MIP Researchers: Take them for 'Granted'

MIP scientists received 149 extramural research grant awards that totaled a whopping $36,889,481 in fiscal year 2008 according to the CSU Research Office Database. This represents a 9 percent (or $3 million) increase over last year's totals - pretty remarkable given the lean times in federal research spending. To put this into real world perspective, $36 million is enough money (perhaps) to afford a fancy home in the Aspen/Snowmass area! The $36 million research figure is the second highest yearly extramural grant year on record.

The department overall has 240 active "5-3" grant accounts totaling $157.6 million. None of this would be possible without the hard work and truly impressive synergy demonstrated by MIP researchers at all levels. Thanks for your hard work.

MIP Welcomes Jenny Taylor to the Faculty

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Jenny Taylor has accepted an Assistant Professor position in the department effective August 15. Jenny earned her PhD in Microbiology from CSU in 2003 after which she worked as a Post-doctoral fellow in the Orme Laboratory and the last three years in the Izzo Laboratory. The focus of her post-doctoral reseach has been in the investigation of immune correlates of protection in regard to vaccine development against Mycobacterium tuberculosis in murine and guinea pig models. Jenny has been teaching courses in MIP since 2002. When not at MIP Jenny enjoys running, biking, climbing, skiing and playing the piano. To relax, she loves to sit on her front porch with a good book and her dog at her side.

MIP Welcomes Torsten Eckstein to the Faculty

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Torsten Eckstein has accepted an Assistant Professor position in the department effective July 1. Torsten, originally from Germany, earned his MD at Humboldt-University at Berlin's Medical School and his PhD at the National Academy of Science. After serving as the Chief Physician of the 19^th Artillery Regiment of the National German Army, Torsten completed his Residency in Pediatrics and a Fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Humbolt-University Berlin and Reprecht-Karls-University in Heidelberg respectively. Torsten came to the US in 1995, and has been at CSU since 1996 working with the Mycobacterial Research Laboratories. He enjoys gardening, cooking and politics. Torsten became an American citizen in April and is looking forward to getting more involved with American politics.

Ric Slayden has accepted a Tenure Track Associate Professor position specializing in functional genomics (which will be introduced in the PVM program) and proteomics. Ric is an active member of the Rocky Mountain RCE and the Mycobacterial Research Laboratories.

• Dr. Orme landed a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant. Read the Aug 13^th Coloradoan article entitled, "CSU receives $1.25 million for TB research"
• MIP's "Batman" (aka Charlie Calisher) was quoted by New Scientist regarding a mystery disease in the South American Rain Forest. Read the article

