Volume 7, Issue 4, April 2010

Congratulations to Micro Majors Erin Breland, Ian Mcmillan, Rebecca Timmons, and Biochem Major Colleen Lanza who are recipients of the 2010 ASM Undergraduate Research Fellowships. The fellowships provide a summer stipend along with a two-year ASM membership and up to $1000 travel to the 2011 ASM General Meeting. The ASM gives out ~25 of these fellowships nationwide – thus it’s truly an impressive feat that MIP undergraduates were able to garner 4 of them! Erin and Ian's research this summer will be conducted in the Schweizer lab under the direction of RoxAnn Karkhoff-Schweizer. Becca's research will be conducted in the Wilusz Lab under the direction of Alan Godwin & Jeffrey Wilusz. Colleen will perform her work under the watchful eye of Randy Basaraba

We are also thrilled to report that Colleen Lanza was also awarded the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) Plant Genome Research Internship at Cornell University. Colleen was one of 15 students chosen from nearly 200 applicants for the BTI Internship that will allow these students to study/do research at the forefront of plant biology in Ithaca.

Congratulations to Alex Griffith, a Micro major currently working in the VandeWoude Lab, for recieving a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supplement award. The REU program supports active research participation by undergraduate students in any of the areas of research funded by the NSF.

Congratulations to Jennifer Sneden for receiving Honorable Mention for a Goldwater Scholarship. More than 1,100 applicants sought the scholarship, but only 278 were awarded on the basis of academic merit. Jennifer is a senior BMS Major currently working in the lab of Dr. Randall Basaraba studying both the basic pathogenesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in animal models as well as protein antigens that may prove beneficial in the diagnosis and prevention of TB.

Congratulations to Justin Lee, 3rd year DVM/PhD student in the VandeWoude Lab, for receiving a Fellowship Training Grant from the Morris Animal Foundation. This award will support his PhD training involving investigations of host-pathogen dynamics and factors in cross-species transmission in wild felids.

The goal of the MAF Fellowship Training Grant Program is to provide salary support for training opportunities for biomedical scientists (veterinarian and/or PhD) committed to a career in companion animal and/or wildlife research.

And if you're not impressed yet....

Rocky Mountain High School sophomore Kelli Lynch once again took home major bling in the Colorado Science and Engineering Fair for her project entitled ‘Irradiation Extermination: A Portable System to Eliminate Water-Borne Microorganisms Part II’. Pete Justice served as Kelli’s mentor for the project. Kelli won FIVE first place awards (first place in the Microbiology Division, and first place in the following four special awards: Water Environment Federation, Colorado Environmental Health Assoc, Society for Women Engineers and SPIE- The International Society for Optics and Photonics). Kelli took home a second place award from the American Water Works Assoc and Rocky Mtn. Water Environment Assoc. These awards also landed Kelli a $3,000 scholarship to the school of her choice and $800 in prizes. Kelli is currently presenting her outstanding work a the ISWEEP competition (International Sustainable World Project Olympiad) in Houston and she’ll be representing the great State of Colorado at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose California in May.

Note to Kelli: We have a seat in our Class of 2016 Micro Major BS Program with your name on it……

MIP Graduate Students who will participate in the May 14th Ph.D. Graduation Ceremony...

Bethany Bolling
Candace Mathiason
Gopi Palanisamy
Jaclyn Scott
Krystle Reagan

MIP Graduate Students who will participate in the May 14th M.S. Graduation Ceremony...

Donnie Hoff
Cristina Weiner

MIP Undergraduate Students who will receive their B.S. Degrees on May 14th...

Pouneh Alizadeh
Dulat Bekbolsynov
Matthew Butters
Jessica Cannon
Naji Elmogtaba
Genevieve Forster
Kelsie Furutani
Amanda Grippa
Amanda Gutshall
Holly Hamilton
April Hohnbaum
Diana Ir
Beverly Jackson
Aslynn Jones
Jason Kasvin-Felton
Jade Kurihara
Bayli Larson
Stephanie Lehman
Justine Masselli
Katherine Mladinich
Robert Moller
Christina Needham
Tiffany Schadle
Alexander Scherer
Evan Sherman
Jaime Stearns
Tyler Toland
Karen Trott
Hallee White
Kaitlyn Wilson
Phooi Nee Yong
Janna Yoshimoto

Congratulations to RoxAnn Karkhoff-Schweizer, Alan Schenkel and Jenny Taylor for being nominated for the 2010 CSU Alumni Best Teacher Award!

