Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Newsmakers

New research from the lab of Jason Kim, PhD, identified a novel pathway in the progression of metabolic liver disease that could be targeted for potential therapies.

Festivities kick off on Friday, Sept. 6, with the T.H. Chan School of Medicine White Coat Ceremony, welcoming the new class of medical students into the medical community.

Shan Lu MD, PhD, co-authored a pair of studies related to the Phase I clinical trial of a polyvalent DNA/prime-protein boost vaccine to prevent HIV, marking the latest step in a decades long quest to harness the power of DNA vaccines to address a major global health need.  

Andrés Colubri, MFA, PhD, and his lab have partnered with a team at Massachusetts General Hospital on a mobile app that enables infectious disease research and can keep international travelers healthy.

Recently published analyses from the Women’s Health Initiative found that hormone therapy reduces bothersome symptoms of menopause among women under 60 or in early menopause, but it does not prevent cardiovascular disease or other chronic diseases. Nursing professor Sybil Crawford discusses what research suggests about staying healthy throughout a woman’s middle and later years.  

Postdoctoral fellow Samara Vilca, PhD, has been awarded the second phase of the National Institutes of Health Blueprint and BRAIN Initiative Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience Award.  

The T.H. Chan School of Medicine welcomed 235 medical students on Monday, Aug. 19. The largest class in school history includes the first cohort of students in the new LEAD@Lahey track.

A recently published study by UMass Chan Medical School researchers found that young adults 18-30 years old rated informational Instagram posts about e-cigarettes higher in message and source credibility when the posts came from a health expert compared with a friend or social media influencer.  

The cover story of the summer 2024 issue of @umasschan magazine highlights the design features of the new education and research building that opened in June. The story details the ways in which it supports the institution’s aspirations for long-term environmental sustainability while simultaneously fostering unique collaborations intended to spark scientific breakthroughs.

PhD student Nathan Glassy discovered his passion for science while working as a music teacher in Louisiana. His quest to discover how music impacts the mind led him to studying neuroscience and then how mindfulness practice could help opioid users with anxiety, depression or PTSD at UMass Chan.  

A family whose child has a rare neurological disease, SPG4, visited UMass Chan Medical School’s scientists to learn about development of a gene therapy for the disease. The family is raising funds to support the research in the Translational Institute for Molecular Therapeutics. 

Thirty college students participated in the 2024 Summer Undergraduate Research Program at UMass Chan Medical School, refining their career goals through networking with peers and mentors, collaborative research and developing critical thinking skills.  

The Remillard Family Community Service Fund awarded grants to support innovative projects led by UMass Chan Medical School faculty, residents, staff and students that address social determinants of health, increase equitable and affordable access to care, and develop and expand community outreach programs.

A biochemical breakthrough using simple carbon atoms by Ken Yamada, PhD, and Anastasia Khvorova, PhD, has dramatically improved the stability and efficacy of a potential oligonucleotide therapeutic platform in mice.

UMass Chan researchers are about to enroll patients from UMass Memorial Health and Baystate Health in an innovative study comparing post-acute rehabilitation services provided in a patient’s home to those in traditional inpatient skilled nursing facilities.

Research aimed at identifying the mechanisms that promote resistance to radiation therapy in patients with triple negative breast cancer is underway at UMass Chan Medical School by Arthur M. Mercurio, PhD, thanks to a new $2.6 million cancer research award from the National Institutes of Health.

Nineteen rising high school juniors and seniors spent their summer participating in the immersive 2024 High School Health Careers Program at UMass Chan Medical School.  

U.S. News & World Report 2024 rankings of America’s Best Grad Schools place UMass Chan in the top tier of medical schools across the nation for primary care education.  

Stroke survivors often experience spatial neglect, an underdiagnosed condition impairing their ability to navigate their surroundings. In a new article for The Conversation, A.M. Barrett, MD, chair and professor of neurology, and Kevin Houston, OD, MSc, associate professor of neurology, highlight prism adaptation therapy as a promising treatment. This simple, effective therapy significantly improves patients' spatial awareness and independence.

PhD candidate Jacob Stillman has been awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to further his research on remyelination, targeting diseases such as multiple sclerosis that disrupt how the brain and body communicate.  

Summer Thyme, PhD, is the recipient of a five-year, NIH-funded research award to study intellectual disability in neurodevelopmental disorders using zebra fish as a model organism.

The Lupus Center at UMass Chan is participating in a clinical research study, exploring the use of CAR T cell treatment in lupus nephritis for severe or nonresponsive lupus.

Awards of $50,000 were distributed to support ground-breaking and interdisciplinary research in the neurosciences.

