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| Tuesday, May 1, 2012
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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Tufts HNRCA Seminar Series ~ Susan Roberts and Sai Das
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| Description: |
This lecture by Drs. Susan Roberts and Sai Das is titled: Worksite Interventions for Weight Control.
Seminars will be held at 12 noon in the Auditorium of the HNRCA and will be followed by a student and post-doc luncheon on the 9th floor,711 Washington St. Boston, MA 02111.
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| Contact: |
John Heine
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12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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Armen H. Tashjian, Jr. Award for Excellence in Endocrine Research
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| Description: |
Armen H. Tashjian, Jr. Award for Excellence in Endocrine Research
Presentation and Lecture
Please join us in celebrating this year’s award recipient:
Chih-Hao Lee, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases
presenting a lecture entitled:
“Endocrine control of metabolism by lipid and inflammatory signaling"
Location: Kresge G2, Harvard School of Public Health
reception to follow
To honor his many accomplishments, the friends and family of Dr. Armen H. Tashjian, Jr., Professor of Toxicology, Emeritus, in the Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases, have established an award in his name to assist faculty and fellows to pursue innovative research ideas in basic biomedical sciences.
For additional information, or to request a HSPH visitor’s pass, please contact Holly Southern at 617-432-3763.
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| Contact: |
Holly Southern
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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Nanotechnology for drug delivery and tissue engineering
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| Description: |
Tufts University Program in Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology Seminar Series
Guest Speaker: Qiaobing Xu, PhD, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University School of Engineering
Location: Tufts University Jaharis Building, 150 Harrison Avenue, Room 508, Boston, MA 02111
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| Contact: |
Sharon Belding
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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Seminars in Oncology: New Determinants of Malignant Progression
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| Description: |
EMILY FREDERICK DIMAGGIO LECTURE
Guest Speaker: Doug Hanahan, Ph.D., Director, Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research Professor of Molecular Oncology Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Location: Jimmy Fund Auditorium (35 Binney Street), Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Hosted by: Peter Sicinski, MD, PhD
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| Contact: |
Claudia Steele
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| Wednesday, May 2, 2012
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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| Thursday, May 3, 2012
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11:00 AM - Noon
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Invasion and Trafficking of Porphyromonas gingivalis in Human Cardiovascular Endothelial Cells
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| Description: |
Speaker: Ann Progulske-Fox, Ph.D, University of Florida College of Dentistry
Location: The Forsyth Institute, Seminar Room A, 245 First Street, 17th Floor, Cambridge
Summary: Most strains of P. gingivalis invade human endothelial cells, including human cardiovascular aortic endothelial cells (HCAEC). Shortly after entry of P. gingivalis into the host cell, the bacteria traffic to the autophagic pathway and usurp the pathway for their own benefit and survival. Interestingly, P. gingivalis is able to turn on the autophagic pathway before it enters the cell and does not require attachment of the bacteria to the host cells. We have begun to decipher the mechanisms that P. gingivalis uses to control the host cell’s pathway and have identified bacterial genes that are necessary for this process. Such information will be useful for understanding the interactions of P. gingivalis and host cells in vivo, whether related to cardiovascular or periodontal diseases.
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| Contact: |
Pam Quattrocchi
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1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
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Personal Genetics: Discussions about Technology, Inheritance, Medicine and Society
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| Description: |
Personal genetics and genomics is a rapidly evolving branch of genomics in which individual genomes are analyzed to predict associations with disease or other traits of interest, giving individuals information they can use to make decisions about lifestyle, ancestry or medical care. While the potential benefits of personal genetics are vast, this field also raises questions about educational priorities and approaches, privacy, access to information, and psychological impacts. This course will address the societal ramifications related to personal genetics and genomics in diverse fields such as law, reproductive technology, public policy, and research ethics. Course lecturers will summarize the state of personal genetics in the scientific field and in our society and draw from real-life and historical situations to illustrate the knowledge and misconceptions common to the public. We will look at examples from the fields of athletics and forensics to illuminate larger questions around how greater access to DNA might impact society. The aim of this nanocourse is to augment the capacity of our communities to make informed choices as we enter a new era of personal genetics.
Location: Location: Armenise Bldg (D) Amphitheater, Harvard University
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| Contact: |
Leah Brault
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| Friday, May 4, 2012
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10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
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The Monroe Schlesinger Lecture
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| Description: |
Presented by BIDMC's Department of Pathology
Speaker: Richard O. Hynes, PhD, Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Title: "Cellular and Acellular Influences on Metastasis"
Location: Folkman Auditorium, Enders Research Building, Children's Hospital, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston
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| Contact: |
Nicole Magner
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| Monday, May 7, 2012
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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Tufts HNRCA Seminar Series ~ Stephen Hursting
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| Description: |
This lecture given by Dr. Stephen Hursting of the University of Texas at Austin is titled: Energy Balance and Cancer Prevention: Mechanistic Insights from Transdisciplinary Studies.
