AnaptysBio Names Director of Cell Biology
AnaptysBio, a privately-held therapeutic antibody platform and product company, announced the appointment of Dr. Sean Stevens as director of cell biology.
Reporting to Dr. David King, vice president of research, Stevens will lead a group of cell biologists involved in the development of AnaptysBio’s somatic hypermutation (SHM) technology and its application toward creating new therapeutic antibodies. He joins from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Tarrytown, NY, where he served in various positions of increasing responsibility since 2000, most recently as associate director, inflammation and immune disorder therapeutic focus area, and associate director of technology evaluation.
Three UC San Diego Researchers Receive Top National Awards
Three top researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine were recently named as recipients of prestigious awards from national organizations in their respective fields.
One of the recipients was Lewis L. Judd, MD, Mary Gilman Marston professor and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego’s School of Medicine. Judd was recently awarded one of the world's leading prizes for psychiatric research achievement, the esteemed Nola Maddox Falcone Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Mood Disorders Research from NARSAD: The Mental Health Research Association—the world’s leading charity dedicated to funding research on psychiatric disorders.
Gary S. Firestein, MD, dean of Translational Medicine for UCSD Health Sciences and chief of the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology at UC San Diego, received the 2009 Distinguished Basic Investigator Award from the American College of Rheumatology (ARC) in October.
The third recipient was Larry Goldstein, PhD, professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at UC San Diego, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and director of the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program will receive the 2009 American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) Public Service Award at ASCB’s national conference, taking place in San Diego in early December.
Feeding the Clock: Cycles of Feeding and Fasting Drive Circadian Gene Expression in the Liver
When you eat may be just as vital to your health as what you eat, found researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Their experiments in mice revealed that the daily waxing and waning of thousands of genes in the liver-the body's metabolic clearinghouse-is mostly controlled by food intake and not by the body's circadian clock as conventional wisdom had it.
"If feeding time determines the activity of a large number of genes completely independent of the circadian clock, when you eat and fast each day will have a huge impact on your metabolism," says the study's leader Satchidananda (Satchin) Panda, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Regulatory Biology Laboratory.
The Salk researchers' findings, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could explain why shift workers are unusually prone to metabolic syndrome, diabetes, high cholesterol levels and obesity.
The Bug Counters
They’re on a mission from the Navy to search for what most people avoid vigorously: Spiders, wasps, bees. Termites, ticks, ants. The basic premise of the Navy contract is this: you need to know what you have in order to save it.
Jim Berrian and Eric Piehel, scientists from the San Diego Natural History Museum, are conducting what may be the most extensive study of spiders and insects ever done in San Diego County. And they are conducting their study on some of the last unspoiled coastal sage scrub in Southern California—1,200 acres of Chaparral hillsides, sandstone cliffs and Torrey pine trees.
Among the new finds in Point Loma: dark-winged fungus gnats, gall midges and spitting spiders. No one knew the Tidarren haemorrhoidale spider, possibly named for a hemorrhoid-like bump on its rear end, was in San Diego either. This is important, Berrian said, because arthropods could be the next frontier of medicine. Researchers elsewhere are studying spider venoms as possible treatments for strokes and pain. The Brazilian wandering spider—whose bite can cause impotence—is showing promise as an antidote to erectile dysfunction, according to the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. Reported by Voice of San Diego.
Nonprofit Incubator Helps Entrepreneurs
EvoNexus is a one year old nonprofit spinoff from CommNexus, a San Diego telecommunications industry trade group. Its goal is to help entrepreneurs get off the ground. So far, EvoNexus has selected six young companies to incubate in 25,000 square feet donated by Leap Wireless. More than 80 companies applied for the program. Ultimately, EvoNexus aims to house 10 to 12 companies for up to 24 months at its office in Sorrento Valley.
Last week, Pucher, EvoNexus’ executive director, gave an update on the organization’s efforts to nurture companies to the Voice of San Diego. The Q & A session can be viewed here.
