RTI Newsroom

Angela Messmer-Blust, PhD, was selected as the inaugural winner of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society’s Science Outreach Award.

The Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences honored the new doctoral candidates during its annual Qualifying Exam Recognition Ceremony on Wednesday, Sept. 14, at which Dean Mary Ellen Lane encouraged the honorees to continue “growing, learning and stretching out of your comfort zone.”

Nearly 600 students in Worcester received backpacks filled with school supplies this week, thanks to the UMass Chan Medical School community.

Movies piqued PhD candidate Humberto Ochoa’s interest in science. He’s conducting RNA research in the lab of Nobel Laureate Craig C. Mello, PhD, to understand the national decline in fertility.

A recent survey of health care professionals showed nearly 60 percent of participants encountered patients whose infections didn’t respond to any antibiotic. Andrei Korostelev, PhD, says by studying the biology of bacterial cells, effective new antibiotics can be developed.

Guangping Gao, PhD, and Dan Wang, PhD, show the first evidence that a suppressor transfer RNA therapy, delivered by a recombinant adeno-associated virus, can restore protein production up to six months after treatment in a mouse model of the rare genetic disease mucopolysaccharidosis type I.

ALS research at UMass Chan Medical School is the big beneficiary as select Boston Marathon runners raise tens of thousands of dollars each year. This year, five competitors in the April 18 event are running as part of the UMass Chan ALS Cellucci Fund Boston Marathon team and two sons of the late Jake Kennedy will run in support of the Jake Kennedy ALS Fund.

Robert H. Brown Jr., DPhil, MD, Jonathan Watts, PhD, and colleagues showed the ability to suppress mutant forms of the ALS gene known as C9ORF72 in a single-patient pilot study. The paper reporting the results is part of the 2022 STAT News STAT Madness competition.

UMass alumni Dan and Diane M. Casey Riccio, PhD, have pledged $15 million to UMass Chan Medical School to establish the Riccio ALS Accelerator Initiative and to expand and endow the Riccio Fund for Neuroscience.

PhD student Katya Makeyeva investigates how small RNA pathways regulate gene expression of reproductive cells in the lab of Nobel Laureate Craig Mello, PhD.