As the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program, a large, diverse database, enters its second five years of funding at UMass Chan, investigators are pursuing more studies in population health with a focus on including groups traditionally underrepresented in biomedical research.  

BRIDGE Innovation and Business Development at UMass Chan Medical School has set aside nearly $2 million in funding for six faculty-led research projects that hold promise for translation to clinical application and commercialization.  

The UMass Chan Medical School Department of Microbiology and Physiological Systems is now the Department of Microbiology, according to Beth McCormick, PhD.  

Research by Andrei Korostelev, PhD, and Anna Loveland, PhD, shows that the ribosome plays an unexpected role in the activation of angiogenin, allowing it to cleave transfer RNA, thereby halting protein production. These findings shed new light on angiogenin functioning and may have important implications for the design of cancer therapeutics and neurodegenerative disease treatments.  

The Robert W. Finberg Physician-Scientist Training Program is named in honor of the late Robert W. Finberg, MD, chair emeritus and distinguished professor of medicine.  

UMass Chan Medical School and pharmaceutical company Astellas Pharma Inc. have entered into a sponsored research agreement to proceed with research for an adeno-associated virus vector mediated gene therapy for the treatment of Alexander disease, a fatal, ultra-rare disease.

The year-end celebration highlighted the 22 students enrolled in Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program and the Initiative for Maximizing Student Development program who completed major milestones.  

UMass Chan Medical School has received $2.2 million from a nonprofit patient-advocacy organization to contract with Andelyn Biosciences to manufacture clinical grade AAV9-CSA vector to treat Cockayne syndrome.  

UMass Chan leaders and invited dignitaries cut the ribbon on the new education and research building, as WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, received an honorary degree and delivered the keynote address.  

Students, faculty and special guests share the spotlight in this video of joyful moments from Sunday’s 51st Commencement at UMass Chan Medical School.  

UMass Chan Medical School celebrated the Classes of 2024 of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing and the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences on Sunday, June 2.

The second annual Deborah Harmon Hines, PhD, Commencement Celebration honored graduating UMass Chan Medical School students of color by presenting them with Kente and multicultural stoles to wear at the 51st Commencement.

In its annual pre-Commencement celebration, the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences honored student scientists at the 2024 Student Achievement and Leadership Awards Ceremony. 

The UMass Chan community gathered to celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month through a food and storytelling event.

The annual awards are sponsored by the Office of Faculty Affairs and the Women’s Faculty Committee of the Diversity and Inclusion Office.  

Medical student Jesse Sardell, MD/PhD student Julie Hugunin, and nursing PhD student Jennifer Costa, RN, APRN, PPCNP-BC, will serve as class speakers for their respective schools at UMass Chan Medical School’s 51st Commencement on Sunday, June 2.

The 51st Commencement exercises at UMass Chan will be held at noon on Sunday, June 2, following a week of Commencement celebrations honoring the Classes of 2024.  

The 12-month program is the longest-running professional development program at UMass Chan Medical School and has nearly 300 graduates.

A tightly choreographed process to move faculty, staff and equipment into the new education and research building on the Worcester campus has begun. The building opening will be celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 7.  

Physician-scientist Jeremy Luban, MD, provides key insights and perspective on pressing concerns around the H5N1 bird flu in the United States.  

A new mural at UMass Chan Medical School was painted by students including medical students Jen Sohn and Jean Song. Its design captures collaboration among the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing.  

Alumni returned to UMass Chan Medical School on May 4 for Reunion 2024. Among alumni celebrating were members of the Class of 1974, who earned their medical degrees 50 years ago this month as UMass Chan celebrated its first graduating class.  

UMass Chan Medical School, in partnership with UMass Memorial Health, hosted the inaugural Affirming Health Care for Our Trans and Gender-Diverse Communities Summit, addressing the well-being of trans and gender-diverse community members. Medical student Mina Zhang was the emcee for the event and Kai da Costa, DO, assistant professor of psychiatry, led a patient and community voices panel discussion and Q&A session.  

Researchers in UMass Chan Medical School’s Center for Microbiome Research are exploring the causal mechanisms by which bacteria in the gut influence chronic illnesses such as Alzheimer’s and Crohn’s disease and in autoimmune disorders and other conditions.

Celia Schiffer, PhD, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences for her distinguished and continuing achievements in original biomedical research.

The LabCentral Ignite community workshop was held on April 24 in partnership with MassBioEd and co-hosted by UMass Chan’s ScienceLIVE.

The Worcester Business Journal has named Chancellor Michael F. Collins, Vice Chancellor Marlina Duncan and Executive Vice Chancellor Parth Chakrabarti to its 2024 Power 100 list.

Faculty members from the three UMass Chan graduate schools were honored at the 2024 Educational Recognition Awards ceremony and Susan Zweizig, MD, delivered the annual honorary Last Lecture, titled “What You Don’t See.”

