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SPROUT and I-Corps Applications are Open

February 13, 2020 By

Sprout logoThe Brandeis Innovation SPROUT and I-Corps programs offer support for bench and non-bench research. Both programs offer funding in different amounts, mentorship, training and help in further exploring the commercial potential of inventions. SPROUT supports bench research, while I-Corps emphasizes training for both bench and non-bench researchers in developing the commercial potential of discoveries, with small grants and extensive training programs. You can apply to one or both programs.

  • If you have a technology / solution that you have started developing and you would like to get funding for it via SPROUT and/or I-Corps, then please complete this form
  • If you do not already have a technology, then you can complete this form to qualify for the I-Corps training program and be matched with a team

Icorps logo

SPROUT teams will get the chance to qualify for up to $30,000 in funding. The I-Corps program provides entrepreneurial training and covers the core of commercializing a technology or building a startup. It comes with an NSF $750 travel and training stipend and an NSF I-Corps certificate/digital badge.

Apply by February 25, 2020 at 11:59PM

Filed Under: Biochemistry, Biology, chemistry, Computer Science, events, General, labs, Mathematics, Neuroscience, Physics, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Cooling Mosquitoes’ Drive for Human Blood

February 10, 2020 By
Drawing from Smithsonian Magazine depicting mmosquitoes and thermonter

Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes use a receptor called IR21a to navigate toward warmth, a cue that signals they’re near food (Crystal Zhu, Garrity Lab, Brandeis University).

In a recent Science paper, the Garrity lab reported that they have found an important step in how mosquitoes sense human warmth. Once found, human blood becomes a food source for the insects’ eggs. Unfortunately,  mosquito bites have, over the centuries, spread disease and misery among humans.

The lab genetically modified mosquitoes to stop expressing a molecular thermostat called IR21a in their antennae. This reduced the insects’ ability to find the heat generated by humans. The hope is that this discovery will help remove the mosquitoes temperature sensors so they don’t spread disease. This discovery has also been summarized in the Smithsonian Magazine.

Paper: Mosquito heat seeking is driven by an ancestral cooling receptor. Chloe Greppi, Willem J. Laursen, Gonzalo Budelli, Elaine C. Chang, Abigail M. Daniels, Lena van Giesen, Andrea L. Smidler, Flaminia Catteruccia, Paul A. Garrity. Science  07 Feb 2020: Vol. 367, Issue 6478, pp. 681-684.

 

 

Filed Under: Biology, labs Tagged With: , ,

Student Research Results in Recent JIB Paper

March 5, 2019 By

Images from research paper from Pochapsky and Lovett labsBy Thomas Pochapsky, Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry

We don’t usually consider PineSol, Vick’s VapoRub and Lemon Pledge as food, but it is a good thing that some bacteria can.  The active components of those products are terpenes, small organic molecules that are produced by evergreens to repel insects, promote wound healing and prevent infection.  The bacteria that can use terpenes as food are a critical part of the forest ecosystem:  Without them, the soil would rapidly become saturated with toxic terpenes.  Members of the Pochapsky and Lovett laboratories in Chemistry and Biology are curious about what enzymes are involved in terpene metabolism.  In particular, why would one bacterial strain feast on a particular terpene (camphor, for example) while ignoring others?

The first step in terpene breakdown by bacteria is often the addition of an oxygen atom at a particular place in the terpene molecule, providing a “handle” for subsequent enzymes in the breakdown pathway.  The enzymes that catalyze these oxygenation reactions are called cytochromes P450.  P450 enzymes perform important reactions in humans, including steroid hormone biosynthesis and drug metabolism and activation.  Human P450s are targets for cancer chemotherapy and treatment of fungal infections.  A specific inhibitor of P450 is a component of the AIDS “cocktail” treatment, slowing the breakdown of the other cocktail components so the drugs do not have to be taken as often.

Despite the importance and wide scope of the P450 enzyme family, we don’t know much about how a particular P450 goes about choosing a molecule to work on (the substrate) or where it will put the oxygen (the product).  This is what the Brandeis labs are interested in finding out.  What particular sequence of amino acids gives rise to the substrate/product combination of a given P450? Answers to this question will aid in drug design and bio-engineering projects.

The project employs multiple scientific techniques in order to get at the answers to these questions, including bacterial genome sequencing, messenger RNA transcription, enzyme isolation, activity assays, mass spectrometry and enzyme structure determination.  As complicated as it sounds, though, the project lends itself nicely to undergraduate research:  Three of the authors on this paper are undergraduates, Phillix Esquea ‘18, Hannah Lloyd ’20 and Yihao Zhuang ’18.  Phillix was a Brandeis Science Posse recruit, and is now working with a Wall Street investment bank in NYC.  Yihao is enrolled in graduate school at the University of Michigan School of Pharmacy, and Hannah Lloyd is still at Brandeis, continuing her work on the project.  Even high school students got in on the act:  Teddy Pochapsky and Jeffrey Matthews are both seniors at Malden Catholic High School, and collected soil samples used for isolation of terpene-eating bacterial strains.  (One of the newly isolated bacterial strains is named in their honor, Pseudomonas strain TPJM).

“A new approach to understanding structure-function relationships in cytochromes P450 by targeting terpene metabolism in the wild.” Nathan R.Wong, Xinyue Liu, Hannah Lloyd, Allison M. Colthart, Alexander E. Ferrazzoli, Deani L. Cooper, Yihao Zhuang, Phillix Esquea, Jeffrey Futcher, Theodore M. Pochapsky, Jeffrey M. Matthews, Thomas C. Pochapsky.  Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry. Volume 188, November 2018, Pages 96-101.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinorgbio.2018.08.006.