Seminars will be held at 12 noon in the Auditorium of the HNRCA and will be followed by a student and post-doc luncheon on the 9th floor, 711 Washington St. Boston, MA 02111.
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| Contact: |
John Heine
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| Tuesday, May 8, 2012
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12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
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| Wednesday, May 9, 2012
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12:30 AM - 1:30 AM
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11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
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Bioinformatics Seminar Series: Computational design of protein-based inhibitors
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| Description: |
Julia Shifman, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
TOC LAB, Stata Center 32-G575
Computational methods have been successfully applied to design of many monomeric proteins. Nevertheless, design of protein-protein interactions remains a more challenging and less explored task. Moderate success in this area is due to inability of the existing methods to reproduce favorable intermolecular interactions that govern binding of natural proteins. We developed improved computational methods for design of protein-protein complexes and tested them experimentally in three different systems. In the first example, we convert a promiscuous binder calmodulin into a very specific protein that recognizes a single target. In the second example, we enhance binding affinity of a complex between a synaptic enzyme acetylcholinesterase and its inhibitor fasciculin. In the third example, we computationally design a de novo binder to Ras, a molecular switch whose loss of function leads to cancer. Our experimental results are fed back into the design procedure, facilitating constant improvement of the computational methodology.
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| Contact: |
Patrice Macaluso
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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| Thursday, May 10, 2012
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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| Friday, May 11, 2012
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12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
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Radical approaches to antibacterials and drug resistance
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| Description: |
Seminar Series - James J. Collins, Ph.D., William F. Warren Distinguished Professor University Professor and Professor of Biomedical Engineering Co-Director, Center for BioDynamics, Boston University; Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University
Location: Latham Library, Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Ave
Hosted by: Wesley Wong
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| Contact: |
Zac DiPasquale
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| Monday, May 14, 2012
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3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
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| Tuesday, May 15, 2012
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12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
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2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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SUSAN SWERLING LECTURES: The Immune System and Cancer
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| Description: |
A part of the Seminars in Oncology Lecture Series...
Guest Speakers include:
Michael Karin, PhD, University of California San Diego
Robert Schreiber, PhD, Washington University School of Medicine
James Allison, PhD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Location: Jimmy Fund Auditorium (35 Binney Street - Boston)
Hosted by: Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD
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| Contact: |
Claudia Steele
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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Beyond Exomes: Noncoding In Vivo Function and Human Disease
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| Description: |
Cardiovascular Seminar Series
, CHB
Len A. Pennacchio, Ph.D.
Senior Staff Scientist, Genomics Division
Deputy Director, Joint Genome Institute
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Beyond Exomes:
Noncoding In Vivo Function and Human Disease
Folkman Auditorium - Enders Bldg. Lobby Level
Hosted by Department of Cardiology | Children’s Hospital Boston
This conference is supported by the Faye and Karen Sinclair Research Fund for Congenital Heart Disease
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| Contact: |
Michelle Merry
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| Wednesday, May 16, 2012
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11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
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Bioinformatics Seminar Series: SEPP and TIPP: New Phylogenetic Placement and Taxon Identification Methods for Metagenomic Data
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| Description: |
Tandy Warnow, University of Texas at Austin
TOC LAB Stata Center Building 32- Room G575
Phylogenetic placement arises in the analysis of metagenomic data, in which the objective is to insert short molecular sequences (called "query sequences") into an existing phylogenetic tree and alignment on full-length sequences for the same gene. We present SEPP, a general
"boosting" technique to improve the accuracy and/or speed of phylogenetic
placement techniques. The key algorithmic aspect of SEPP is a dataset decomposition technique in SATe (Liu et al., Science 2009 and Systematic Biology 2012, a method that utilizes an iterative divide-and-conquer technique to co-estimate alignments and trees on large molecular sequence datasets. We show that SEPP improves current phylogenetic placement methods, placing metagenomic sequences more accurately when the set of input sequences has a large evolutionary diameter and produces placements of comparable accuracy in a fraction of the time for easier cases. Finally, we present TIPP, an extension of SEPP, that enables taxon identification for short reads, and which produces dramatically improved accuracy over current taxon identification methods.
Joint work with Siavash Mirarab and Nam Nguyen, PhD students at UT-Austin, and Bo Liu and Mihai Pop at the University of Maryland.
