News from the Di Cera lab: Nicola Pozzi was awarded a Scientist Development Grant from the American Heart Association with a July 2015 start date. Congratulations.

News from the Fisher lab: Jonathan Fisher was awarded a new R15 from the NIDDK with a July 2015 start date for their studies on the whether vitamin C plays a role in maintaining normal ability for muscle to take up sugar. Co-investigators include Dan Warren (CCR member), Blythe Janowiak, and Susan Spencer.

News from the Ford lab: Dave Ford was awarded a new grant-in-aid from the American Heart Association with an August 2015 start date to study the role of dietary and leukocyte derived lipids on atherogenesis.

News from the Huang Lab:

Presentations:

1. Invited Speaker at The Immunotherapies & Vaccine Summit, Boston, MA, Aug. 23-25, 2015.
2. Keynote Speaker at The 7th Congress of Pan Asia Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Shanghai, China, Aug. 27-Sept. 1, 2015
3. Keynote Speaker at Kaoshiung Medical University, Kaoshiung, Taiwan, Sept. 4, 2015
4. Invited Speaker at Lymphology (World Congress) 2015, San Francisco, CA, Sept. 6-11, 2015
5. Keynote Speaker at Regenerative Medicien in Orthopedic Surgery International Symposium, King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Oct. 18-20, 2015
6. Invited Speaker at the 11th International Congress on Coronary Artery Disease, Florence, Italy, Nov. 29-Dec. 2, 2015
7. Keynote Speaker at the 1st International Symposium on TGF-β and Diseases: From Bench to Clinic and Back, Taipei, Taiwan, Apr. 1, 2016

News from the Sell lab: Congratulations on the recently funded grant from the Missouri Spinal Cord Injury Research Program on the use of platelet-rich plasma derived scaffolds to treat chronic pressure ulcers.

Invited seminars:

1. “Platelet-rich plasma: Its use in the clinic and potential as a tissue engineering scaffold” Regenerative Medicine Foundation Seminar Lecture, AT Still University, Kirksville, MO, May 8, 2015
2. “Honey: Its history in medicine and its emerging role in regenerative medicine” Department of Biomedical Engineering Seminar Lecture, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, March 27, 2015.

Named Outstanding Faculty of the Year, Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology, Saint Louis University (May 2015)

 

News from the McCulla lab:

1. Invited Lecture: McCulla, R. Developing Photoactivatable O(3P)-precursors as oxidative probes for biological systems. Physical Organic Chemistry GRC, June 24, 2015

2. Invited Lecture: McCulla, R. The Role of Electron Transfer in the Oxidation of Thiols by Photoactivatable Atomic Oxygen Precursors of I-APS Meeting Jan 1, 2015.

3. Student Poster: Baumann, S., Photodeoxygenation of dibenzothiophene-S-oxide in the presence of thiols and their apparent effect on the mechanism of sulfoxide deoxygenation, 2015 Physical Organic Chemistry GRC, Holderness, NH, (June 23, 2015).

 

Congratulations to Paul Hauptman: The Journal of Cardiac Failure comes to Saint Louis:

Bethesda, MD (December 2014) – The Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA) has announced that Paul J. Hauptman, MD has been named the next Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cardiac Failure (JCF). Dr. Hauptman was selected after an extensive national search; review by the HFSA Publications Committee and approval by the HFSA Executive Council. Dr. Hauptman will assume full duties in January 2015.

In addition to the Editor-in-Chief (Dr. Hauptman) the Journal of Cardiac Failure's new Associate Editors from Saint Louis University include Drs. John Chibnall and David Ford.

 

News from the Rezaie Lab:

Ray Rezaie was recently awarded an NIH R01 grant which continues their ground breaking studies on the role of,and signaling pathways for, clotting enzymes in inflammation and coagulation. These studies have tremendous importance to determine better approaches to cardiovascular disease and sepsis. This award was written up in the STL Post-Dispatch on Dec.4. 2014.

 

News from the Baldan Lab:

Angel Baldan received the St. Louis Academy of Sciences Innovation Award, which recognizes a scientist or engineer (age 40 or under) who has demonstrated exceptional potential for future accomplishments in science, engineering or technology. Dr Baldan recently received an AHA grant in aid with a start date July 2014.

 

News from the Ford Lab:

Merlow Dunham, undergraduate researcher in the Ford lab, was awarded and AHA Undergraduate Summer Fellowship for the summer of 2014 to study novel chlorinated lipids in monocytes and macrophages. Mark Duerr, graduate student in the Ford lab, has been awarded an AHA predoctoral fellowship for his studies on "Chlorinated lipid mediation of contractile dysfunction in cardiac ischemia reperfusion injury. Dr Ford was appointed to a second three-year term on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Lipid Research starting July, 2014. Dr. Ford was an invited speaker at the Society for Heart and Vascular Metabolism meetings in September, 2013, and is an invited speaker at the International Conference on the Biosciences of Lipids in Aberdeen, Scotland in June, 2014.