Filed Under: Biology, chemistry, labs Tagged With: , , , , ,

HMS Professor Stephen Harrison to Receive 48th Rosenstiel Award

October 16, 2018 By

Prof. Stephen C. Harrison will receive the 48th Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research on March 25, 2019. He is being honored for his studies of protein structure using X-ray crystallography.  His work has ranged from the landmark elucidation of the structure of viruses, to understanding the recognition of DNA sequences by transcription factors, to the regulation of protein kinases implicated in cancer. The event will take place from 4:00 to 5:00 PM on Monday, March 25 in Gerstenzang 123.

Harrison is the Giovanni Armenise-Harvard Professor of Basic Medical Sciences and Director of the Center for Molecular and Cellular Dynamics at the Harvard Medical School.  He is also Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.   He has been elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,  the American Philosophical Society; he is a foreign member of the Royal Society and the European Molecular Biology Organization.

Dr. Harrison’s initial studies of virus structure provided an understanding of how viruses invade cells and how virus particles are assembled.  He has extended his work to reveal the structures of many viruses, including influenza, HIV, ebola and dengue.  Knowledge of these structures is guiding the development of new vaccines against these viruses.  Moreover, the methodology that he and his colleagues developed to visualize virus structure has made it possible to learn about the molecular architecture of other very large assemblies of proteins.

Harrison’s lab has also revealed the ways that proteins recognize specific DNA sequences to regulate gene expression.  More recently his lab has been exploring the complex structure of the many proteins that are assembled in the kinetochore, which anchors the centromeres of chromosomes to microtubules, to permit their proper segregation in mitosis.

“Steve Harrison has done much more than giving us astonishing pictures of proteins at the atomic level; he has used this structural information to show us how these proteins perform their precise functions,” said James E. Haber, Director of the Rosenstiel Center for Basic Medical Sciences.

The Rosenstiel Award has had a distinguished record of identifying and honoring pioneering scientists who subsequently have been honored with the Lasker and Nobel Prizes. Awards are given to scientists for recent discoveries of particular originality and importance to basic medical research.

View full list of awardees.

 

 

Filed Under: awards, events, labs Tagged With: , , , ,

Ivanovic Receives 2017 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award

October 11, 2017 By

photo: Mike Lovett

Assistant Professor of Biochemistry Tijana Ivanovic has received a 2017 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. This award is part of the NIH’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, designed to fund early career investigators who propose innovative and potentially transformative projects. Ivanovic will receive $1,500,000 in direct costs over five years to spearhead a research program aimed at comprehensively characterizing molecular changes in the viral cell-entry protein hemagglutinin (HA) that define pandemic influenza viruses. With the generated insights, Ivanovic hopes to ultimately be in a position to predict the pandemic potential of influenza viruses circulating in nature.

HA densely covers the influenza virion surface, where it allows the virus to both recognize and penetrate (fuse with) the cells of its host. HA is also a key target of neutralizing antibodies that protect us from influenza infection. An influenza pandemic is characterized by the adaptation of a new HA subtype to cell entry into human cells (of what was originally an avian virus). Without the pre-existing immunity to protect us, the virus quickly spreads around the globe. During pandemic adaptation, both HA functions in target-cell recognition and membrane fusion undergo key molecular changes. Ivanovic will use a custom-built Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscope (TIRFM) to visualize, in real time, individual virus particles as they engage and fuse with target cell membranes. This system will allow her to obtain large-scale quantitative information about distinct HA functions at an unprecedented level of detail. She will compare avian viruses with their evolutionary offspring that infected humans, including past pandemic strains. She hopes to develop models for predicting which viruses will lead to a major flu outbreak.

Ivanovic obtained a PhD in virology from Harvard University and carried out postdoctoral research with Stephen Harrison in molecular biophysics. She integrates these diverse backgrounds in her laboratory, where members are trained across these two and other synergistic areas (such as laser microscope optics, and analytical and computational modeling). The funds from the New Innovator award have created new opportunities for hiring, and the lab is actively recruiting postdocs, PhD students (from the Biochemistry and Biophysics, Molecular and Cell Biology, and Physics graduate programs) and undergraduate researchers to undertake this ambitious program.

Filed Under: awards, Biochemistry, labs Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Amy Lee Named 2017 Searle Scholar

April 4, 2017 By

Figure from Amy Lee

Assistant Professor of Biology Amy Si-Ying Lee was named a 2017 Searle Scholar, receiving $300,000 in flexible funding to support her work over the next three years. Lee’s research is focused on discovering how gene regulation occurs through novel mechanisms of mRNA translation. Specifically, her lab studies how non-canonical translation pathways shape cell growth and differentiation, and why defects in mRNA translation lead to developmental disorders and cancer.

Lee, who came to Brandeis in Summer 2016, has a PhD form Harvard and did her postdoc at UC Berkeley. She has also been awarded a 2017 Sloan Research Fellowship and in January won the Charles H. Hood Foundation Child Health Research Award. Lee’s lab is up and running and recruiting postdocs and PhD students (through the Molecular & Cell Biology and Biochemistry & Biophysics graduate programs). In Fall 2017, Lee will teach BIOL 105, Molecular Biology.

Filed Under: awards, Biology, labs Tagged With: , , , , ,

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