News

Andreas Bergmann, PhD, has received a five-year, $3.5 million Maximizing Investigators' Research Award from the National Institutes of Health.

UMass Medical School scientist Craig L. Peterson, PhD, has received a five-year, $4.5 million Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institutes of Health for research that explores the role chromosome structure plays in regulating gene expression, DNA repair and DNA fidelity during cell division.

Dohoon Kim, PhD, was named a 2017 Suh Kyungbae Science Foundation Young Investigator Award recipient. The accompanying $2 million, five-year grant will support research into changes in metabolic pathways that support cancer cells.

Four faculty members have been appointed to endowed professorships at UMass Medical School in recognition of their contributions to biomedical research, education and patient care. Each will be formally invested Sept. 13 at the Convocation and Investiture ceremony.

The new drug, patisiran, approved Aug. 10 by the FDA, is based on the discovery of RNAi made by Craig Mello, PhD, and Andrew Fire, PhD. It was developed by Alnylam, an RNAi-based drug development company co-founded by Phillip Zamore, PhD.

Researchers at UMass Medical School have developed a genome-editing strategy to correct disease-causing DNA mutations in mouse models of human genetic diseases. Dan Wang, PhD, is first author and Guangping Gao, PhD, is a co-corresponding author on the paper published in the Aug. 18 edition of Nature Biotechnology.

Guangping Gao, PhD, has been ranked one of the world’s top translational researchers, according to a new tabulation from Nature Biotechnology. The Top 20 Translational Researchers of 2017, published this month by Nature Biotechnology, places Dr. Gao fourth.

Job Dekker, PhD, creator of high-throughput chromosome conformation capture (known as Hi-C), and a team of researchers have developed a new computational framework combining optical mapping, Hi-C, and whole genome sequencing to find what are called “structural variants” within cancer genomes and learn more about how such cancers begin.

As part of UMass Medical School’s ongoing initiatives to share news about the research, academic and service achievements that take place every day on our campuses, a new magazine debuts this week, @umassmed.

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Dean Mary Ellen Lane, PhD, welcomed and congratulated 52 graduate students entering the transformative years of their doctoral research during the GSBS Qualifying Exam Recognition Ceremony on Tuesday, Sept. 18.

Research from the lab of Jeremy Luban, MD, suggests targeting the HUSH complex to activate HIV-1 may be an avenue for making latent viral reservoirs susceptible to antiviral therapies.

Rodrigo Lopez Gonzalez, PhD, has been awarded the 2019 Alzheimer’s Association Research Fellowship to Promote Diversity. 

Tessa Simone, PhD, a postdoc in the lab of Michael R. Green, MD, PhD, is focused on identifying ways to teach the immune system to attack cancerous tumors without harming healthy tissue. Learn about her research  in the latest Women in Science video.

Silvia Corvera, MD, and Michael Czech, PhD, are investigating whether technologies developed in their labs will harness beige fat’s ability to burn energy and accelerate metabolism in order to improve the body’s response to sugar and lower blood glucose levels.

A gene therapy delivered to motor neurons was able to silence SOD1 protein, mutations of which are linked to ALS, without causing any adverse effects, according to a new study published in Science Translational Medicine, by Christian Mueller, PhD, and Robert H. Brown Jr., DPhil, MD.

The Toronto-based Blu Genes Foundation, which is dedicated to developing gene therapies for rare disease, has given $1.4 million to UMass Medical School to advance a Phase I/II clinical trial for Tay-Sachs. Miguel Sena-Esteves, PhD, Terence Flotte, MD, Heather Gray-Edwards, PhD, DVM, and colleagues at  Auburn University are leading the research.

A new study by Anastasia Khvorova, PhD, and Melissa Moore, PhD, at UMass Medical School and colleagues at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Western Sydney University, suggests that RNA interference therapy could be a potential strategy for the treatment of preeclampsia.

Victor Ambros, PhD, has been elected by his peers as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Jeanne Lawrence, PhD, and Jaime Rivera, PhD, received a five-year, $2.8 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development at the National Institutes of Health to test a strategy in a mouse model for silencing the extra chromosome that causes Down Syndrome.

