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February 2024 - Fiachra Humphries and fellow UMass Chan scientists receive PolyBio Foundation award for long COVID, neurodegenerative disease study

PolyBio Foundation Award winnersFiachria Humphries, PhDis one of three investigators at UMass Chan Medical School investigating the potential connection to and impact of long COVID on neurodegenerative disease -- a study funded by the PolyBio Research Foundation. Learn more about their project. 

Other Recent News


January 2024 -
Stefania Gallucci, MD, recently received R21 funding from the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for her project titled, “Reprogramming of the Innate Immunometabolism by Bacterial Biofilms.” Dr. Gallucci and colleagues will explore the innate immune response against bacterial biofilms through the characterization of the transcriptional and metabolic changes occurring in dendritic cells (DC) upon recognition of bacterial amyloids. She hopes to reveal new metabolic pathways as novel therapeutic candidates, starting with the purine pathway, an understudied pathway in DC biology, to strengthen innate responses against biofilm-driven infections.

December 2023 - Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, has been elected as a 2024 member of The American Society of Clinical Investigation. Dr. Pukkila-Worley is one of 100 Active and International Members to receive this honor. He will be officially inducted into the Society at the ASCI Dinner and New Member Induction Ceremony on April 5, 2024, as part of the AAP/ASCI/APSA Joint Meeting in Chicago, Illinois.

November 2023 - Read Pukkila-Worley, MD,  along with MD/PhD students and lab members, Mohamad Nasrallah and Nick Peterson, recently had a manuscript published in PLOS Pathogens titled, “Transcriptional suppression of sphingolipid catabolism controls pathogen resistance in C. elegans.” Read the full article.

September 2023 - Egil Lien, PhDis featured in the September Department of Medicine's Researcher Spotlight. Learn more about Dr. Lien's work

August 2023 - John Harris, MD, PhD, Fiachra Humphries, PhD, and Ann Marshak-Rothstein, PhD, are among 13 faculty who have been awarded UMass Chan BRIDGE funding. The BRIDGE Fund supports critical research milestones for inventions and discoveries that have high potential to change the course of disease. The funding will mitigate investment risk by producing key data sets that would provide an attractive entry-point for partners and investors. Learn more about their projects

July 2023 - Lee Quinton, PhD, was recently awarded new R01 funding from the NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to study lectin-like oxidized low-density lipoprotein receptor-1 (LOX-1) as a protective countermeasure in response to lung infection.

July 2023 - Kate Fitzgerald, PhD and Ann Marshak-Rothstein, PhD, have been awarded a competing renewal for their NIH T32: Training in the Molecular Basis of Autoimmunity and Autoinflammation (also known as the Autoimmunity and Autoinflammation Training Grant or AATG).

June 2023 - Roberto Caricchio, MD, is leading the launch of the Lupus Center at UMass Chan, a new research and clinical care center at UMass Chan Medical School, in collaboration with UMass Memorial Health. Read more.  

May 2023 - Liraz Galia, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Kate Fitzgerald, PhD, Samantha Tse, MD/PhD student in the lab of Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, and Kevin Gao, MD/PhD student in the labs of Dr. Fitzgerald and Ann Marshak-Rothstein, PhD, professor of medicine will present their research. Read more

April 2023 - Roberto Caricchio, MD, is featured on a recent episode of Voices of UMass Chan, where he describes a new lupus program launching at UMass Chan in collaboration with UMass Memorial. Listen to the podcast.

March 2023 - Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, and MD/PhD students Nicholas D. Peterson and Samantha Y. Tse describes a new manner of detecting microbial infection that intercepts pathogen-derived signals of growth to assess the relative threat of virulent bacteria in Immunity. Read more

February 2023 - Sanjay Ram, MD, and Peter Rice, MD, explain risk of spread in novel gonorrhea strain. Read more.

January 2023 - Douglas Golenbock, MD, featured in the Department of Medicine's Researcher Spotlight. Read more.

December 2022 - 2023 Call for Applications! The Program in Innate Immunity is thrilled to announce an open competition for RISE: The Robert W. Finberg, MD Memorial Research Training Awards. Learn more

November 2022 - Save the Date! The 2023 Innate Immunity Day: Cell Death will be held on May 10, 2023. More info.

October 2022 - Scientists in the Silverman Lab, Program in Innate Immunity publish new findings on the role of transporter SLC46A2 on psoriatic skin inflammation. Read more. 

September 2022 - Welcome to the 2022-23 Autoimmunity and Autoinflammation Training Grant and Innate Immunity Training Grant Trainees!

August 2022 - Ann Marshak-Rothstein, PhD's Work Featured in Journal of Immunology’s “Pillars of Immunology” Commentary

July 2022 - Stuart Levitz, MD, has been awarded R01 funding to for his project,  "A subunit Cryptococcus vaccine". 

Kate Fitzgerald, PhD, has been awarded BRIDGE Funding by the UMass Chan BRIDGE Innovation and Business Development office, for two projects with commercialization potential to study the "Development of inhibitors of ASC-dependent Inflammasomes for the treatment of inflammatory diseases” and“Development of STING inhibitors for the treatment of inflammatory diseases”

June 2022 - Fiachra Humphries, PhD, has been selected to receive one of the highly competitive Child Health Awards from the Charles H. Hood Foundation to study, “The role of MARCO in pediatric cancer.” 

May 2022 - Ann Marshak-Rothstein, PhD, has been selected as the winner of this year’s Women in Science and Health Achievements Award by the Women’s Faculty Committee at UMass Chan. Read more.
 
March 2022 - New Faculty and Promotions:
  • Fiachra Humphries, Ph.D., has joined the Department of Medicine faculty as an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Innate Immunity and the Program in Innate Immunity. Learn more about Dr. Humphries' work.

  • Zaida Ramirez-Ortiz, Ph.D., has been promoted to a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology and the Program in Innate Immunity. Learn more about Dr. Ramirez-Ortiz's work.