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| Monday, June 4, 2012
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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The 16th Annual Andrew H. Weinberg Symposium--Whole Genome Sequencing of Pediatric Cancers
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| Description: |
James R. Downing, MD Deputy Director, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Scientific Director and Executive Vice President, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Associate Director of Basic Research, Cancer Center.
Place: Children's Hospital Boston, 300 Longwood Avenue, Enders Research Building, Byers Conference Rooms A and B
In January 2010, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis announced an unprecedented effort to identify the genetic changes that give rise to some of the world's deadliest childhood cancers. The team joined forces to decode the genomes of more than 600 childhood cancer patients. The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital – Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project is the largest investment to date aimed at understanding the genetic origins of childhood cancers. Scientists involved in the project are sequencing the entire genomes of both normal and cancer cells from each patient, comparing differences in the DNA to identify genetic mistakes that lead to cancer.
The mission of the Andrew H. Weinberg Annual Memorial Fund is to bring together researchers from the field of chemotherapy development and the medical community in an annual symposium to create and foster an environment for cooperative synergy for inspiring and developing new concepts in pediatric cancer research and treatment.
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| Contact: |
Sarah Hagan
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| Tuesday, June 5, 2012
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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| Wednesday, June 6, 2012
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9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
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BU Bioinformatics Graduate Program Student Run Symposium
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| Description: |
SPEAKERS:
Atul J. Butte, Stanford
David Stern, Janelia Farm Research
Sarah Teichmann, Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology
King Jordan, Georgia Institute of Technology
Martin Frith, Computational Biology Research Center (CBRC) in Japan
For more information visit http://www.bu.edu/bioinformatics/news/annual-student-organized-symposium/
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| Contact: |
Johanna Vasquez
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| Thursday, June 7, 2012
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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The effect of targeting activin receptor type IIB signaling on the regulation of muscle, bone and fat
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| Description: |
Speaker: Jennifer L. Lachey, PhD, Associate Director, Preclinical Pharmacology Acceleron Pharma
Location: The Forsyth Institute, Seminar Room A, 245 First Street, 17th Floor, Cambridge
Summary : The activin receptor type IIB (ActRIIB) is a signaling receptor for multiple TGF superfamily ligands including activins A and B and myostatin. These ligands have been implicated in the development and homeostasis of a variety of different tissue types. For example, myostatin has been characterized as a potent inhibitor of muscle development which also regulates adipose and bone mass. Previous studies in normal animals demonstrated that inhibition of ActRIIB signaling promotes muscle and bone mass gain while decreasing fat mass. ACE-031 is an ActRIIB-IgG fusion protein that acts as a soluble decoy receptor and binds myostatin and other high-affinity ActRIIB ligands, blocking their signaling through endogenous receptors. Results from non-clinical studies and two phase 1 clinical studies demonstrate that ACE-031 is generally well-tolerated and has rapid and sustained effects on muscle, fat and bone. These results support further studies of ACE-031 in neuromuscular diseases to improve muscle mass, strength, and function.
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| Contact: |
Pam Quattrocchi
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| Monday, June 11, 2012
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4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
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Targeting the Kinome with Covalent Inhibitors
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| Description: |
MGH/Harvard Cutaneous Biology Research Center Seminar Series
Speaker – Nathanael S. Gray, Ph.D., Department of Cancer Biology – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the Harvard Medical School
Location: MGH East, Building 149, Charlestown Navy Yard,
Isselbacher Auditorium, 7th Floor
Contact Person – Kevin J. Travers, B.S.
Contact Email – kjtravers@partners.org
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| Contact: |
Kevin J. Travers, B.S.
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| Thursday, June 14, 2012
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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Molecular basis of periodontal ligament: Identification and characterization of periodontal ligament specific molecule, PLAP-1
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| Description: |
Speaker: Satoru Yamada, DDS, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Periodontology, Osaka University Graduate School of Dentistry
Location: The Forsyth Institute, Seminar Room A, 245 First St., 17th Floor, Cambridge
Summary: Periodontal ligament (PDL) plays crucial roles in maintaining the homeostasis of tooth and tooth-supporting tissue, periodontium. In attempt to understand the molecular and genetic basis of PDL functions, we investigated the expression profile of active genes in human periodontal ligament obtained by collecting sequences with 3’-directed cDNA library, which faithfully represents composition of the mRNA population. The resulting expression profile showed that collagen types I and III were the most abundant genes and osteogenesis-relating genes, such as osteonectin and periostin were highly expressed. In the gene expression profile of human PDL, we found a novel gene which was highly expressed in PDL, but not in other tissue-cDNA libraries. We identified that it codes a novel protein, which is a new member of class I of small leucine-rich repeat proteoglycan family. We designated it periodontal ligament associated protein-1 (PLAP-1). Using a combination of molecular and cellular approach, we have shown that PLAP-1 plays a specific role(s) in the periodontal ligament as a negative regulator of cytodifferentiation and mineralization, probably by regulating BMP-2 activity to prevent the periodontal ligament from developing non-physiological mineralization, such as ankylosis.
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| Contact: |
Pam Quattrocchi
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| Thursday, June 21, 2012
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Noon - 1:00 PM
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The ABCs of bacterial cell division
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| Description: |
Speaker: Thomas G. Bernhardt, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School
Location: The Forsyth Institute, Seminar Room A, 245 First Street, 17th Floor, Cambridge
Abstract: ABC transporters are ubiquitous membrane protein complexes that move substrates across membranes. They do so using ATP-induced conformational changes in their nucleotide binding domains (NBDs) to alter the conformation of the transport cavity formed by their transmembrane domains (TMDs). In Escherichia coli, an ABC transporter-like complex composed of FtsE (NBD) and FtsX (TMD) has long been known to be important for cytokinesis, but its role in the process has remained mysterious. Here I will present our identification of FtsEX as a regulator of cell wall hydrolysis at the division site. Cell wall material synthesized by the division machinery is initially shared by daughter cells and must be split by hydrolytic enzymes called amidases to drive daughter cell separation. We recently showed that the amidases require activation at the cytokinetic ring by proteins with LytM domains, of which EnvC is the most critical. I will show that the FtsEX directly recruits EnvC to the septum via an interaction between EnvC and a periplasmic loop of FtsX. Importantly, I will also show that FtsEX variants predicted to be ATPase defective still recruit EnvC to the septum but fail to promote cell separation. Our results thus suggest the attractive possibility that amidase activation via EnvC in the periplasm is regulated by conformational changes in the FtsEX complex mediated by ATP hydrolysis in the cytoplasm. Since FtsE has been reported to interact with the tubulin-like FtsZ protein, this provides a potential mechanism for coupling amidase activity with the contraction of the FtsZ cytoskeletal ring.
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| Contact: |
Pam Quattrocchi
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| Monday, June 25, 2012
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6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
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Finding the Joy: How to Choose Your Next Lab or Workplace
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| Description: |
This presentation will give you practical tips for what to look for and how to find it when choosing a new lab for your research or when considering culture of a company that wants to hire you. It is worth a little pre‐work to make sure your next place of work will be a good fit and get you close to where you want to go in the future. A must hear for all young scientists.
Speaker: Joanne Kamens, Ph.D.
Broad Auditorium, 7 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA
$10 for other students, post docs, AWIS members & Broad employees $20 for all other attendees.
To register, visit https://www.acteva.com/go/mass-awis
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| Contact: |
Anne-Elise Tobin
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Month of June 2012