MIP Publications Late July - early August 2008

• Brackney DE, Foy BD, Olson KE.  The effects of midgut serine proteases on dengue virus type 2 infectivity of Aedes aegypti.  Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2008 Aug;79(2):267-74.
• Chuanchuen R, Wannaprasat W, Ajariyakhajorn K, Schweizer HP.  Role of the MexXY multidrug efflux pump in moderate aminoglycoside resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from Pseudomonas mastitis.  Microbiol Immunol. 2008;52(8):392-8.
• de Rozìeres S, Thompson J, Sundstrom M, Gruber J, Stump DS, de Parseval AP, VandeWoude S, Elder JH.  Replication properties of clade A/C chimeric feline immunodeficiency viruses and evaluation of infection kinetics in the domestic cat.  J Virol. 2008 Aug;82(16):7953-63.
• Disatain S, Ehrhart EJ, Zimmerman S, Orton E. Interstitial Cells from Dogs with Naturally Occurring Myxomatous MItral Valve Disease Undergo Phenotype Transformation. J Heart Valve Dis. 2008 July;17(4):402-412.
• Franklin SP, Kays RW, Moreno R, Terwee JA, Troyer JL, Vandewoude S.  Ocelots on barro colorado island are infected with feline immunodeficiency virus but not other common feline and canine viruses.  J Wildl Dis. 2008 Jul;44(3):760-5
• Griffiths LG, Choe LH, Reardon KF, Dow SW, Christopher Orton E.  Immunoproteomic identification of bovine pericardium xenoantigens.  Biomaterials. 2008 Sep;29(26):3514-20
• Mercado-Curiel RF, Black WC 4th, Muñoz Mde L.  A dengue receptor as possible genetic marker of vector competence in Aedes aegypti.  BMC Microbiol. 2008 Jul 15;8:118
• Monot M, Honoré N, Balière C, Ji B, Sow S, Brennan PJ, Cole ST.  Are variable-number tandem repeats appropriate for genotyping Mycobacterium leprae?  J Clin Microbiol. 2008 Jul;46(7):2291-7.
• Morley P, Mathes M, Guth A, Dow S.  Anti-erythrocyte antibodies and disease associations in anemic and nonanemic dogs.  J Vet Intern Med. 2008 Jul-Aug;22(4):886-92
• Ordway D, Henao-Tamayo M, Shanley C, Smith EE, Palanisamy G, Wang B, Basaraba RJ, Orme IM.  Influence of Mycobacterium bovis BCG Vaccination on Cellular Immune Response of Guinea Pigs Challenged with Mycobacterium tuberculosis.  Clin Vaccine Immunol. 2008 Aug;15(8):1248-58.
• Peña MT, Adams JE, Adams LB, Gillis TP, Williams DL, Spencer JS, Krahenbuhl JL, Truman RW.  Expression and characterization of recombinant interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) from the nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) and its effect on Mycobacterium leprae-infected macrophages.  Cytokine. 2008 Aug;43(2):124-31.
• Shi L, Zhou R, Liu Z, Lowary TL, Seeberger PH, Stocker BL, Crick DC, Khoo KH, Chatterjee D.  Transfer of the first arabinofuranose residue to galactan is essential for Mycobacterium smegmatis viability.  J Bacteriol. 2008 Aug;190(15):5248-55.
• Strong AC, Kondratieff BC, Doyle MS, Black WC 4th.  Resistance to permethrin in Culex tarsalis in northeastern Colorado.  J Am Mosq Control Assoc. 2008 Jun;24(2):281-8.
• Wang S, Welte T, McGargill M, Town T, Thompson J, Anderson JF, Flavell RA, Fikrig E, Hedrick SM, Wang T.  Drak2 contributes to West Nile virus entry into the brain and lethal encephalitis.  J Immunol. 2008 Aug 1;181(3):2084-91
• Wang W, Dong C, McNeil M, Kaur D, Mahapatra S, Crick DC, Naismith JH.  The structural basis of chain length control in Rv1086.  J Mol Biol. 2008 Aug 1;381(1):129-40.
• Zhang L, Lee JE, Wilusz J, Wilusz CJ.  The RNA-binding Protein CUGBP1 Regulates Stability of Tumor Necrosis Factor mRNA in Muscle Cells: IMPLICATIONS FOR MYOTONIC DYSTROPHY.  J Biol Chem. 2008 Aug 15;283(33):22457-63.
• Zhang W, Jones VC, Scherman MS, Mahapatra S, Crick D, Bhamidi S, Xin Y, McNeil MR, Ma Y.  Expression, essentiality, and a microtiter plate assay for mycobacterial GlmU, the bifunctional glucosamine-1-phosphate acetyltransferase and N-acetylglucosamine-1-phosphate uridyltransferase.  Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 2008;40(11):2560-71.

MIP Newsletter celebrates it's 4^th Anniversary! The newsletter has come a long way in the past four years...check out the first edition from August 2004.

The Rocky Mountain Prion Research Symposium will be held on August 22 at the Fort Collins Hilton.

For more information, and to download the symposium program, go to the symposium webpage.

To register for the meeting please go to the RMV Registration website.

Read the Spring/Summer 2008 Edition of the Diagnostic Lab's publication, Lab Lines.

Congratulations to Greg Wilkerson and EJ Ehrhart for completing the Boulder Peak Triathlon in July!

Congratulations to Nick Haley for placing 2nd in his division in the Indian Peaks Xterra (1000m Swim, 18km Bike, 6.3km run) on August 2^nd.

Best Wishes Mary!