Led by Guangping Gao, PhD, and Erik Sontheimer, PhD, scientists at UMass Medical School will work to develop technology to enable safe genome editing in patients, thanks to new grant funding from the National Institutes of Health.

The Gilbert Family Foundation has announced that UMass Medical School will receive funding from a $12 million gene therapy initiative to address the underlying cause of neurofibromatosis type 1.

Axovant Sciences, a Swiss company developing gene therapies for neurological diseases, has licensed exclusive worldwide rights for the development and commercialization of two novel gene therapy programs for Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff diseases from UMass Medical School. 

UMass Medical School geriatrics expert Jennifer Tjia, MD, MSCE, has been named a fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine in recognition of her dedication to and scholarship in the field.

Sanjay Ram, MD, co-authored a new study that reveals insights into how gonococcus, the bacteria that causes gonorrhea, latches onto and enters human cells. The findings may help provide an avenue to develop therapeutics that defend against bacterial infection.

A new study in the January issue of Health Affairs by Robin Clark, PhD, shows women who were homeless during their pregnancies had significantly higher rates of health complications, such as hypertension, anemia, hemorrhage and early labor, compared with those who were not homeless.

A new study by Sybil Crawford, PhD, finds that younger women with menopausal symptoms may have foregone hormone therapy for relief as a result of the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative recommendations, despite new research showing favorable benefits versus risks for their age group.

Allan Jacobson, PhD, studies the post-transcriptional control of gene expression, focusing on the consequences and corrections of “nonsense mutations”—errors in the genetic code that serve as periods in a genetic sentence. He explains his research in a new Voices of UMassMed podcast.

Lori Pbert, PhD, has been appointed a member of the United States Preventive Services Task Force, an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine that works to improve the health of all Americans.

In a health report from WJAR-TV/NBC 10 of Providence, reporter Barbara Morse Silva explains research by Silvia Corvera, MD, into transforming white fat into beige to harness its ability to burn energy, accelerate metabolism and fight disease.

Hemant Khanna, PhD, an ophthalmology and visual sciences researcher, writes for The Conversation about a recent report in which scientists have found a new approach to target retinoblastoma using cancer-killing viruses. 

The American Society of Transplant Surgeons has recognized Paulo N. Martins, MD, PhD, with the 2019 Veloxis Rising Stars in Transplantation Surgery Award for his research of transplant immunobiology.

Jonathan Watts, PhD, and colleagues are advancing research to repair the disease-causing gene mutations in Rett syndrome thanks to $2.7 million in new funding from the Rett Syndrome Research Trust.

UMass Medical School has created the role of vice provost for strategic research initiatives and named Michael R. Green, MD, PhD, to the post.

As the diabetes epidemic continues to grow, researchers are redoubling their efforts to understand the mechanisms that cause the disease. Learn about how MD/PhD student Rachel Stamateris is studying the disease in this Women in Science video.

Anthony Rothschild, MD, explains the latest developments into the use of Esketamine for treatment-resistant depression in a new episode of the podcast Voices of UMassMed.

Five people will represent the UMass ALS Cellucci Fund in the 2019 Boston Marathon on April 15 to support amyotrophic lateral sclerosis research (ALS) underway at UMass Medical School.

UMass Medical School has two research teams competing in the 2019 STAT Madness contest, in which readers are encouraged to vote online for the best pioneering biomedical research of 2018.

The All of Us Research Program is a historic effort to gather data from one million or more people living in the United States to uncover paths toward delivering precision medicine.

Researchers at UMass Medical School and Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center have developed a strategy to treat two of the most common inherited blood diseases—sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia—applying CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to a patient's own blood stem cells.

Scot A. Wolfe, PhD, and Charles P. Emerson Jr., PhD, discovered a “reset button” for disease-causing genetic microduplications using CRISPR gene editing and a rare, innate DNA repair mechanism.

Paul L. Greer, PhD, is one of 15 young scientists in the chemical and biological sciences who have been named 2019 Searle Scholars.

