April 14, 2013. Professor Stanly Steinberg presented an invited talk on his work with STMC postdoc Flor Espinoza on "The Dynamics of Membrane Proteins" at a Special Session on Advances in Mathematical Biology at the Boulder meeting in April 2013. The AMS is the premier national organization dedicated to promoting mathematical research and its application in many fields, including biology.
Stephanie Jerman, a PhD candidate in the Wandinger-Ness laboratory, has been awarded a two year National Research Service Award (F31) from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research to complete her dissertation research focused on the localization of EGFR to the primary cilium and the identification of protein partners that are within 40 nm in the primary cilia. Jerman will present a poster on her work at the American Association for Dental Research in Seattle WA (March 2013) and has been invited by the NIH program director to present at a second special forum for NIH trainees.
The Understanding Cell Behavior Through Single Cell Molecule Biology Conference held earlier this year was featured in a recent Albuquerque Business First article, "UNM Cancer Center, Sandia team up to advance cell analysis". The article was written by reporter Dennis Domrzalski and can be read here.
Congratulations go to first year STMC graduate student, Emanuel Salazar Cavazos, who received two separate awards ($100 each) for his presentations at UNM Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program Symposia. The first award recognized his efforts in the "First Year Students Rotation Symposia" in January 2013. Then, on Feb 15 Emanuel presented his work in a Symposium featuring projects from all students in the graduate program (First through Fifth Years) -- and he received First Place again! Emanuel's talks were on Single Molecule FISH, reflecting a new STMC initiative to quantitatively evaluate transcription in single cells.
Images from a new paper by STMC investigators Elaine Bearer and Vittorio Cristini were featured on the cover of Physical Biology for October 2012.
STMC leader Bridget Wilson PhD was recently elected as a Fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Wilson is the Victor and Ruby Hansen Surface Professor in the Pathology Department and also serves as one of four program leaders at UNM's National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Center. Fellows are recognized for meritorious efforts to advance science or its applications. Dr. Wilson joins 4 other fellows within the STMC leadership: Drs. Janet Oliver, Elaine Bearer, Angela Wandinger-Ness and Byron Goldstein.
Congratulations to Dr. Bridget Wilson who received the 2012 Award in Basic Science Research at the Health Sciences Center's 4th Annual Research Day on Friday, October 26, 2012.
Bridget was also elected to the Collegium Internationale Allergologicum. Membership in this organization is by invitation, based up a record of significant and sustained achievements in basic and/or clinical research in the field of allergy, clinical immunology and related branches of medicine.
The UNM Symphony Orchestra will feature a flute performance by our very own Ms. Christina Termini on Tuesday, November 06 at 7:30 PM in Keller Hall, Center for the Arts, University of New Mexico. Ms. Termini is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in the Biomedical Sciences Program who works in the laboratory of Dr. Jennifer Gillette in the Department of Pathology. Ms. Termini's thesis work is focused on identifying the role of the membrane scaffold protein, CD82, in regulating hematopoietic stem cell interactions with their niche. Her use of Super Resolution imaging techniques in collaboration with the Department of Physics and Astronomy has led to her recent award of an STMC graduate student fellowship. In October, Ms. Termini also received a Minority Travel Award from the American Society of Cell Biology to present her work at their annual meeting this December in San Francisco, CA. In addition to her long hours in lab, Ms.Termini is pursuing a Master's degree in Music at UNM.
Attendees at the December 2012 ASCB meeting in San Francisco will enjoy a gallery of large format prints of molecular and cellular images spread over two open spaces in the Moscone Center. In an article in the October 2012 ASCB Newsletter, the STMC-sponsored Art of Systems Biology and Nanoscience event in Santa Fe is recognized as the inspiration for the event as well as the source of the large format illustrations by Graham Johnson, our 2012 Artist-in-Residence. The article emphasizes the ability of art to make science more accessible and understandable for both scientists and the public. We are thrilled that our outreach event has expanded its reach and hope that ASCB and other national and international organizations will want to take images from future Art of Systems Biology and Nanoscience "on the road".