UMass Chan Medical School and Dubai Health signed a memorandum of understanding to establish mutually beneficial research projects to improve patient care, create an exchange framework for learners between the institutions, and drive transformative advancements for public health locally and globally.  

The Vanderbilt AUD Research and Education Center is funded in part by a five-year, $8.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

PhD candidate Seden Bedir moved from Turkey to the U.S. to study at UMass Chan Medical School. She aims to engineer RNA sequences that don’t exist in nature in order to enable mRNA-based therapeutics beyond vaccines. In her free time, she mentors students from Turkey.  

The two UMass Chan faculty members are among 500 scientists, engineers and innovators elected this year.

UMass LIGHT, a mentorship program pairing students with faculty members, has formed meaningful bonds between industry leaders and aspiring doctors. UMass LIGHT will host a conference with keynote speakers Rochelle Walensky, MD, former CDC director, and Robert “Hoot” Gibson, former chief astronaut for NASA, on May 3. 

Mariana Noto Guillen, a PhD candidate in the lab of Amir Mitchell, PhD, associate professor of systems biology, wrote an article for The Conversation explaining a recent Science paper about how nonantibiotics have sufficient antibacterial activity to affect gut microbiome composition. It explains what nonantibiotics are, and the mechanisms behind their antibacterial effects.  

UMass Chan Medical School and MITRE, operator of federally funded research and development centers, announced the establishment of the Health AI Assurance Laboratory, a collaborative initiative to advance health artificial intelligence in the public interest. The initiative is at the forefront of efforts in the United States, and the first in Massachusetts, to ensure AI technology in health care is safe and effective for everyone using it.

As they make their way 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Copley Square on April 15, the UMass ALS Cellucci Fund Boston Marathon Team will be the largest group of runners in the team’s 13-year history of raising funds to support ALS research.

Second Look Day introduced accepted medical students to the T.H. Chan School of Medicine and included programming from the Diversity and Inclusion office.

Natick resident and Stanford Online High School student Rebecca Ahn outperformed other local high school students in the final round of the competition on March 16.

Five graduates from the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences returned to campus to crown a winner for UMass Chan’s inaugural Three Minute Thesis competition. PhD student Najihah Aziz and MD/PhD student Ayush Kumar took home prizes.  

The story of Raiden Pham, an Oregon toddler with an ultra-rare genetic disease was included on the Lunaprise Museum, a digital time capsule that went to the moon with the Odysseus spacecraft in February. Tommy and Linda Pham founded Raiden Science Foundation in 2021 to raise money to support research on a treatment at UMass Chan’s Translational Institute for Molecular Therapeutics.  

The second community convening of the Equity in Caregiving Project, which will be 10 a.m. – noon March 28 in the UMass Chan Faculty Conference Room S1-342, will host a panel of family and clinical caregivers to discuss caregivers’ experiences and what might reduce inequities.

Researchers have identified amino acid changes in the AGO1 protein that cause Argonaute syndrome. These genetic mutations, studied in the C. elegans model, cause an organism-wide disruption of the RNA silencing process impacting hundreds of different genes.  

In a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, UMass Chan researchers reported analyses from the National Institutes of Health RADx program showing a small percentage of people, largely women with autoimmune disorders, persistently test positive on rapid home antigen tests for COVID-19 despite concurrently testing negative on molecular PCR tests.  

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey will deliver the Commencement address and receive a Chancellor’s Medal at UMass Chan Medical School on Sunday, June 2, as UMass Chan celebrates the accomplishments of the Class of 2024 at its 51^st Commencement.  

At noon on Friday, March 15, members of the T.H. Chan School of Medicine Class of 2024 will simultaneously tear open their envelopes from the National Resident Matching Program to discover where they will begin their careers in medicine.

STAT News has selected three research teams from UMass Chan to compete in its 2024 STAT Madness competition. Members of the public are invited to vote for the best biomedical research from 2023. The first round of voting, which will narrow the field from 64 to 32, has begun.

In an article for The Conversation, Nate Hafer, PhD, and Apurv Soni, MD, PhD’21, answer common questions related to how COVID-19 antigen tests perform against new variants. Anuradha Rao, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Emory University also contributed to the article.

Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences students Atinuke G. Oyinbo and Favour Akabogu discussed their research for the Black Excellence series.

In an updated article originally published by The Conversation in Feb. 2023, Fen-Biao Gao, PhD, talks about how frontotemporal dementia changes the brain and the research that is untangling its genetic causes.

Construction equipment and office trailers used in the construction of the new education and research building at UMass Chan will soon be removed as construction enters the final phase before completion of the building in early June.

