate Research Interns!

On Thursday, August 9th, the BRI summer 2018 undergraduate research interns presented their final projects to a large crowd of their peers, mentors, PIs, and other research staff. Julie Glowacki, PhD, served as the event’s emcee, as well as one of the host labs for the program. The interns described the research projects they worked on during the summer, highlighting the methods they used and the progress they made, as well as what they learned from their mentors and the undergraduate program as a whole. Dr. Glowacki sent them off with well wishes for all of their future endeavors, urging them to keep in mind the lasting connections and friendships they established throughout their time at the Brigham.

Final Presentations:
Andrew Bolze (Harvard University), Ozaki Lab; The Effects of Pre-Operative Protein Restriction on the Human Gut Microbiome
Kenneth Han (Williams College), Giatsidis Lab; Biophysical Wound Therapies: Exploiting “Sensing” to Induce Repair
Amelia Joyce (Emory University), Feinberg Lab; The Story of CARMN (a long non-coding RNA in CV disease)
Patrick Nian (Princeton University), Glowacki Lab; Effects of Vitamin D on the Expression of Cathelicidin/LL-37 in Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells (hMSCs)
Hammad Sadiq (WPI), Neppl Lab; Identification of a Novel Protein Complex Comprised of the Spliceosome and the PRC2 Complex
Simran Sahni (Smith College), Costenbader Lab; Effects of Fish Oil Supplementation on Production of Specialized Pro-Resolving Lipid Mediators in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis
Elena Silverstein (Tufts University), Sinha Lab; Skeletal Muscle Specific Loss of ARNT Impairs Regeneration
David Zhao (University of Chicago), Tavakkoli and Sheu Lab; Investigating the Effect of Sleeve Gastrectomy on Adipose Inflammation

What’s New With the ORC?

Please join us in welcoming Olivia Stoddard as our newest Project Coordinator for the Office of Research Careers! As she takes on this role, Olivia will help to launch and organize the 12th annual English as a Second Language (ESL) Course. This course is intended for BWH postdoctoral fellows in order to improve cultural understanding, general vocab, and conversational skills (other researchers may be accepted if space allows). We urge you to take advantage of this incredible opportunity, so make sure to fill out an application by September 9th!

On the Horizon

Get ready for the 2018 Discover Brigham! We are so excited for this year’s event as we continue to prepare for November 7th. Be prepared to witness ground-breaking science, expert speakers, sessions featuring the most compelling and current healthcare topics, and much more. We are shaking things up this year and it is an event you won’t want to miss! Demo and Abstract submissions are due September 12th!