After working at AIDL for more than seven years, Mary Hile has succumbed to the proverbial 'itch' and accepted a new position in the Department of Facilities Management. Her last day with MIP was Friday, August 15. It has been a pleasure to work with Mary over the years - thanks for all of your contributions and best of luck in your new position.

Congratualations to Wei Li & Ye Tao on the birth of their baby girl, Yuan Tao (aka Annie). Annie was born on August 11 at 12:15 am and weighed 7lbs 11oz.

North Facing Wall


West Facing Wall


South Facing Wall


South Facing Wall


Top of North Facing Wall

"It is better to deserve honors and not to have them than to have them and not deserve them. "

For a number of years now, the American Society for Virology has held a 5K run for attendees at its annual meeting. It's a fun run, no times are recorded, and it's just a good venue for socializing on the first morning of the intense 4-day meeting. Click here to read Carol Blair's account of the suspicious events that took place at this years run.

Due to an administrative reorganization, MIP Office Staff are currently moving offices and squeezing into smaller areas...

1. Cathy Griffin displays First Prize in the annual August 'See Who Can Go Longest Without Showering' Contest among MIP Staff.
2. After receiving threatening emails from Ms. Griffin's rather animated cousin Stewie, Dr. Hoover decides to give into demands and assign Cathy to a primo office.
3. MIP interior design specialist Cathy Griffin shows how to make your 64 sq ft office look larger.
4. Submit your own.

Click Here for the questions to MIPuzzle #33
Click Here for the answers to MIPuzzle #33

On July 18^th, sixteen Wilusz² Lab members rafted down the mighty Poudre River.

• Don't think some infectious disease paradigms are worth a pair-of-cents? - Then be ready to check out the new NIH Transformative R01 Award Program. Starting this fiscal year, this new NIH 'Roadmap' program will commit at least $250 million over five years for investigator-initiated projects that disrupt an existing paradigm or create a new one. Look for a funding opportunity announcement later this summer.
• Several new web-based tools are being developed to help you uncover the latest innovations and innovators in your field:
  • WorldWideScience: Unified Search - Consider revving up your publication searches using WorldWideScience.org. This DOE-sponsored global science gateway draws from national and international science databases / portals in medicine, energy, agriculture,
  • WikiProfessional: Collaborative Intelligence - Check out WikiProfessional, a global collaboration designed to innovate how knowledge is represented and expanded on the Internet, and help it develop by adding your expertise. The site combines two knowledge management approaches: (1) An automated analysis for each concept, called a "Knowlet," distills information and summarizes relationships based on literature from available databases (e.g. Pubmed and Biomed Cenral). (2) A user-editable wiki structure allows participating scientists to annotate concepts and tag them with related terms.
  • BioMedExperts: Matchmaker for Biomedical Scientists - Interested in networking or perhaps finding the best labs in a particular area for a postdoc? BioMedExperts, created by Collexis Holdings Inc, is a literature-based networking platform for the life science research community that contains more than 1.4 million PubMed-based profiles of scientists worldwide. Using this site, you can view profiles to gauge who's been actively publishing in an area, follow links to co-authors, etc.
• Research Supplements to Promote Re-entry into Biomedical Research Careers - The NIH is continuing its program for administrative supplements to research grants to support individuals to re-enter an active research career after taking time off to care for children or attend to other family responsibilities. This program provides administrative supplements to existing NIH grants for the purpose of supporting full-time or part-time research by these individuals in a program geared to bring their existing research skills and knowledge up to date. It is anticipated that at the completion of the supplement, the re-entry scientist will be in a position to apply for a career development (K) award, a research award (R), or some other form of independent research support. For more info, check out the NIH webpage
• Burroughs Wellcome Fund Grants for Investigators in Infectious Diseases - Check out this five year, $500K grant opportunity for accomplished tenure-track assistant professors (applications are due November 3rd).

Jenny and Todd Harding met the legend, Kenny Rogers, at this summer's Greeley Stampede!

Becky Rivoire , "RBL - Accuthera", Accuthera, Inc.
Greg Wilkerson, "Tail Biopsies and the Anatomic Distribution of Sensory Nervous Tissue within the Tails of Variably-Aged, Male and ...", ACLAM Foundation.

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