Raúl Padrón, PhD, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences as a foreign associate and will be honored at the 156th Annual Meeting, April 27-30, in Washington, D.C.

Michael Brehm, PhD, and colleagues at UMass Medical School are working to bring precision medicine to patients with type 1 diabetes, developing a model system that allows scientists to better understand the autoimmune disease. Learn more in this Expert’s Corner video.

Two new studies from the Diabetes Center of Excellence at UMass Medical School investigate functions of the insulin-producing beta cells that are destroyed in patients with type 1 diabetes, and a reliable method to measure beta cell replication in individuals.

In a new study, Beth A. McCormick, PhD, and John P. Haran, MD, PhD, show that patients with Alzheimer’s disease have distinctly different microbiomes than patients with other forms of dementia, establishing a critical bridge connecting specific bacteria species and different types of dementia prevalent in the elderly.

UMass Medical School physician-scientist Ellen M. Gravallese, MD, received the Carol Nachman Prize for Rheumatology, an international honor for research in rheumatology, from city dignitaries at a ceremony in Wiesbaden, Germany.

UMass Medical School has awarded the first BRIDGE Fund grants to support innovative translational research. The first recipients of funding are Jie Song, PhD, and Timothy Kowalik, PhD.

The first clinical trial of a gene therapy treatment based on discoveries made by UMass Medical School and Auburn University researchers has been administered in a child at the National Institutes of Health. UMMS researchers Heather Gray-Edwards, PhD, DVM, and Miguel Sena-Esteves, PhD, collaborated with colleagues at Auburn University on the research.

In the days leading up to the 46th Commencement Exercises at UMass Medical School on Sunday, June 2, students from all three schools will be recognized, friends and family will be celebrated, and distinguished guests will be honored at events across campus.

UMass Medical School awarded 214 degrees at its 46th Commencement exercises on Sunday, June 2, including honorary degrees to keynote speaker Darrell G. Kirch, MD; Susan Coghlin Mailman; and Richard P. Kennedy.

An article in Nature Medicine by Jeremy Luban, MD, highlights the benefits of more diverse and higher resolution genetic databases. As tools for genetic analysis become more powerful, it is critical for translational scientists to be better equipped to predict the full spectrum of consequences of given mutations, Dr. Luban said.

Anthony Rothschild, MD, is among six UMass Medical School physicians who joined more than 40 Massachusetts doctors, scientists and researchers expressing concern over the potential dangers of marijuana use among the general public in a letter to Massachusetts lawmakers in early June.

Jane E. Freedman, MD, is the new editor-in-chief of Circulation Research, one of 12 scientific journals of the American Heart Association. The first issue of the journal under her editorship was published online in June.

UMass Medical School students planted four raised beds with a variety of vegetables, herbs and flowers. The launch heralds new growth for nutrition-focused, wellness-oriented initiatives that will be cultivated through the student-run community garden.

Ana Maldonado-Contreras, PhD, and Barbara Olendzki, RD, MPH, at UMass Medical School and colleagues at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai are conducting a clinical trial to determine if an anti-inflammatory diet may reduce the risk of pregnant women with Crohn’s disease relapsing after child birth and of disease transmission to the baby.

The Duchenne Program at UMass Medical School is providing an integrative approach to treating young patients living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most common and aggressive form of muscular dystrophy. Launched a year ago, the program provides comprehensive clinical care by a multidisciplinary of medical professionals.

Robert W. Finberg, MD, the Richard M. Haidack Professor of Medicine and chair and professor of medicine, has shared his intention to step down as chair to return to the faculty to pursue his academic and research roles on a full-time basis.

John Landers, PhD, spoke with NBC 10 Boston reporter Abbey Niezgoda at a fifth anniversary celebration of the Ice Bucket Challenge, telling her "We know so much more now than we did five and 10 years ago."

Neil Aronin, MD, led an afternoon of presentations detailing advances made by scientists at UMass Medical School in the quest to find a treatment for Huntington’s disease. CHDI Foundation President Robi Blumenstein accepted a plaque in recognition of the foundation’s $13 million in support of Huntington’s research at the medical school.

