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In this Edition
March 8, 2018
Spotlight on Science

Dear Colleagues,

Some of us spent this past Sunday evening watching the stars of the film world walk the red carpet at the Academy Awards. It might seem as though that world is as far as it could be from the world of biomedical research, but perhaps the distance is not so great.
 
Whatever our endeavor, awards such as these remind us to step back and look at the work of our peers and realize that we succeed not as individuals but as an intertwined community. When a scientist makes a discovery, publishes a study, is awarded a grant or a prize, it is not just that person who is elevated, but all the people who contributed to making that work possible. 

We don’t have Jimmy Kimmel, but I am thrilled to be your host and share the research highlights below, all winners in my book.

Dafna Bar-Sagi, PhD
Vice Dean for Science and Chief Scientific Officer
Early Fish Have “Walking” Circuits
Jeremy Dasen, PhD, David Schoppik, PhD, and colleagues report that the molecular machinery for walking bipedally evolved in primitive fish— not millions of years later, when water-dwelling animals first crawled on land, as researchers have long thought (Cell, Feb 2018). The team studied a fish species related to rays and sharks called the little skate, Leucoraja erinacea, that uses their fins to “walk” on the sea floor. They found that the fish move their fins in an alternate pattern similar to walking, and that this movement is controlled by a Hox-dependent gene regulatory network also shared by land-dwelling walking species.

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READ PAPER
 
Immune Cells Keep Two-faced Bacteria Honest
 

The interaction between two types of immune cells determines whether generally benign bacteria colonizing the human body remain harmless or turn pathogenic, Dan Littman, MD, PhD, and colleagues have found (Nature, Feb 2018). They also discovered that one subtype of these immune cells may go awry and push this interaction off balance, spurring disease-causing inflammation. Scientists might be able to exploit this immune cell relationship to damp down inflammation in illnesses like inflammatory bowel disease, the researchers say. 

READ PAPER

 
Purported Anti-aging Hormone Found to Serve a Critical Support Role Instead

Moosa Mohammadi, PhD, and colleagues have discovered that α-klotho, a protein long-thought to act on its own as a powerful anti-aging hormone, actually serves merely as a scaffold for phosphate and vitamin D regulating hormone, FGF23 (Nature, Jan 2018).  The researchers determined the three-dimensional structure of α-klotho complexed with its binding partners FGF23 and its cognate FGF receptor. They found that α-klotho’s main function is to tether FGF23 to its receptor, enabling the transmission of critical metabolic signals that attenuate premature aging.  Developing drugs that modulate interaction between α-klotho and FGF23 could help in the treatment of chronic kidney disease and other diseases associated with imbalanced phosphate and vitamin D levels, the researchers say. 

READ PAPER

 
Clearing Misshaped Proteins from the Eye

Hyung Don Ryoo, PhD, and colleagues have discovered how a light-sensitive protein called rhodopsin, which helps regulate vision in dim light, gets cleared from cells in the retina if the protein is malformed (Cell Reports, Feb 2018). The researchers studied flies mutated so that rhodopsin doesn’t take its proper shape—an animal model for a genetic eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa in which the retina deteriorates. A protein named highroad was discovered and found to be cranked up by retinoids – compounds similar to vitamin A – when lots of misformed rhodopsin is present. If highroad is deleted, they observed, the retina degenerates more quickly. The findings advance scientists’ basic understanding of age-related retinal degeneration in humans. 

READ PAPER

 
IN FUNDING NEWS 

Daniel Rifkin, PhD, received a P01 award for $12.1M over five years from NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to fund his project entitled, “Altered Mechanotransduction as a Therapeutic Target for Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm.”

Nathaniel Landau, PhD, recently received a prestigious NIH Avant Garde Award for $4.25M over five years from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This funding will support his efforts to develop a dendritic cell vaccine against HIV. Dr. Landau also aims to develop a personalized cancer vaccine in collaboration with Perlmutter Cancer Center faculty members.

ACCOLADES and MILESTONES 

Keith Micoli, PhD, was honored with the Patriotic Employer Award from the Department of Defense for showing dignity, fairness, and respect towards active members of the National Guard and Reserve. Dr. Micoli was nominated by Sean Tong, PMO, a member of the National Guard and staff member of the NYU School of Medicine postdoctoral training program. Read More

Vladislav Sviderskiy, MD/PhD student, was recently selected to attend the 68th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting taking place from June 24 to 29, 2018, in Lindau, Germany. Sviderskiy, along with a select class of the most qualified undergraduates, PhD students and postdoc researchers from 84 countries around the globe, will have the opportunity meet 43 Nobel Laureates.

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