The Colorado State University Alumni Association and its affiliate student group, the Student Alumni Connection, recognize outstanding Colorado State University educators each year with Best Teacher Awards. The teachers are nominated by students and alumni and are selected by a committee comprised of members of the Alumni Association Board of Directors and Student Alumni Connection Leadership Council.

Congratulations to the following MIP students and mentors who received awards at this year's event:

Highest Honors

Katriana Popichak, Mentored by Ron Tjalkens

High Honors

Ginny Forster, Mentored by Steve Dow

Honors

Madeline Breer, Mentored by Dr. DeLuca

Look for more coverage of the CURC event in the May MIPnews.

Anne Lenaerts was highlighted in the March 23 issue of the Coloradoan in the article, "CSU researcher chosen to represent North America at World TB Day"

Torsten Eckstein was highlighted in the April edition of the North Forty News regarding his receiving 125 delegate votes to run for the Democratic candidacy for Senate District 15.

Phenotypic Definition of Effector and Memory T-lymphocyte subsets in mice chronically infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Marcela Henao-Tamayo, Diane Ordway, Scott Irwin, Shaobin Shang, Crystal Shanley and Ian Orme

Clin. Vaccine Immuno. 17: 618-625 (April 2010)

Like a pick-up line in the Drunken Monkey on a Friday night, for a vaccine to work it has to be ‘memorable’ to the recipient.  Memory, immunologically speaking, involves the generation of specific memory T cell subsets that influence effector (aka first line of defense in peripheral tissues) or central (associated with lymph node) memory functions.  Our current MIPaper-of-the-Month explores the memory cell response in mice to either a chronic Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection or as a result of vaccination with the BCG strain of Mtb.  The experimental design of the study is fairly straightforward – follow the surface expression of T cell markers on cells, use them to separate the T cells into specific subpopulations, count the cells in each subpopulation and Voila! – one gets a general picture of T cell specific immune memory response to our old friend with the mycolic acid coat.

Two key findings emerge from this study.  First, whether you’re talking about a chronic Mtb infection or a BCG vaccinated mouse, Marcela and colleagues found a lot of T cells that likely mediated first line or ‘effector’ T cell memory, but they couldn’t find much evidence at all for ‘central memory’ T cells.  This failure of a central memory T cell response may be why BCG is such a crummy vaccine.  Without the all important second line of defense provided by central memory, a person would likely remain susceptible to Mtb infections.  Second, the authors observed some rather unexpected surface markers on several subpopulations of T cells.  These include CD4’s with 44 low/62L high expression and CD8’s with high CD45RB expression.  These rather novel cells could reflect basic underpinnings of the immune response to Mtb that we don’t fully understand to date – so sorting this out could be a bonanza for TB vaccine development.

We chose this study for our highly coveted MIPub of the month for three reasons.  First, it provides evidence that assaying for central memory T cells might be the best way to effectively evaluate vaccine candidates rather than current approaches that focus on IFN-gamma responses.  Second, we applaud the fact that Marcela is listed as the corresponding author on the article.  This is a very nice recognition for a junior investigator.  Finally, we note that the Discussion section of this paper is about 3X as long as the Results section – a potential record for cogitation in an MIPublication.

MIP Publications Late March 2010 - Early April 2010

Ballweber LR, Xiao L, Bowman DD, Kahn G, Cama VA.  Giardiasis in dogs and cats: update on epidemiology and public health significance.  Trends Parasitol. 2010 Apr;26(4):180-9.

Dunphy KY, Senaratne RH, Masuzawa M, Kendall LV, Riley LW.  Attenuation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis functionally disrupted in a fatty acyl-coenzyme A synthetase gene fadD5.  J Infect Dis. 2010 Apr 15;201(8):1232-9.

Fang M, Toogood RD, Macova A, Ho K, Franzblau SG, McNeil MR, Sanders DA, Palmer DR.  Succinylphosphonate esters are competitive inhibitors of MenD that show active-site discrimination between homologous alpha-ketoglutarate-decarboxylating enzymes.  Biochemistry. 2010 Mar 30;49(12):2672-9.

Halsey CH, Powers BE, Kamstock DA.  Feline intestinal sclerosing mast cell tumour: 50 cases (1997-2008).  Vet Comp Oncol. 2010 Mar;8(1):72-9.

