Annual Report 2001 - the University of Massachusetts Medical School

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Year The in Review UMMS SCIENTISTS ARE BURROUGHS WELLCOME RECIPIENTS The Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences is one of the field’s most competitive and prestigious honors: it provides career development assistance and $500,000 over five years in recognition of outstanding graduate and postgraduate research. In 2001, UMass Medical School recruited two of the year’s 23 recipients of the award.William R. Kobertz, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry & molecular pharmacology, came to UMMS from Brandeis University, where he studied the structure, function and modulation of ion channels, the proteins that create electricity within the body. Assistant Professor of Molecular Medicine Heidi A. William Kobertz, PhD Tissenbaum, PhD, formerly of MIT and now a member of the Program in Gene Function and Expression, is working to identify molecular mechanisms of aging. Heidi Tissenbaum, PhD NIH GRANT SUPPORTS GENE FUNCTION AND EXPRESSION RESEARCH The Program in Gene Function and Expression was the beneficiary in 2001 of a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, through the National Center for Research Resources, to construct laboratory space in the new research building that was planned to be “shelled,” or initially left unfinished. Directed by Michael R. Green, MD, PhD, professor of molecular medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, the Program in Gene Function and Expression currently consists of five faculty who specialize in diverse areas of genetics, including aging and cancer. 14
BRUDNICK INSTITUTE ADVANCES THROUGH RECRUITMENT AND EQUIPMENT At the Irving S. and Betty Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, led by Director Dr. Edward I. Ginns, investigations into the biological origins of mental illness are advancing through the recruitment of exceptional scientists and the acquisition of state-of-the-art equipment.Wim E. Crusio, PhD, professor of psychiatry and an expert in the hippocampus area of the brain, was director of research at the University René Descartes before leaving Paris for Worcester. Associate Professor of Psychiatry Paul D. Gardner, PhD, came to UMMS from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, where he established a research program on the regulation of receptor genes within the nervous system. After a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, Haley Melikian, PhD, was appointed assistant professor of psychiatry at UMMS; she studies a group of proteins in the brain called neurotransmitter transporters.The Brudnick Institute’s purchase of San Diego-based SEQUENOM’s MassARRAY system also gives UMMS investigators cutting-edge technology to examine DNA variations in the human genetic code that not only contribute to psychiatric illness, but also to a wide range of additional medical disorders. Paul Gardner, PhD, Haley Melikian, PhD, and Wim E. Crusio, PhD, of the Brudnick Institute UMMS SCIENTISTS PUBLISH IN PRESTIGIOUS JOURNALS During the summer of 2001, UMMS researchers published significant work in major scientific journals: Craig C. Mello, PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and associate professor of molecular medicine, published a paper titled “Genes and Mechanisms Related to RNA Interference Regulate Expression of the Small Temporal RNAs that Control C. elegans Developmental Timing” in the July issue of Cell. Also in Cell, Professor of Molecular Medicine William E.Theurkauf, PhD, published “In Vivo Analysis of Drosophila bicoid mRNA Localization Reveals a Novel Microtubule-Dependent Axis Specification Pathway.” Michael R. Green, MD, PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and professor of molecular medicine, in an August issue of Science, published “Induction of Apoptosis by a Secreted Lipocalin That is Transcriptionally Regulated by IL-3 Deprivation.”And Assistant Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology Phillip D. Zamore, PhD, published “A Cellular Function for the RNA-Interference Enzyme Dicer in the Maturation of the let-7 Small Temporal” in an August Science. Pictured from left: Craig Mello, PhD, William Theurkauf, PhD, Michael Green, MD, PhD, and Phillip Zamore, PhD 15
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Annual Report 2001 - the University of Massachusetts Medical School

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