In a new Voices of UMass Chan podcast, John P. Haran, MD’07, PhD’18, and Ethan Loew, MD/PhD student, shed light on their ongoing research to better understand the connection between the gut microbiome and cognitive health, particularly how it impacts older people.

Transcript

Membership in the new African Student Association at UMass Chan Medical School requires acknowledging cultural differences in order to provide better care for diverse patients, and a desire to connect and celebrate each member’s African identity. 

Rebecca Beiter, PhD, a postdoc in the lab of Dorothy P. Schafer, PhD, has received an award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to analyze the role a type of brain cell plays in neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

The research, led by UMass Chan viral immunologists Liisa Selin, MD, PhD, and Anna Gil, PhD, introduced a novel treatment and a method to track effective treatment interventions. 

The Diversity and Inclusion Office introduces Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine by Uché Blackstock as its 2024 Diversity Campus Read book.

UMass Chan is one of the first sites to participate in the Lupus Landmark Study and enroll patients in Lupus Nexus, a nationwide collaborative research biorepository.  

Joan Reede, MD, MS, MPH, MBA, dean for diversity and community partnership and champion of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at Harvard Medical School, will serve as keynote speaker for UMass Chan’s 36th annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.

 A UMass Chan professor of molecular, cell & cancer biology explains the science behind CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology, following the FDA’s first approval of a gene-editing treatment for sickle cell disease.

Young adults ages 18 to 25 years old consistently report the highest rates of co-occurring alcohol use disorder and suicidal thoughts and also have very low participation in substance use treatment. 

The cover story for the winter 2023-24 issue of @umasschan magazine highlights how the families of children with genetic disorders inspire gene therapy research and how UMass Chan is streamlining the pathway from bench research to clinical trials for new treatments.

MD/PhD student Abigail Hiller has received an award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to study the role genes linked to Alzheimer’s disease play in ALS.

A multisite Veterans Affairs study led by A.M. Barrett, MD, and Kevin Houston, OD, aims to define and validate brain imaging biomarkers that predict response to prism adaptation therapy in patients with spatial neglect following right-brain stroke.

UMass Chan researcher Li Li, PhD, writes for The Conversation about how mRNA drug development, which led to the first COVID-19 vaccine, offers significant advantages over traditional drug development.

A study published in Lancet Public Health and led by Nancy Byatt, DO, and Tiffany Moore Simas, MD'00, found that two approaches to helping obstetric practices screen, assess and treat perinatal depression were equally effective in improving depression symptoms.

A UMass Chan study led by Jean Frazier, MD, suggests maternal inflammation may influence emotional, cognitive, behavioral problems later in life.

A new study published in Nature Cell Biology by Mark Alkema, PhD, establishes an important molecular link between specific B12-producing bacteria in the gut of the roundworm C. elegans and the production of a neurotransmitter important to memory and cognitive function.

The MISSION program combines three evidence-based practices in a multidisciplinary team approach to treating adults with substance use disorders and co-occurring mental illness.

Transcript

Anthony Rothschild, MD, will lead a study at UMass Chan to evaluate the effectiveness of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression.

Video: In 2023, UMass Chan Medical School moved boldly forward to grow our deliberately inclusive campus, home to impactful research and the No. 1 program for primary care education in New England.

Top story: Boston toddler Noa Greenwood, who was one of the first to receive an investigational gene therapy for Canavan disease developed at UMass Chan Medical School, delivered a very special “thank you” to the research team in a visit with her parents earlier this year.

Top story: The T.H. Chan School of Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School is best in New England and in the top 10 percent nationwide for primary care education according to the U.S News & World Report 2023-2024 Best Graduate Schools rankings.

Top story: Katie Couric, former host of NBC’s Today show and anchor of CBS Evening News, delivered the Commencement address at UMass Chan on Sunday, June 4.

UMass Chan MD/PhD student Nick Bolden has discovered a pathway in the brain that could block addictive behavior. Inspired by his father, a retired judge, Bolden has devoted his career to treating addiction.

UMass Chan Medical School researchers are taking lessons learned from a pilot study on at-home COVID-19 testing and telehealth and broadening their evaluation to a larger federal Home Test to Treat program.

New study led by Nils Henninger, MD, PhD'18, suggests interplay between genetic factors and traumatic brain injury in behavioral and neurological deficits related to ALS and FTD in mice.

UMass Chan Medical School has been named one of The Boston Globe’s 2023 Top Places to Work in Massachusetts and recognized for its diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

PhD student Valeria Sanabria, MD, won the Zelda Haidak Scholarship in Cell Biology, which was established to enhance training for women pursuing research careers in cell biology. Her research is focused on studying gene expression at the transcriptional level.