Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Newsmakers

A 17-month-old girl with Canavan disease and her family from Italy visited UMass Chan researchers to thank them for their discoveries.

A new study reveals functions and mechanisms that are essential to how molecules move across a membrane through vesicles in a cell.  

The 2025 MLK Celebration of Service at UMass Chan is being held Jan. 27, with keynote speaker Imari K. Paris Jeffries, PhD, president and CEO of Embrace Boston.

The first phase of the Inclusive Identity Project is now available to UMass employees across all five campuses.

The historically significant work of art is now on permanent display in the Lamar Soutter Library at UMass Chan Medical School.

The Mel Cutler Population Health Pilot Research Award was launched in 2024 by the Population and Quantitative Health Sciences Advance Science Workgroup.

Lourah Kelly, PhD, discusses avatar therapy for alcohol use and suicide prevention in a new Voices of UMass Chan podcast.  

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The study aimed to understand the link between viral infections such as HCMV and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

In 2024, UMass Chan celebrated its second Nobel Laureate, opened the new education and research building and launched a regional campus in Burlington.  

Top story: 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.

Top story: 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.  

Top story: 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. 

Top story: UMass Chan Medical School researcher Victor R. Ambros, PhD, will share the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his co-discovery of microRNA, the very short, single-stranded RNA molecules that are now understood to play a critical role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.

ImmVue Therapeutics Inc. has exclusively licensed allosteric small molecule compounds identified in the laboratory of Joonsoo Kang, PhD, professor of pathology at UMass Chan Medical School, for clinical development as a potential cancer therapeutic.

Jennifer Adair, PhD, will join UMass Chan as associate director of the Horae Gene Therapy Center vice chair of the Department of Genetic & Cellular Medicine.

Victor R. Ambros, PhD, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Tuesday, Dec. 10 in Stockholm, Sweden.

PhD student Hoang Tran is in the first cohort to enroll in UMass Chan Medical School’s Biophysical, Chemical and Computational Biology pathway.  

Victor Ambros, PhD, presents 2024 Nobel Lecture: A marvelous unfolding story of microRNAs.  

Elena Byhoff, MD, is leading a hybrid effectiveness-implementation study to understand health impacts of food insecurity intervention.  

Victor R. Ambros, PhD, will be in Stockholm, Sweden, celebrating Nobel Prize week.

Among the newly endowed chairs, five are new UMass Memorial Health chairs, made possible through the long-standing partnership with UMass Chan.

Virology experts gather at UMass Chan Medical School for 2024 MassCPR Symposium learn about biology and infectious mechanisms of viruses.  

UMass Chan is looking for new members to join the Committee on Equal Opportunity and Diversity to continue the momentum of its 2024 Diversity Summit.  

The environmental justice program is a partnership between the Office of Sustainability, the Diversity and Inclusion Office and the Lamar Soutter Library.

The 2024 Nobel Prize Symposium in Washington, D.C., was hosted by the Embassy of Sweden and the National Academy of Sciences.

In a new Voices of UMass Chan podcast, Jason Kim, PhD, discussed his research into the link between Alzheimer’s disease and type 2 diabetes.  

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UMass Chan Medical School AI scientist Feifan Liu, PhD, associate professor of population & quantitative health sciences, is leading studies to develop AI models aimed at advancing health equity in predicting risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  

The VA Summer Research Program, established in 2022 to strengthen and diversify the VA scientific workforce, will remain at UMass Chan for another five years. The research program at UMass Chan is the only site of 25 nationally that is solely focused on women’s health.  

Mailings about the risks of certain drugs given to people with dementia showed no effect in reducing prescriptions, a study led by UMass Chan researchers finds. But there are lessons to be learned.  

People who had a history of bicycling for exercise reported a lower prevalence of knee pain and had a lower prevalence of radiographic osteoarthritis and symptomatic osteoarthritis, according to a large study from the Osteoarthritis Initiative.  

UMass Chan’s 2024 Diversity Summit called on members of the UMass Chan community to adopt new methods that allow for access to entry and success for staff and faulty.  

The UMass Chan Cares campaign provides faculty, students and employees the opportunity to donate to a wide range of causes they care about.

The Diversity and Inclusion Office releases its annual report.

MD/PhD student Michelle Narváez Ramos is researching antimicrobial peptides and their effect on bacteria to make antibiotics more effective.  

UMass Chan cardiologists explain what the new risk calculator means and what exciting new research is taking place to help patients better control their risk.

The Conversation Weekly podcast interviewed UMass Chan Nobel Laureate Victor R. Ambros, PhD, to learn more about his role in the discovery of microRNA and what comes next. Dr. Ambros shares the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with collaborator Gary B. Ruvkun, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.  