Pandemic Flu: Know the Enemy Live Chat
In October, Burnham Institute for Medical Research organized a panel to educate the public on the threat posed by the H1N1 strain of influenza ("swine flu"). Here is footage from the panel, available online courtesy of UCSD TV.
On Tuesday, November 10th, the institute conducted a live online chat session with Dr. Robert Liddington, key researcher from the Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Research Center at Burnham Institute for Medical Research. The transcript for that chat can be viewed here.
First-of-its-Kind Research Registry Matches Volunteers with Studies
San Diegans interested in participating in research studies now have a new way to be connected with researchers who are conducting these studies, with the launch of ResearchMatch.org, the nation’s first disease-neutral volunteer recruitment registry.
ResearchMatch is the product of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Consortium, a national network of 46 medical research institutions funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The only San Diego institution participating in the ResearchMatch registry is the Scripps Translational Science Institute, the sole Southern California-based institution to be selected to the CTSA consortium.
The ResearchMatch.org website offers an easy, free and secure way for volunteers to connect with researchers who are conducting studies on various health and disease topics. San Diegans can self-register online as potential volunteers for local studies based on their health profile and preferences. Once registered, volunteers are notified electronically by the registry when they are a possible match for a study. Volunteers’ personal information is protected until they authorize the release of their contact information for a specific study, and there is no obligation to participate.
NCI Grant Funding Available for Small Business Innovation in Cancer Technologies
The National Cancer Institute Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs has announced grant funding opportunities to eligible small business and research institutions.
These funding opportunities are intended for U.S. small businesses that have the research capabilities and technological expertise to contribute to the development and commercialization of novel technologies and products to prevent, diagnose, and treat cancer. The deadline to apply for these grant opportunities is December 5, 2009.
Nobel Laureate K. Barry Sharpless Hopes to Make Drug Design as Simple as Building with Legos.
Sharpless, 68, a professor with a large lab at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California (he’s named one of the seven most powerful innovators by Lemelson-MIT Program director Michael Cima.) has been pushing an idea called click chemistry, a term Sharpless coined before the ink on his Swedish diploma was dry, for the past decade. Click chemistry might have an even bigger impact than his Nobel-winning work.
Click chemistry is as much an operating philosophy as it is a recipe. Organic chemists make much of what we see—drugs, plastics, food, gasoline—by linking carbon atoms via such methods as heat, pressure, enzymes, caustic chemicals and explosions. But figuring out how to devise complex new chemicals can be a laborious and time-consuming process. It took chemists two decades to figure out how to produce the cancer drug Taxol in the lab. Before that, it had to be derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree.
Sharpless aims to simplify medicinal chemistry by devising reliable ways to link together small chemical building blocks to form far more complex structures. If his concept works, drug design will become a bit like building with Legos. Chemists could rapidly create new drugs by linking together numerous simple building blocks, one after the other.
Surface Bacteria Maintains Skin’s Healthy Balance
On the skin’s surface, bacteria are abundant, diverse and constant, but inflammation is undesirable. Research at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine now shows that the normal bacteria living on the skin surface trigger a pathway that prevents excessive inflammation after injury.
“These germs are actually good for us,” said Richard L. Gallo, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and pediatrics, chief of UCSD’s Division of Dermatology and the Dermatology section of the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System.
The study, to be published in the advance on-line edition of Nature Medicine on November 22, was done in mice and in human cell cultures, primarily performed by post-doctoral fellow Yu Ping Lai .
UC San Diego School of Medicine to Build an Innovative Hub of Learning for the 21st Century
Chancellor Marye Anne Fox and Vice Chancellor David A. Brenner, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, hosted a groundbreaking ceremony and reception for the new UC San Diego Medical Education and Telemedicine Center Friday, November 20. The event took place on the east lawn of the School of Medicine campus, between the Medical Teaching Facility and the Stein Research Building.