View the October 2012 ASCB Newsletter segment
All interested STMC members and trainees are encouraged to attend the biweekly meetings of DAMSIG, the STMC's Data Analysis and Modeling Special Interest Group. DAMSIG will meet biweekly from 3-4 pm on Thursdays in CRF G25 (with 4-5 pm open for discussion) beginning on Thursday, October 04.
The success of the summer q-bio summer school and conference in Santa Fe has inspired a winter q-bio meeting in Hawaii. The San Diego NSCB is a primary sponsor and Santa Fe q-bio organizers Bill Hlavacek and Brian Musky are on the organizing committee. The first annual winter meeting will run from February 18-21, 2013 on Oahu. For more information and to register, see http://w-qbio.org/
STMC scientists established and continue to lead the UNM Cancer Center's Fluorescence Microscopy Shared Resource.
The Summer 2012 Shared Resources newsletter focuses on instrumentation and technical expertise currently offered in the microscopy core. Complementing the fee-for service core, next generation imaging is offered through the STMC Super-resolution Imaging core.
The Consortium is a Center in the UNM College of Arts and Sciences established to encourage collaborations between Latin America and UNM in interdisciplinary science. Professor Steinberg's seminar, "Understanding the Organization and Dynamics of Membrane Proteins", will be on August 27 at 1:30 PM in Physics and Astronomy 190.
August 2012. Dr. Anup Singh, leader of the STMC Microfluidics team, has been awarded a 5 year RO1 grant from NIAID. Grant R01AI098853 "Microfluidic Platform for Multiplexed Diagnostics" will support continued research on platform technologies for rapid and sensitive detection of biomarkers.
Additionally, Dr. Keith Lidke, PI of the STMC Super-resolution Imaging team, and Dr. Conrad James, co-leader of the STMC Microfluidics team, have received a 3 year R21 grant from NIGMS. Grant R21GM104691 "Reflected Beam Illumination Microscopy using a Microfluidics Device" is the first to support collaborative research between two STMC core technologies.
August 2012. Dr. Werner, a STMC member in the Center for Integrated Nanotechnology at LANL, has been awarded a new 5 year R01 grant from NIAID "Three-Dimensional Molecular Tracking" of FceRI in Live Cells" to support further refinement and applications of his innovative 3D tracking confocal microscope. A subaward to STMC biologists Bridget Wilson and Diane Lidke will provide cells, reagents and critical scientific questions linked to a better understanding of the spatial regulation of receptor dynamics and signaling activity.
August 2012. STMC members Scott Ness and Jeremy Edwards have earned continued support for their STMC Grand Challenge award "A Novel Next-Generation Proteomics Assay" through a NCI Provocative Questions RO1 grant titled "Alternative RNA splicing and protein products in leukemia outcome". One goal of their continuing work is to radically improve antibody-based proteomics analyses so that protein modifications and protein-protein interactions can be measured at the single molecule level.
Dr. Edwards, PI of the UNM modeling core, has been awarded a 5 year grant (RO1 GM104973) titled "A spatially coarse-grained rule-based framework for modeling large molecular networks". Funded through the NSF/NIH program in Mathematical Biology, the grant includes a sub award to STMC external member, Dr Adam Halasz from the University of West Virginia.
Congratulations to Dr. Bearer on her new 5 year NIH grant for "Live imaging of brain circuitry in mouse models of PTSD". This 5 year grant from NIMH will integrate magnetic resonance and optical imaging with computational image analysis and mathematical modeling to map fear responses in brain circuitry.
