November 2006 news
Nov. 30, 2006
Slava Glinsky's Lab
1. Our paper Heimburg, J., Yan, J. Morey, S., Wild, L., Glinskii, O.V., Huxley, V.H., Klick, R., Roy, R., Glinsky, V.V., and Rittenhouse-Olson, K. Inhibition of Spontaneous Breast Cancer Metastasis by Anti-Thomsen-Friedenreich Antigen Monoclonal Antibody JAA-F11. Neoplasia, 8: 939-948, 2006. was featured on the cover of the journal.2. An invited review Glinsky, V.V. Intravascular cell-to-cell adhesive interactions and bone metastasis. Cancer and Metastasis Reviews, 25: 4, In Press, 2006. will appear in the issue 4 of 2006 of the journal.
3. Louis Jamtgaard, an undergraduate student in the lab was one of two MU students, who won an award for his presentation at the National Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in Anaheim, Calif.
Frank Schmidt's Lab
MU researchers determine effective peptide combinations that help plants defend against infection
Plants at the University of Missouri are being equipped with a new form of defense to fight infection. Researchers at MU have identified peptides that when produced in plants protect the roots of agricultural crops such as tomatoes, melons, peppers and squash against invasion by Phytophthora capsici, a dangerous pathogenic microorganism.The breakthrough was made by professors Frank Schmidt and James English of the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources and the School of Medicine. The findings are expected to help plant scientists better understand how to combat a variety of diseases, including Asian Soybean rust, a soybean disease that was introduced to the United States around 2004 as a result of winds from Hurricane Ivan.
"There's a constant search for new types of resistance for plants," said English, a professor of plant pathology. "This research is about developing and applying new technologies that will help plants defend themselves. Our hope is that the deployment of these peptides will protect against the invasion and killing of plants by keeping pathogens from invading their roots."
During the study, Schmidt and English relied on a library of one billion laboratory-created peptides. They worked first with tomato pathogens and then tomatoes. They mixed the peptides with Phytohpthora capsici and monitored which peptides stuck to the pathogen most effectively — signifying a strong chemical interaction. Afterwards, they tested the effects of the most interactive peptides on the growth and development of the pathogen. English said that 50 percent of the peptides that stuck strongly produced an inhibitory reaction that could be useful in defending tomatoes against the pathogenic microorganism.
"Having these peptides in hand was only the first step in practical application for plant defense," English said. "What was also needed was a means to deliver the peptide to provide protection against the pathogen. To do that, we modified a plant protein to display the peptide. When this combination was expressed in the plant, it provided protection from infection."
Both researchers said the positive findings could accelerate the development of more environmentally safe solutions for fighting infections that could potentially damage large areas of plants, trees or consumer crops.
"What this shows is that we can do test-tube evolution quickly and use the results to engineer resistances for plants," Schmidt said. "By engineering these resistances, we don’t have to fumigate the soil, which has horrible environmental consequences."
Their study has been published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
Article courtesy MU News Bureau
Agnes Simonyi's Lab
We would like to congratulate Aminata Coulibaly, an undergraduate student working in the lab. Aminata won an award (and $250) for her presentation at the recent Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in Anaheim, Calif., in the Biochemical Sciences Division (one of 120 students was recognized!). The title of her poster is "Region-specific induction of immediate early genes following inhibitory avoidance learning in rat brain."
Peter Tipton's Lab
Three MU researchers awarded fellow distinction by world's largest scientific society
Three researchers at the University of Missouri have been awarded the distinction of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow. AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science, which announced the complete list of AAAS Fellows in its Nov. 24 edition.
Election as a Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members for scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. This year, 449 members were awarded this AAAS honor. New MU Fellows are:
Carol V. Ward, associate professor in the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences in MU's School of Medicine, was awarded in the section on anthropology for her distinguished contributions to paleoanthropology (the study of human evolution, tracing anatomic, behavioral and genetic linkages of modern humans to pre-humans from millions of years age), especially in the description and analysis of the fossil remains of early humans and apes in a functional context.
Sashi Satpathy, professor of physics in MU's College of Arts and Science, was awarded in the section on physics for his distinguished contributions to the physics of the electronic structure of solids, especially to the theory of strongly correlated oxides and their interfaces.
Peter A. Tipton, professor of biochemistry in MU's College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources and the School of Medicine, was awarded in the section on chemistry for his studies of unusual enzymatic mechanisms and the discovery of new enzymes.
The new Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin Saturday, Feb. 17, at the Fellows Forum at the 2007 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874. Currently, members can be considered for the rank of Fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the Association's 24 sections or by any three Fellows who are current AAAS members (so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with the nominee's institution) or by the AAAS Chief Executive Officer. Each steering group then reviews the nominations of individuals within its respective section, and a final list is forwarded to the AAAS Council, which votes on the aggregate list.
AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million.
Article courtesy of MU News Bureau
Steve Van Doren's Lab
Honors
Dr. Xiangyang Liang, Outstanding Poster, Great-Plains Regional Annual Symposium on Protein NMR, Lawrence, KS, 10/21/06
Steve Van Doren, Sigma Xi Excellence in Graduate Research Mentoring Award, MU chapter, 2006
Talks by Van Doren:
Imperial College London (UK), Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology - "Long-Range Structural Coupling in MMP Inhibition" 6/9/06
Great-Plains Regional Annual Symposium on Protein NMR, Lawrence, KS - "Long-Range Structural Coupling in MMP Inhibition" 10/21/06
ruker Users' Meeting, Chicago, "NMR Studies of Long-Range Structural Coupling in Protein-Protein Interactions," 10/26/06
Faculty news
The department held a 90th birthday party for Dr. Boyd O'Dell. Dr. O'Dell is still an active member of the department and can be reguarly found in the lab. Select photos from the event can be found here.