With the construction of the new Medical Education and Telemedicine Center, scheduled to open in the fall of 2011, the UC San Diego School of Medicine is investing in an innovative way of educating future physicians and a new way of delivering health care.
The approximately 99,000-gross-square-foot facility, with 60,000 square feet of assignable space, will be a hub of learning that incorporates state-of-the-art design and technology to prepare medical students to become physicians and innovators of tomorrow. It will also be used for physicians to learn new skills utilizing the latest advances in medical and surgical technology, such as surgical robotics.
New CEO Named at UC San Diego Medical Center
UC San Diego School of Medicine today announced the appointment of Thomas E. Jackiewicz as new CEO of the UC San Diego Medical Center, effective November 23. Jackiewicz will be responsible for the management of the Medical Center, which comprises UC San Diego Medical Center-Hillcrest, Thornton Hospital, Moores UCSD Cancer Center, Shiley Eye Center and the Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center, scheduled for completion in 2011.
Jackiewicz, 51, joined UC San Diego Health Sciences in 2001, most recently serving as associate vice chancellor and chief financial officer.
“I have been with UC San Diego Health Sciences for nearly a decade, and I am honored to be part of this outstanding health care team,” said Jackiewicz. “We are the only academic medical center in the region, offering a level of expertise that only we can provide. As CEO of UC San Diego Medical Center, I look forward to fostering our established relationships and forging new partnerships with the local, national and global communities we serve.”
New Link Discovered Between Insulin And Core Body Temperature
A team led by scientists at The Scripps
Research Institute have discovered a direct link between insulin―a hormone
long associated with metabolism and metabolic disorders such as diabetes―and
core body temperature. While much research has been conducted on insulin since
its discovery in the 1920s, this is the first time the hormone has been
connected to the fundamental process of temperature regulation.
The
paper was published recently in an advance, online issue of the journal
Diabetes, a journal of the American Diabetes Association, and will
appear in the January print edition of the publication.
The scientists
found that when insulin was injected directly into a specific area of the brain
in rodents, core body temperature rose, metabolism increased, and brown adipose
(fat) tissue was activated to release heat. The research team also found that
these effects were dose-dependent—up to a point, the more insulin, the more
these metabolic measures rose.
Saliva to Help Diagnose Age-Related Problems in Women
The protein profile of a woman's saliva, which changes with age, potentially opens the way to diagnose age-related conditions, non invasively and in advance, says a new study published in The American Chemical Society’s Journal of Proteome Research. Scientists are seeking ways to use the proteins as molecular 'fingerprints' to develop quick diagnostic tests that provide an alternative to the needle sticks needed for blood tests.
These diseases include lupus, Sjogrens syndrome (associated with dry mouth and dry eye), and other immune-related disorders that affect millions of women worldwide, often at higher rates than men.
John Yates, chemical physiologist at the Scripps Research Institute, who led the study and colleagues note that human saliva contains many different proteins involved in digestion, disease fighting, and other functions.
Organize It and They Will Come
Little did Scripps Research Institute investigators Bridget Carragher, Clint Potter, and Ron Milligan know when they started a cryo-electron microscopy (EM) course six years ago that it would turn into one of the premier workshops in the world, recently drawing nearly 140 people to the Scripps Research Institute's Center for Integrative Molecular Biosciences (CIMBio).
The November 2009 conference, titled "Workshop on EM Structure Determination of Challenging Macromolecules," consisted of six grueling but exhilarating 13-hour days of classes. The conference not only offered advanced training in cryo-EM molecular structural determination to graduate students and postdocs, but also acted as a gathering place for leading experts in the field. The course has also grown in terms of scientific scope. This year's conference focused on the latest developments for handling macromolecules that present unique challenges to existing EM techniques. Topics included improvements in specimen preparation, imaging, processing, and reconstruction.
In the end, conference participants were sustained through the conference's grueling schedule and intellectual rigor not only by breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and, of course, coffee), but also by the new knowledge and friendships that will feed their work for many years to come.