Victor Ambros, PhD, shared his gratitude to his wife and collaborator, Rosalind “Candy” Lee, as well as to the Medical School and scientific community, at a celebration of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine he co-received with Gary Ruvkun, PhD, professor at Harvard Medical School, for their discovery of microRNA.  

The UMass Chan Medical School community embraced its newest Nobel Laureate on Monday, Oct. 7, after Victor Ambros, PhD, was named the co-recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his co-discovery of microRNA. See how the day unfolded in this video.

Victor R. Ambros, PhD, has garnered international media attention after he was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his role in the discovery of microRNA.  

Students in the Ambros lab at UMass Chan Medical School and 2006 Nobel Prize winner Craig Mello, PhD, celebrated their mentor, Victor Ambros, PhD, as he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Gary Ruvkun, PhD, for their discovery of microRNA.  

William Flavahan, PhD, is one of 40 recipients of the $1.5 million NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, designed to support early career investigators who are proposing bold research.

Although Victor Ambros, PhD, was scheduled to move his lab into a new building today, the announcement that he and Gary Ruvkun, PhD, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of microRNA, put those plans were put on hold. Read more about how his day unfolded.  

Watch a video of the UMass Chan Medical School press conference on Monday, Oct. 7, held after the announcement that UMass Chan researcher Victor R. Ambros, PhD, was a co-recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of microRNA.

Internationally renowned geneticist and pioneer of microRNA, Victor R. Ambros, PhD, who will share the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his co-discovery of microRNA, is the Silverman Chair in Natural Sciences and professor of molecular medicine at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, Mass.

UMass Chan Medical School researcher Victor R. Ambros, PhD, will share the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his co-discovery of microRNA, the very short, single-stranded RNA molecules that are now understood to play a critical role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.  

The Lancet Psychiatry Commission, a report on the current state and changing landscape of youth mental health, was recently released, with contributions from UMass Chan.  

A study by UMass Chan researchers on variations in medications used in nursing homes for patients with Alzheimer’s and other dementias found that antidementia drug use varied by geographic region, while use of antipsychotics was associated with poorer nursing home quality and patient factors.

The two published papers both started with a single question: “What regulates the immune response in C. elegans?”

Discussing the COVID-19 vaccine with vaccine-hesitant patients can be frustrating, a focus group of primary care providers reported in a recent study led by Kimberly Fisher, MD. But having the vaccine available in the clinic, as well as incorporating motivational interviewing techniques, may offer a way forward.  

Artists share what “Advancing Belonging Together” means to them through original artwork at a new exhibit coordinated by the Advocacy Subcommittee of UMass Chan’s Committee on Equal Opportunity and Diversity in partnership with the Lamar Soutter Library.  

UMass Chan Medical School scientists Marcus Ruscetti, PhD, and Prabhani Atukorale, PhD, have developed a new, dual immunotherapy approach that may potentially change the way clinicians treat pancreatic cancer.  

A $5 million philanthropic gift from UMass Memorial Health and $2.5 million in matching funds from the University of Massachusetts Foundation will allow UMass Chan to establish five new ‘UMass Memorial Health’ endowed chairs. Furthermore, seven additional new endowed chairs are being established, meeting the institutional goal of 75 endowed chairs by 2025.  

Chancellor Michael F. Collins kicked off a new Voices of UMass Chan podcast season by highlighting the growth and future of UMass Chan Medical School.  

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UMass Chan’s annual Diversity Summit on Oct. 30 will feature a poster session and a speaker program focused on faculty recruitment and retention as well as collective responsibly in ensuring diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging standards are met and maintained at all times at UMass Chan.  

Two new donor-funded fellowships are being launched this year at UMass Chan to recruit recent postdoctoral scientists and, through intensive mentoring and resource support, foster their development as independent investigators. The fellowships align with the vision embodied in The Morningside Foundation’s transformational $175 million gift in 2021.  

Four faculty members were honored with chancellor’s medals, and seven others were invested as named professors at the annual Convocation and Investiture celebration.

The Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences’ largest qualifying class was honored in a ceremony on Sept. 11. Four PhD candidates received the Zelda Haidak Award in Cell Biology.  

Guests speakers Judy Hanlon, pastor at Hadwen Park Congregational Church, co-founder of the LGBT Asylum Task Force, and member of the Southern New England Conference Immigration, Refugee and Asylum Task Team; and Al Green, ministry director of the LGBT Asylum Task Force, talked about the work of the task force and sought to inspire change through personal stories.  

Robert E. Layne, MEd, is receiving the BIPOC Community Leader Award from the Diverse Professionals Roundtable, a Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce program designed to support the development of professional and personal relationships among senior leaders of racial and ethnic diversity in Central Massachusetts.  

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.  

Richard I. Gregory, PhD, will join UMass Chan Medical School as the next chair of the Department of Molecular, Cell & Cancer Biology, beginning in December.

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.