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| Contact: |
Patrice Macaluso
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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Microbial Facebook: Probing bacterial social networks
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| Description: |
Speaker: Marvin Whiteley, PhD, The University of Texas at Austin
Location: The Forsyth Institute, Seminar Room A, 245 First Street, 17th Floor, Cambridge
Summary: The survival of pathogens in the human body has been rigorously studied for well over a century. Bacteria are able to colonize, persist and thrive in vivo due to an array of capabilities, including the ability to attach to host tissues, produce extracellular virulence factors, and evade the immune system. Most bacterial pathogenesis studies have focused on mono-culture infections; however, it is clear that many bacterial infections are not simply the result of colonization with a single species, but rather ensue from the actions of polymicrobial communities. Microbes within polymicrobial infections often display synergistic interactions that result in enhanced colonization and persistence in the infection site. Such interactions have been particularly noted in polymicrobial infections of the oral cavity, although the molecular processes controlling these synergistic interactions are generally not known. Here, I will discuss how interactions between oral bacteria impact community development, resistance to host innate immunity, and in vivo persistence. I will also discuss the use of two novel approaches for probing bacterial interactions in small populations. The first approach utilizes multi-photon lithography to create picoliter-sized porous cavities capable of capturing a single bacterium and tracking growth and behavior of the resultant microcolony in real time. These bacterial ‘lobster traps’ allow for examination of polymicrobial interactions in small, defined bacterial populations similar in size to those observed in nature. The second approach involves the use of scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) to monitor interactions in a bacterial biofilm through quantification of specific signals and cues. Using these technologies we provide insight not only into the number of bacteria, but also the concentration of small molecules required to elicit polymicrobial responses.
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| Contact: |
Pam Quattrocchi
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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6:00 PM - 8:30 PM
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Influence without Authority Seminar: Presented by Mass-AWIS and the Merck Women’s Network
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| Description: |
Influence without Authority Seminar: Presented by Mass-AWIS and the Merck Women’s Network
Speaker: Gwen Acton, Ph.D.
Merck Research Laboratories Atrium & Auditorium, 33 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA 02115
Many situations require getting things done through others, when we don't have explicit power. This seminar will provide an overview of what motivates others, common mistakes, and practical tips on how to lead others in an organization when you don't have authority over them.
Speaker: Dr. Gwen Acton is the CEO of Vivo Group, a strategic consulting firm in Boston that specializes in improving the productivity and innovation of scientists and engineers. She is an expert on strategic leadership at the intersection of science and business. Gwen holds a PhD in biology from MIT and has served as the Director of Scientific Development at the Whitehead Institute, Center for Genome Research. She is also a former faculty member at Harvard and the Author of the book: "Bluffers Guide to Genetics".
Agenda:
6:00-6:30 pm: Registration, Networking and light dinner (Atrium)
6:30-6:45 pm: Announcements and Promotions (Auditorium)
6:45-7:45 pm: Talk by Dr. Gwen Acton (Auditorium)
7:45-8:30 pm: Networking and Dessert
To register, visit:www.acteva.com/go/mass-awis
$10 AWIS members
$20 non-AWIS members
Free for Merck employees (register with Merck email address)
For more information visit:www.mass-awis.org
Join AWIS to save money on events and to support our work!
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| Contact: |
Lynnelle Pittet
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| Thursday, May 17, 2012
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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Building Epithelial Trees
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| Description: |
Tufts University Program in Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology Seminar Series.
Guest Speaker: Celeste M. Nelson, PhD, Chemical & Biological Engineering and Molecular Biology, Princeton University
Location: Tufts University Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, Room B09, 145 Harrison Avenue, Boston
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| Contact: |
Sharon Belding
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| Monday, May 21, 2012
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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Tufts HNRCA Seminar Series ~ Jose Ordovas
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| Description: |
This lecture given by Dr. Jose Ordovas Director of the Nutrition and Genomics Laboratory, HNRCA is titled: MicroRNAs: Changing the Molecular Nutrition Landscape.
Seminars will be held at 12 noon in the Auditorium of the HNRCA and will be followed by a student and post-doc luncheon on the 9th floor, 711 Washington St. Boston, MA 02111.
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| Contact: |
John Heine
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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| Tuesday, May 22, 2012
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12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
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| Thursday, May 24, 2012
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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The Use of Immature Oocytes in Fertility Preservation
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| Description: |
Tufts University Program in Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology Seminar Series
Guest Speaker: Catherine Combelles, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biology, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont
Location: Tufts University Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, Room B09, 145 Harrison Avenue, Boston
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| Contact: |
Sharon Belding
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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The human microbiome in health and disease
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| Description: |
Speaker: Eric J. Alm, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Location: The Forsyth Institute, Seminar Room A, 245 First Street, 17th Floor, Cambridge
Summary: The human body contains ten times as many bacterial cells as human cells, and this human microbiome plays a significant but poorly understood role in human health. In this talk, I will make a three point argument for the importance of the microbiome. First, I will demonstrate how the microbiome can be used to infer information about the host, using IBD diagnosis as an example application. Second, I will show how diet and environment influence the microbiome, evidenced by a year of self-tracking and sequencing daily gut samples. Finally, I will show that eating probiotic bacteria can dramatically improve health and counter some of the negative effects of a ‘fast food’ diet.
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| Contact: |
Pam Quattrocchi
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| Tuesday, May 29, 2012
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12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
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| Thursday, May 31, 2012
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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Why Do Some People Form Two Skeletons?
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| Description: |
Tufts University Program in Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology weekly seminar series
Guest Speaker: Frederick S. Kaplan, M.D., Isaac & Rose Nassau Professor of Orthopaedic Molecular Medicine, UPenn
Location: Tufts University Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, Room B09, 145 Harrison Avenue, Boston
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| Contact: |
Sharon Belding
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Month of May 2012