Dr. Pehlke will join the STMC Image Analysis and Informatics Core on June 15, 2012. In May 2012, she completed her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at University of Wisconsin on "Quantification of Collagen Alignment: Tools for Characterizing Cancer Invasion and Progression". Her interdisciplinary research was comentored by Drs. David Beebe and Patricia Keeley (Cancer Biology) and Dr. Kevin Eliceiri (Director of the UW Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation (LOCI) and co-inventor of the OMERO image informatics program). Carolyn has extensive experience in image processing and image analysis using Matlab, ImageJ and other programs. She brings expertise in image informatics as a pioneering user and contributor to the OMERO software.
The Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies is a DOE-funded national user facility devoted to collaborative research on the design, performance and integration of nanoscale materials, including nanophotonic and optical nanomaterials and bio-mimetic nanosystems. CINT has user facilities at both the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories. The UEC serves as a liaison between the user community and Center management and is the primary feedback mechanism by which the Department of Energy assesses the value of CINT facilities to the scientific community.
The Spring school, to be held in Saint-Flour, France from June 4-10, 2012, will focus on numerical and hybrid methods to help understand living systems, with a particular focus on:
More information is at Ecole de Printemps 2012 de la Société Francophone de Biologie Théorique
Kathrin defended her thesis on "Dynamics and Distribution of Immunoglobulin E Receptors: a Dialog between Experiment and Theory" on April 4th.
Kathrin was a fellow of the UNM program in Interdisciplinary Biology and Biomedical Science (PIBBs) program as well as a STMC Fellow. Her dissertation research was with STMC mentors Jim Thomas, Bridget Wilson, Diane Lidke, Keith Lidke and Jerilyn Timlin and also with Professor Nitant Kenkre. Kathrin is moving to the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, where she will be a Research Associate in the BioFrontiers Institute that focuses on research at the interface of biology and physics.
Congratulations to STMC member Judy Cannon, Assistant Professor of Molecular Genetics and Pathology, on her new grant titled "The role of PKCtheta in T cell and T-ALL migration". This 5 year, $1.9 million grant from NIAID will integrate imaging and modeling techniques to understand and identify novel regulators of T cell migration and how these regulators may also control leukemia cell metastasis. Collaborators on the project include STMC member Melanie Moses, Associate Professor of Computer Science, and STMC postdoc, Francois Asperti-Boursin.
The goal of this project, entitled "Flow Cytometric Screening in Fungal Biofilms", is to develop enabling methodology to screen for drugs effective against the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans grown in the clinically relevant biofilm format. A bead-based biofilm model suitable for high throughput flow cytometric screening and a scalable assay for biofilm permeability will be developed to be used in screens for compounds that increase biofilm permeability and improve antimycotic drug access to biofilms.
Read more: http://hsc.unm.edu/research/ctsc/funding_projects_April2012.shtml
Titled "Single Molecule Imaging to Quantify FcεRI Signaling Dynamics," the new 5 year award from NIGMS integrates multiple imaging modalities, both novel and established, to capture and quantify the sequence, lifetime and subcellular localization of protein interactions that govern signal initiation. Collaborators on the project include Dr. Keith Lidke, Assistant Professor of Physics, Dr. Bridget Wilson, Professor of Pathology and Dr. Marcel Bruchez from Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. Diane S. Lidke, Assistant Professor of Pathology, and three international collaborators have been awarded a HFSP Program Grant of over $1.3 million. Research Grants provided by HFSP support basic research in the life sciences with emphasis on novel, innovative and interdisciplinary approaches that involve scientific exchanges across national and disciplinary boundaries. The three year project entitled "Nano-Mechano-Biology: spatiotemporal remodeling of membrane nanoplatforms under mechanical forces" is in collaboration with Dr. Alessandra Cambi from the Nijmegen Centre for Molecular Life Sciences (Nijmegen, the Netherlands), Dr. Maria Garcia-Parajo from the Institute of Photonic Sciences (Barcelona, Spain) and Dr. Satyajit Mayor from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (Bangalore, India).