 

News from the Huang Lab: Dr. Huang has given the following presentations over the past year:

1. May 3-4, 2013, “The Ortholog of LYVE-1 Is Required for Thoracic Duct Formation in Zebrafish”, North American Vascular Biology Organization (NAVBO) Meeting “Lymphatic Circulation in Health and Disease”, New Haven , Connecticut
2. June 7, 2013, “Cholesterol Hardens Arteries by Quashing TGF-β Signaling: Implications for Diet, Exercise and Lifestyle Interventions”, Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica (Host: Chia-Ning Shen, PhD), Taipei, Taiwan
3. June 13-16, 2013 “Mechanism of Lymphatic Metastasis”, BIT’s 3rd Annual World Congress of Molecular and Cell Biology, Suzhou, China
4. June 17, 2013, “Cholesterol Hardens Arteries by Quashing TGF-β Signaling: Implications for Diet, Exercise and Lifestyle Interventions”, Shanghai Tissue Engineering Center, Jiao Tong University (Host: Wei Liu, MD/PhD), Shanghai, China
5. Sept. 9, 2013, “Cholesterol Hardens Arteries by Quashing TGF-β Signaling: Implications for Diet, Exercise and Lifestyle Interventions”, Annual MACASTA Meeting, University of Missouri-St. Louis
6. Nov. 13-16, 2013, “TGF-beta Enhancers Targeting Canonical Signaling: a New Class of Anti-inflammatory Agents for Preventing and Treating Human Diseases and Disorders”, BIT’s 11th Annual Congress of International Drug Discovery Science & Technology, Haikou, Hainan, China
7. Dec. 13. 2013, “A New Class of Agents for Preventing and Treating Human Diseases and Disorders”, College of Pharmacy, Taipei Medical University (Host: Wei-Chiao Chang, PhD), Taipei, Taiwan
8. Dec. 23, 2013, “Mechanisms by Which Cancer Cells and Immune Cells Enter Lymphatic Vessels: Implications for Strategies to Treat Cancer Metastasis and Enhance Adaptive Immunity”, Department of Oncology, National Taiwan University Hospital (Host: Wei-Hsian Hou, MD/PhD), Taipei, Taiwan
9. Jan. 2, 2014, “Mechanisms by Which Cancer Cells and Immune Cells Enter Lymphatic Vessels: Implications for Strategies to Treat Cancer Metastasis and Enhance Adaptive Immunity”, Musan Lecture, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan

 

News from the McCulla Lab:

Ryan McCulla has received two new grants to support his research on reactive oxygen chemistry. One grant is an NSF CAREER Award to study photoactivatable atomic precursors for the rapid selective oxidation of biological thiols to sulfenic acids. The other grant is to examine ozone toxicity, which was funded by the Herman Frasch Foundation for Chemical Research.

 

News from the Sprague Lab:

Jennifer Richards in Dr. Sprague's lab was awarded an AHA pre-doctoral fellowship (July 2013 - June 2015), as well as a Mead-Johnson Award (APS), 2014
Jennifer was a "Young Investigator Novel Trends" symposium speaker, San Diego, CA, Experimental Biology meeting 2014. Jennifer also was awarded and Investigator grant (European and International Societies of Hypertension) and is a 2014
Diabetes Symposium invited speaker (Joint Meeting ESH-ISH, Hypertension Athens 2014), Athens, Greece 2014

Both Dr. Sprague and Jennifer are invited to speak at a C-peptide Symposium in Vienna, Austria (September 2014).

 

News from the Yosten/Samson Lab:

Willis K Samson has been elected the new Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Physiology (Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology). Dr. Samson has appointed Randy Sprague as a Consulting Editor for the journal and Gina Yosten will be the Editor's Assistant. Gina LC Yosten has been appointed to the editorial board of the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, an open access journal that published by SciDoc Publishers. Gina has also been appointed the Joint Program Committee representative for the Section on Endocrinology and Metabolism of the American Physiological Society. Gina is also a member of the Science Policy Advisory Committee of the APS, and in that role serves as a liaison between the American Physiological Society and our elected representatives in Washington DC and here in Missouri. Additionally, Gina has been appointed to the FASEB Training Subcommittee. Lauren J. Redlinger, SLU Med Scholar, Entering MD/PhD Student, Undergraduate Honors Student in the Yosten/Samson Lab has received an Excellence in Undergraduate Research Award from the American Physiological Society that will include a Fellowship for Summer 2013 with operating expenses and funding to attend the 2014 Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego, CA.