Henao-Tamayo MI, Ordway DJ, Irwin SM, Shang S, Shanley C, Orme IM.  Phenotypic definition of effector and memory T-lymphocyte subsets in mice chronically infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis.  Clin Vaccine Immunol. 2010 Apr;17(4):618-25.

Kurosu M, Begari E.  Vitamin K2 in electron transport system: are enzymes involved in vitamin K2 biosynthesis promising drug targets?
Molecules. 2010 Mar 10;15(3):1531-53.

Rosenbaum MD, Vandewoude S, Volckens J, Johnson T.  Disparities in Ammonia, Temperature, Humidity, and Airborne Particulate Matter between the Micro-and Macroenvironments of Mice in Individually Ventilated Caging.

Van Campen H.  Epidemiology and control of BVD in the U.S.  Vet Microbiol. 2010 Apr 21;142(1-2):94-8.

Wilusz CJ, Wilusz J.  trans Regulation: do mRNAs have a herd mentality?  Dev Cell. 2010 Mar 16;18(3):333-4.

The impending retirement of Linda Pundt, MIP’s Senior Research Coordinator, will generate a leadership void in our main campus facility. Riding in on a fine white stallion to fill this void will be our own Jim Frantz to assume Linda’s supervisory responsibilities effective immediately. Jim will be the direct supervisor for Barb Andre (RCE), Teresa Krueger (grants), Karen Hofmaier (front desk) and a new accounting technician (to be announced). Jim will also take on office management responsibilities for the Microbiology Facility in collaboration with Jeanette Fritzler. Please join us in congratulating Jim on his new role in the department and welcoming him to the wonderful (but once in a while wild and wacky) world of MIP Management!

Graduation Schedule
May 14, 2010

PVM
8am Moby Arena

Graduate School
3pm Moby Arena

Biomedical Sciences
7:30pm LSC Main Ballroom

The MIPnews Readership has Spoken

…and we’re listening. Thanks to all of you who filled out our online MIPnews reader survey over the last two months. We’re pleased to report that you gave the MIPnews a whopping 8.9/10 rating! The top five things that the readership likes about our humble e-zine is the cohesion that the newsletter brings to the department, the useful info/news that it contains, its humorous/friendly tone, its people-oriented stories and the photos (with and without captions) that it highlights. Suggestions for improvement included the addition of rotating features on different aspects of our far flung department to ensure a broad representation of the Dept in the MIPnews, the occasional inclusion of historical stories, including an Administrative Tip of the Month, and making the crossword easier. Thanks for these suggestions!

Best Wishes Kelly!

It is with regret we report that as of March 25th, Kelly Belden has left MIP for a position at the Office of Sponsored Programs. Kelly surely was a great asset to the grants management team in MIP and will be sorely missed. Teresa Krueger has moved into Kelly's office space and has taken over the management of Kelly’s accounts.

On April 14th Dean Perryman met with the MIP Faculty and Staff to discuss the plan for recruitment of a Department Head to replace retiring Dr. Ed Hoover.

A Search Committee, chaired by Dr. Pete Hellyer has been assembled and charged. The composition of the committee (Barb Andre, Paul Avery, Steve Dow, Brian Foy, Mary Jackson, Kristy Pabilonia, Erica Suchman, and Jeff Wilusz), reflects the diversity of the department. Position advertising will occur throughout the spring/summer with on-site interviews projected for the Fall Semester.

Anatomic Pathologist Interviews

• Sushan Han, April 22 & 23
• David Coleman, April 29 & 30
• Raquel Rech, May 3 & 4

Prion Pathobiologist Interviews

• Walker Jackson, April 27 & 28
• Ergem Tamguney, May 4 & 5 (tentative)
• Richard Bessen, May 6 & 7
• Glenn Telling, May 10 & 11

Congratulations to Dr. Angelo Izzo who celebrated a milestone birthday this month!

Lisa McCann, long-time MIP Undergraduate Program Coordinator, has been accepted into the PhD program in the school of Education and Human Resources for the Fall. She’ll be doing an interdisciplinary PhD that combines education coursework and classes that were in her area of specialty as a Master’s student (English).

