CIBC Workshop

Charles and Suresh attended a workshop for the Center for Integrative Biomedical Computing at the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute of the University of Utah this past week. Our lab is a Tier 1 collaborator for the NIH/NCRR grant that supports the CIBC (P41RR012553). We are excited about the tools made available by CIBC that enhance our study of childhood cancers, particularly Seg3D and Jens Krüger's new ImageVis3D. Staying an extra day, Suresh also mastered snowboarding... a great trip altogether!

Suresh's Paper accepted to 'Molecular Imaging'

Congratulations to Suresh who muscle injury paper was accepted just yesterday to Molecular Imaging. This paper on near-infrared imaging of tissue damage and repair was also co-authored by Carlo Martinez of the Shireman lab. Stay tuned for potential cover art!

[shown above right: cobra of the genus from which the cardiotoxin venom is derived that is used experimentally to create very small amounts of injury in muscle. Dataset from digimorph.org, and rendering by Suresh Prajapati]

[ UPDATE: (3/5/2008) Suresh's paper is now published! ]

Tohru's work with the Nishihara lab is accepted to 'Differentiation'

Congratulations to Tohru, whose work on the muscle microenvironment was accepted today to the journal, Differentiation. Drs. Ishiguro, Yamanouchi, and Nishihara co-author this exciting work. We are excited to have Tohru as part of our team, especially as we delve deeper into muscle stem cell (satellite cell) biology which underlies the formation of certain types of rhabdomyosarcoma.

Stay tuned for another announcement once Tohru's paper is published!

Brain Tumor Society funds Medulloblastoma Study

We are the fortunate recipients of a two year grant from The National Brain Tumor Society for our study, "Proteasome Inhibitor-Mediated Reversal of Shh-Driven Tumorigenesis". We are both excited and grateful to join the NBTS mission - to find a cure for brain tumors. The annual meeting today was a terrific way for NBTS to share their projects and collaborative ideas.

[note: the graphic to the right was taken from www.braintumor.org/, which announces that the Brain Tumor Society and the National Brain Tumor Foundation have merged. ]

Two Presentations at the South Padre Symposium

Hunter and Jinu gave terrific presentations at the South Padre Symposium on Cell Signaling. Mandy was a co-first author of the talk presented by Hunter. A lot of good feedback and new ideas were discussed. Special kudos to Jinu for what was deemed a very good demonstration of bedside to benchtop and back for his experimental therapeutics work.

[ pictured above: the participants of the Symposium. Keller lab members are highlighted by yellow arrows. ]

Eri graduates to a new position in Boston

Eri has been a key member of our team for 2 years, and now with her Oncogene publication just out and another in review, Eri is moving to the next step in her career. Eri will be performing her second postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Andrew S. Brack at the Center of Regenerative Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard. We can't be happier for Eri, and can't wait to see what she'll accomplish in such a rich research environment with one of muscle biology's young rising star faculty. Congratulations, Eri!

[ pictured above right: Eri's dog, Chris, a native Texan, who is anticipated to adapt well to the Northeast. ]
[ update: Chris appears to enjoy her first snow experience in Boston. Very collegiate sweater! ]

Welcoming Dr. Sachiko Ohshima

We are excited that Sachiko Ohshima, MD, has recently joined our laboratory. Sachiko is a board-certified neurologist, having done her clinical training at Kyushu University Hospital and National Fukuoka-Higashi Medical Center, Japan. Sachiko then pursued a PhD under the guidance of Dr. Shin'ichi Takeda at the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry in Tokyo and will defend her thesis project early next year at Kyushu University. Sachiko's exciting first-author work on gene therapy for the treatment of muscular dystrophy in dogs will be soon published in Molecular Therapy. In our laboratory, Sachiko will a project leader for brain tumor research. Welcome, Sachiko!

[ pictured above right: Sachiko in her garden in Japan. She must be a very good gardener! ]