As they circulate, cells of the immune system experience a large range of mechanical stimuli: from shear stresses encountered in blood flow and lymph nodes to irregular topographical cues of extracellular matrix fibers and changes in tension during movement from capillaries to tissue. The Lidke team will exploit cutting-edge biophysical tools, including superresolution and hyperspectral imaging, nanospectroscopy and novel microfluidics devices to explore how mechanical stress alters membrane protein organization and signaling at the molecular level.
Of the 800 pre-proposals submitted, only 68 were accepted as full proposals and eventually 25 were granted. The application by Lidke and collaborators was ranked number one.
STMC Staff Scientist Krishnan Radhakrishnan will take a new position as Resident Physician, Preventive Medicine, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, KY. Krish's research in Kentucky, funded by the American Cancer Society, will focus on mathematical models of cancer control and prevention.
STMC postdoc Flor Espinoza will begin a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia, in August 2012. Flor will launch an independent research program building on her accomplishments in image analysis and modeling of membrane organization and its role in signal initiation.
Arnaud Chauviere, STMC member and Research Assistant Professor of Pathology, will leave UNM for a tenure track position in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Grenoble, France.
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) will host a Conference on the Life Sciences (LS12) on August 7-10, 2012 in San Diego, CA. The conference goal is to provide a cross-disciplinary forum for catalyzing mathematical research relevant to the life sciences.
STMC postdoc Avanika Mahajan, a cell biologist, will present her work, collaborative with cell biologist Bridget Wilson and modelers Dipak Barua and Bill Hlavacek, on "Initiation and Regulation of Mast Cell Signaling through the FceRI Pathway."
STMC postdoc Flor Espinoza, a mathematician, will present her work, collaborative with cell biologist Diane Lidke and modelers Michael Wester and Stanly Steinberg, on "Insights into Cell membrane Microdomain Organization from Live Cell Single Particle tracking of the IgE High Affinity Receptor FceRI of Mast Cells".
Avanika Mahajan and Flor Espinoza both received travel awards through a grant to SIAM from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).
The Carnes/Lidke pilot is to develop biocompatible, non-blinking, non-agglomerating fluorescent nanoparticles as quantum dot replacements for single-particle tracking.
Pictured: Dr. Eric Carnes
Pasatiempo, New Mexico's weekly magazine of Arts, Entertainment and Culture, (www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/) honored the 3rd annual STMC/CNTC outreach event by a cover image from the work of our artist-in-residence Graham Johnson and by an in-depth interview with the artist. More than 450 people registered for the two day event, that included scientific illustrations by Graham Johnson, lectures on systems biology and nanotechnology by Ron Vale from UCSF, Bette Korber from LANL and Piotr Grodzinski from NCI, demonstrations by Karen Dell (Ibio seminars), Stephen Jett (atomic force microscopy) and Jason Haroldson (Vislab 3D) and hands-on nanoscience experiments for kids of all ages presented by the Nanoscience and Microsystems graduate students from UNM.
Aaron Neumann, Ph.D., has joined the UNM Department of Pathology and the STMC as Assistant Professor. His research uses quantitative live cell optical microscopy techniques to explore the cell biology and signal transduction of fungal pathogen sensing.
STMC member Angela Wandinger-Ness writes about the importance and rewards of role models and mentoring in November 2011 ASCB Newsletter.
Download the article
.
Chigaev's work integrates high resolution imaging, flow cytometry and modeling to understand the spatial and temporal regulation of integrin VLA4 affinity in normal and malignant hematopoietic cells. The $100,000 award will provide 2 years of support beginning January 1, 2012.
This new funding from the NIH Common Fund through the Office of the NIH Director will support the production of large numbers of recombinant high quality polyclonal antibodies from which monoclonal antibodies can subsequently be selected and engineered for greater affinity and specificity. Through its focus on generating antibodies to signaling proteins, the award represents a groundbreaking development for systems approaches to signaling pathways.