Thanks to everyone in MIP who volunteered their time to help judge the Colorado Science and Engineering Fair on April 8th:

• Candace Mathiason
• Claire Goodwin
• Jeremy Teiber
• Murielle Watzky
• Mark Azadpour
• Brian Geiss
• Corey Campbell
• Francis del Rosario
• Erica Suchman
• Katie Propst
• John Spencer
• Emily Stump
• Brittany Barnett
• John Betz
• Pat Campbell
• Crystal Meyerett
• Dawn Arkin
• Sandeep Kohli
• Rachel Konda-Sundheim
• Meghan Trujillo
• Ryan Goffredi
• Barbara Rose
• Pouneh Alizadeh
• Don Klein
• Bayli Larson
• Charles Hunt
• Elizabeth Brooks
• Brad Charles

In addition to the retired football announcer of Turducken and Playstation Football fame, another famous Madden was recently in the spotlight. Congratulations to Dennis Madden, Lab Coordinator in the Diagnostic Lab, for being inducted into the Colorado Handball Hall of Fame on March 20th at the Denver Athletic Club!

Presenting Dennis with the award was CVMB's very own Dr. Terry Nett, who by the way, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2003.

Dennis Madden with wife Glenda, daughter Morgan, son Michael

Is it just us or do you smell a fat contract for endorsing a ‘Madden Handball 2010’ video game on the horizon……

MIP651- Immunobiology

This course will now be offered every fall semester

MIP666- Writing Scientific Manuscripts

This course with the satanic number will be offered by Dr. Callahan in the fall semester (even years) Enrollment will be limited to 15 students - and enrollment is limited to MIP graduate students until April 30th - So register early to ensure your spot!

MIP700-Topics in Microbiology

Fall 2010 - "Restriction of Viral Infection" (Dr. VandeWoude and Dr. Rovnak)
Spring 2011 - "Autoimmunity" (Dr. A. Avery)

MIP681- Advanced Veterinary Bacteriology

New course to be offered in Fall 2010 by Dr. Jones.

When: Sunday June 20th at 1PM
Event: Rox versus Milwaukee Brewers
Seats: Section 117 (same section as last year)
Cost per ticket: $15

Interested? Contact Jeff Wilusz for more details and ticket reservations.

(for the ‘signage-challenged’ among us, this means that the ribbon cutting for the new RIC building at the Foothills Campus is slated for May 11^th)

Call for Applications

Application Deadline is May 1, 2010

For more information regarding applicant requirements and application go to the ASM Graduate Fellowship webpage

2010 ASM Kadner Institute in Preparation for Careers in Microbiology

Michigan State University
July 24-28, 2010

Application Deadline: May 15, 2010

For more information on applicant requirements and how to apply go to the ASM Graduate and Postdoctoral Opportunities webpage

Congratulations to Kevin and Erica Sokoloski on the birth of their first child, Clara, who was born at 6:44pm on April 8th. She weighed in at 7lbs 4oz, 19.5 inches.

Congratulations to Amanda Calvert and husband Ian Nelson on the birth of their son, Ronan Nelson, on April 6th. Ronan weighed 7lbs 12oz, 21 inches. Everyone is doing well!

‘The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. ’

On March 30th faculty and staff were surprised to find a new indoor swimming pool where the main department seminar room, Pathology 103, used to be. The water had come from a DI water tank that ruptured on the 3rd floor, partially flooding the Avery/Olver Lab before dumping its contents into the Pathology Seminar Room. Within days, CSU Facilities had the floors and chairs dried out, the ceiling tiles replaced and the room ready for business.

Alternative Captions
• Remnants of last Friday night’s ‘MIP Gone Wild’ Party
• Brian Foy and Bill Black set up conditions to mimic an urban cycle of mosquito transmission in the Pathology Bldg.
• At least the Micro Bldg only leaks into the stairwells during April showers
• News Flash: Glover Gallery renamed the Galoshes Gallery
• Submit your own

Congratulations to Andrea Guillory for being the first MIP'er to correctly identify the above signature as the MRL Director, Dean Crick!

Questions for MIPuzzle #53
MIPuzzle #53 Answers

Alumni Nicole Garneau was featured in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science February/March 2010 Journal as the new Curator of Human Health.
Read the Article

Anne Lenaerts, "Synthesis and Evaluation of Novel Antibiotics for Treatment of TB", Institut Pasteur Korea

• Important – strict page limits for grant application update materials

  NIH is actively on the lookout for people who try to send additional data as ‘grant application updates’ to get around the new page limits. For a 12 pg R01 grant, there is now a strict 2 page limit for your update. Also bear in mind that technically your SRO does not have to accept this material and reviewers do not have to read it. For more info, please see the March 19, 2010, Guide notice.

• Current (and final?) paylines at NIAID

  Established investigators – 10th percentile; New investigators – 16th percentile. There is some indication that these could remain the final overall paylines for the current fiscal year.

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