Pulmonologist Hardy Kornfeld, MD, is co-principal investigator of a clinical trial that will help determine whether adding the drug metformin to standard antibiotic treatment can yield better outcomes for tuberculosis patients. Wenjun Li, PhD, is chief statistician for the trial.

Celia A. Schiffer, PhD, has been named the 2020 recipient of the prestigious William C. Rose Award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Michael P. Hirsh, MD, professor of surgery, chief of the Division of Pediatric Surgery and surgeon-in-chief for the UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center, has been appointed to a newly created position of assistant vice provost for wellness and health promotion.

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences student Kellianne Alexander has been awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Graduate Fellowship. Learn more about her research in this Women in Science video.

The UMass Medical School Summer Undergraduate Research Program hosted 29 students for 10 weeks, among them Sang Vo and Amina Bradley. The undergraduates from across the country conducted biomedical research under the direction of faculty, students and postdoctoral fellows.

Anthony Rothschild, MD, is the lead researcher at UMass Medical School on a new JAMA study that analyzes how continuation of a combination drug therapy could help patients who have major depressive disorder with psychotic features, a disabling condition with a high-risk of suicide.

Xiaoduo Fan, MD, MPH, will compare two psychosocial interventions that can result in meaningful improvement for persons with schizophrenia and related illnesses as a member of a PCORI Advisory Panel for Healthcare Delivery and Disparities Research.

Learn about the Duchenne Program at UMass Medical School in this Voices of UMassMed podcast with Brenda Wong, MD, founding director of the program, and Tracy Seckler, co-founder and CEO of Charley’s Fund.

The latest installment of the Artist in Residence series features images that illuminate research taking place in UMass Medical School’s RNA Therapeutics Institute. The exhibit will be on display in the Lamar Soutter Library from Tuesday, Sept. 3, through Wednesday, Oct. 30. 

The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences has received a 2019 Innovations in Research and Research Education Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Helen Tian, a member of the School of Medicine Class of 2021, has been selected by the American Society of Hematology to receive one of five 2019-2020 Physician-Scientist Career Development Awards.

The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation has recognized Dorothy P. Schafer, PhD, for exceptional research of the role of microglia in regulating neural circuit structure and function as it relates to mental illness.

Human hookworm infection, even at low levels for short periods of time, can cause rapid, acute and measurable cognitive impairments in spatial memory among a mammalian animal model, according to new research from the lab of Raffi Van Aroian, PhD.

The UMass Medical School community will gather this week to celebrate accomplishments and officially launch the new academic year. Four distinguished faculty members will be invested as named professors, students from all three schools will be honored and the chancellor will deliver a Convocation address.

Research from the lab of Mark Alkema, PhD, shows how a dynamic regulation of a stress neurohormone regulates the trade-off between acute and long-term stress responses. Results of the study were published in Nature

UMass Medical School has licensed the exclusive global rights to develop and commercialize novel adeno-associated virus gene therapy product candidates for the treatment of Leber congenital amaurosis type 10 to IVERIC bio, Inc. The product was developed from research by Hemant Khanna, PhD, in collaboration with Guangping Gao, PhD.

In his annual Convocation address to the UMass Medical School community, Chancellor Michael F. Collins announced the creation of the UMMS strategic plan, “IMPACT 2025,” and honored four faculty members for exemplary teaching, scholarship, clinical excellence and service.

Justin A. Maykel, MD; Beth A. McCormick, PhD; Lawrence M. Rhein, MD, MPH; and Celia A. Schiffer, PhD, were invested into named professorships at a ceremony on Thursday, Sept. 12 at UMass Medical School, thanks to the generous support of donors.

Researchers in the Mark Alkema lab have uncovered a mechanism that causes an imbalance in excitatory and inhibitory signaling in the nervous system. The research was carried out using the nematode C. elegans and published in ELife.

Students at UMass Medical School are attending events geared toward burnout prevention, mindfulness and healthy eating during “Wellness Week,” sponsored by the Office of Student Life and featured in a Worcester News Tonight newscast on Charter TV3.