STMC members Diane and Keith Lidke have pioneered applications of quantum dot nanoprobes and live cell imaging to explore the dynamic properties of ErbB receptors implicated in multiple cancers. In a collaboration with STMC member Bridget Wilson, their team now integrates measurement with modeling to generate the first direct evidence for the transient co-confinement of unoccupied ErbB1 receptors on the membranes of epithelial cells. They also report the first real time measurement of ErbB1 dimerization kinetics. STMC student Shalini Low-Nam (now a postdoc in the A. Hoppe Lab) is the first author. STMC student Pat Cutler is a co-author.
Download the article.
Established by the Harvey Family, the Harvey Chair recognizes faculty who lead innovative translational research.
STMC postdoc Flor Espinoza invited to talk at the NIMBioS Investigative Workshop on "Mathematical Modeling of Intracellular Movements".
The workshop will take place at the National Institute of Mathematics and Biological Synthesis of the University of Tennessee from October 24-26, 2011.
Flor will present "Insights Into Cell Membrane Microdomain Organization from Live Cell Single Particle Tracking of the High Affinity IgE Receptor, FcepsilonRI, of Mast Cells".
Her visit was hosted by Dr. Roger Goody and funded by a DAAD Visiting Professorship Award.
On August 05, Fang Huang successfully defended his PhD thesis in Biophysics on "The Evaluation of ERK1 Dimerization Models using Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy and the Development of Analysis Algorithms for Single-Molecule Super Resolution." Fang's primary mentor was Keith Lidke, Assistant Professor of Physics, with co-mentors Jim Thomas, Professor of Physics and Diane Lidke, Assistant Professor of Pathology. Fang is off to Yale for a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Joerg Bewersdorf, Assistant Professor of Cell Biology and of Biomedical Engineering.
Drs. Angela Wandinger-Ness and Heather Ward from the UNM Department of Pathology have been awarded a STMC pilot project for research on "The Spatiotemporal Analysis of Ciliary Trafficking and Signaling".
Primary cilia are ubiquitous cellular substructures that serve as signaling integrators and as such are critical to normal cellular function and proper organismal development. Polycystins -1 and -2 are ciliary proteins that are central to ciliary signaling through calcium and tyrosine kinase cascades. The pilot project integrates biological measurement with modeling to test the hypothesis that ciliary calcium signaling depends on a coordinate, spatially and temporally regulated trafficking and assembly of a multimeric polycystin-EGFR-RPTPγ protein complex within a flotillin- 1 and -2, cholesterol enriched membrane domain.
STMC postdoc match funds will support a new postdoctoral fellow, Dr. François Asperti-Boursin, to work with STMC immunologist Dr. Judy Cannon (Molecular Genetics and Microbiology) and STMC modeler Dr. Melanie Moses (Computer Science). Dr. Asperti-Boursin completed his PhD at the Institut Cochin in Paris under the supervision of Dr. Emmanuel Donnadieu. His STMC project will focus on the spatiotemporal regulation of T cell motility.
The August edition of the ACSB Newsletter highlights the UNM Academic Science, Education and Research Training program for postdoctoral fellows led by STMC member Angela Wandinger-Ness. ASERT can support STMC postdocs wishing to achieve excellence as both educators and research scientists.
Download the article
STMC postdoc Flor Espinoza has been invited to participate in the Investigative Workshop Mathematical Modeling of Intracellular Movements (MMiMo) (http://nimbios.org/workshops/WS_intracellular_mv), sponsored by the NSF-funded National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS). The workshop will be held at NIMBioS in Knoxville, Tennessee, from 24-26 October 2011.
Diane Lidke's work with Shalini Low-Nam and Bridget Wilson using 2 colors of quantum dotS to quantify the motions of EGFR monomers and formation of dimers was highlighted in a new review by Prithwish Pal. Download the review
The workshop will be at the University of British Columbia, July 13-16, 2011.
Wandinger-Ness is featured in an ASCB Profile.
Read the article
STMC member Judy Cannon appointed a 2011-12 Public Policy Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists. For more information visit AAI.
Jeremy Edwards and Angela Wandinger-Ness are featured speakers at Discovery Day (April 29, 2011), the annual one-day research conference cosponsored by the UNM HSC Division of Biocomputing and the UNM Center for Molecular Discovery. For program information, see Discovery Day 2011.
In their proposal "A novel next-generation proteomics assay", joint PIs Drs. Scott Ness and Jeremy Edwards will test a novel approach for radically improving antibody-based proteomics analyses so that protein modifications and protein-protein interactions can be measured at the single molecule level.
In their proposal "Modeling Vesicular Traffic inside Cells", joint PIs Drs. Vittorio Cristini and Elaine Bearer will create a mathematical-computational model of particle behavior inside cells and test model predictions through experimental analyses of the behavior of functionalized nanobeads in living cells.
309 society student
members participated in this competitive event held during the Biophysical Society
Annual Meeting on March 6 in Baltimore, Maryland. View press release
Dr. Scott Ness, Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, has been awarded a STMC pilot project for research on "Connecting cytoplasmic signaling pathways to the spatiotemporal regulation of gene expression". The proposed experiments will establish links between upstream signaling pathways and the transcription factors that regulate cell fate, and will provide new data for the development of novel interactions and modeling projects within the STMC.
Janet Oliver was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the Fellows Forum held on 19 February 2011 during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. AAAS Fellows are recognized for outstanding contributions to science and technology.
February 04, 2011. Thesis title: "Quantitative Analysis and Modeling of ErbB Receptor Diffusion and Dimerization Dynamics on Live Cells using a Fluorescent Probe Library". Shalini will be joining the lab of biophysicist Dr. Adam Hoppe at South Dakota State University.
Vittorio Cristini, PhD, has joined the Departments of Pathology and Chemical Engineering and the STMC as Full Professor. His research focuses on the mathematical modeling of tumor growth and metastasis.
Jennifer Gillette, PhD, has joined the Department of Pathology and the STMC as Assistant Professor. Her research focuses on applications of new imaging technologies to understand the development of hematopoietic stem cells.
Lydia Tapia, PhD has joined the Department of Computer Science and the STMC as Assistant Professor. Her research focuses on the modeling of molecular motions, including conformational changes in membrane proteins.
Kathrin Spendier has received the 2011 Student Travel Award (press release ) from the
Biophysical Society. She will receive the award at the 2011 Annual Biophysical Society Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland on
March 6, 2011.
The Fall 2010 issue of Quantum features STMC's Melanie Moses, PhD ("Making Connections") and Janet Oliver, PhD and Bridget Wilson, PhD ("The Communication of Cells"). Quantum is published by the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of New Mexico.
The National Cancer Institute has announced some $150 million in research funding over 5 years to institutions targeting nanotechnology approaches to detect, fight and treat cancer. More than 30 institutions across the country will receive nanocancer funding. Read the full article here..
Sysbionetwork is a non-profit organization designed as a resource to bring information to System Biology Centers across the world. See our profile under Participants at sysbionetwork.org.
Diane Lidke received the Junior Faculty Research Award at the UNM Health Sciences Center's Second Annual Faculty Research Day Awards Ceremony October 1, 2010.
Diane will also receive the 2011 Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award from the Biophysical Society for her innovative work integrating the disciplines of biophysics, bioimaging and quantitative biology. The Award will be presented at the 2011 Annual Biophysical Society Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, March 5-9, 2011.
STMC scientists have been awarded a Cancer Nanotechnology Training Center (CNTC) grant from the NCI (see http://www.nano.cancer.gov/announcement-09-24-2010.asp). The new grant is a partnership between the STMC and the Nanoscience and Microsystems (NSMS) graduate program. It provides graduate and postdoctoral stipends and training in interdisciplinary research that integrates cancer biology with nanotechnology and computational modeling. The co-PIs are the STMC Director, J. Oliver (joliver@salud.unm.edu) and the NSMS Director, A. Datye (adatye@unm.edu).