Learn about the latest advancements in Tay-Sachs research in this Voices of UMassMed podcast with Miguel Sena-Esteves, PhD, and Heather Gray-Edwards, DVM, PhD.

Philip A. Feinberg, an MD/PhD student studying in the lab of Dorothy P. Schafer, PhD, has been named a predoctoral fellow by Autism Speaks.

Michael Lodato, PhD, was named a 2019 Next Generation Leader by the Allen Institute. The program formally recognizes the importance of fresh and innovative contributions from scientists at early stages of their careers.

When Kevin Enabulele arrived at UMass Medical School this year with classmates in the School of Medicine Class of 2023, he knew he had one advantage as he began his studies: older brother Skelly Enabulele, now in his third year at UMMS.

UMass Medical School geriatrics expert Jennifer Tjia, MD, MSCE, interspersed personal reflection with scholarly analysis in an editorial on a study which found that telephone support for caretakers of family members with dementia can improve quality of life for both patients and caregivers.

Paul L. Greer, PhD, has received a 2019 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, an honor reserved for exceptionally creative early career investigators who propose innovative, high-impact projects within the NIH mission.

Amir Mitchell, PhD, has received the Maximizing Investigators' Research Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to support research into cellular decoding of signaling dynamics.

Studies on wild koalas reveal an innate form of genome immunity which may suppress retroviruses that infect the germline cells that form sperm and eggs, according to research by William E. Theurkauf, PhD, and Zhiping Weng, PhD, at UMass Medical School and colleagues at the University of Queensland in Australia.

A new study by researchers at UMass Medical School and the University of Queensland in Australia examining a retrovirus in koalas reveals new insights into the genetic evolution of vertebrates, according to media reports in the New York Times and STAT.

Jeffrey I. Gordon, MD, was awarded the Gregory Pincus Medal and delivered the Pincus Memorial Lecture at UMass Medical School on Oct. 29 with National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, PhD, in attendance.

Preliminary data from an expanded access study of an investigational gene therapy in two patients with infantile Tay-Sachs disease indicates the potential to modify the rate of disease progression, according to a recent report presented in Barcelona by Terence R. Flotte, MD.

A new study from UMass Medical School finds that younger children participating in snow sports are more likely to suffer severe head and facial injuries, while older kids and teens sustain more internal abdominal traumas.

A report in the journal mBio, published by the American Society for Microbiology, describes a prototype vaccine candidate developed at UMass Medical School for the bacterium that causes gonorrhea.

John P. Haran, MD, PhD, has been awarded a 2019 Alzheimer’s Association grant to support research into how the intestinal microbiome differs in Alzheimer’s patients and whether imbalances are associated with memory decline.

The WooHealth Hackathon took place at UMass Medical School on Friday, Nov. 15, and Saturday, Nov. 16, bringing together students from nine Worcester colleges and universities for the city’s first-of-its-kind collaboration to improve public health.

In a new Voices of UMassMed podcast, David McManus, MD, discusses his research, which explores how digital devices can improve patient care and enhance understanding of disease.

Edwin Boudreaux, PhD, has been working to implement screening for suicide in emergency rooms for more than a decade and has published numerous studies that show many patients can be reached, according to a Nov. 8 article in the Washington Post about his research.

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported on the first WooHealth Hackathon, a two-day event hosted by UMass Medical School bringing together students and faculty from nine area colleges and universities to brainstorm innovative solutions for a public health challenge.

Antibiotic-resistant germs are rapidly developing around the world and a multi-pronged approach will be needed to combat this pressing public health threat, said drug resistance expert and investigator Celia Schiffer, PhD, in reaction to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on the severity of the problem.

A study by Robert H. Brown Jr., MD, DPhil, published in the journal Neurology, shows that a single transplantation of a bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cell treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) called NurOwn was safe and well tolerated by patients.

Twenty-three School of Medicine students, four faculty members, six house staff and three alumni were inducted into the UMMS Delta Massachusetts Chapter of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society on Wednesday, Nov. 20.