Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more

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Learn about science writing careers from a pro

In November, Emory’s Office of Postdoctoral Education will be having a workshop on science writing in November, with special guest Marina Damiano. She is a scientist with corporate experience at an advertising/marketing communications/PR agency for life science and healthcare companies. While her workshop is now overscheduled (suggesting an abundance of interest!), Damiano is giving a career talk as well.

• Career Seminar. Wed, Nov 14th, 12 – 1.30 pm, SOM 178-P Hear Damiano discuss her background and career path, giving advice for anyone interested in pursuing a career in science communications. Open to everyone: undergraduates, grad students and postdocs.

Thanks for the tip from Claire Jarvis, editor of the Emory Postdoctoral Association Magazine. We are looking forward to the next issue, which we hear is focused on microbiome topics.

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Focus on antibiotic resistance at ASM Microbe 2018

We are excited that the ASM Microbe meeting will be at the Georgia World Congress Center from June 7 to June 11. If you are interested in antibiotic resistance, you can learn about how to detect it, how to (possibly) defeat it and how the bacteria fight back.

A host of Emory microbiologists are participating. In some cases, our scientists are presenting their unpublished data for discussion with their colleagues at other universities. Accordingly, we are not going to spill the beans on those results. However, please find below some examples of who’s talking and a bit of explanatory background. ASM Microbe abstracts are available online for posters, but not for some symposiums and plenary talks.

David Weiss labKlebsiella

Graduate student Jessie Wozniak is presenting her research on an isolate of Klebsiella that combines alarming properties. She will describe how the bacterial colonies behave (unappetizingly) like stretchy melted cheese in a “string test.”

June 9, 11 am to 1 pm, June 11, 11 am to 1 pm

Christine Dunham – toxin-antitoxin/persistence

Graduate student Sarah Anderson presenting her poster at ASM Microbe. She discussed a genetic connection between virulence switch and antibiotic resistance.

Dunham, a structural biologist, is giving a plenary talk June 11 on toxin-antitoxin pairs, which play a role in regulating bacterial persistence, a dormant state that facilitates antibiotic resistance. Two past papers from her lab.

Phil Rather labAcinetobacter baumannii

Rather’s lab recently published a Nature Microbiology paper on A. baumannii’s virulence/opacity switch. This type of bacteria is known for hospital-associated infections and for wound infections in military personnel. Poster talk by graduate student Sarah Anderson June 8. Read more

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What are rods and rings?

This image of mouse embryonic fibroblasts comes from Cara Schiavon, a graduate student in Rick Kahn’s lab in the Department of Biochemistry. It was impressive enough to capture interest from Emory Medicine‘s graphics designer Peta Westmaas. The light green shapes are “Rods and Rings,” structures that were identified just a few years ago by scientists studying how cells respond to antiviral drugs, such as those used against hepatitis C.

The rod and ring structures appear to contain enzymes that cells use for synthesizing DNA building blocks. Patients treated with some antiviral drugs develop antibodies against these enzymes.

The turquoise color represents microtubules, components of cells’ internal skeletons. The orange color shows DNA within nuclei. The spots in the nuclei are areas where DNA is more compact. The overall image is a “z-stack projection” acquired using the Olympus FV1000 confocal microscope in Emory’s Integrated Cellular Imaging Core.

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Toe in the water for Emory cryo-EM structures

Congratulations to Christine Dunham and colleagues in the Department of Biochemistry for their first cryo-electron microscopy paper, recently published in the journal Structure.

The paper solves the structure of a bacterial ribosome bound to a messenger RNA containing a loop that regulates translation. This process is important for the study of several neurological diseases such as fragile X syndrome, for example.

Christine Dunham, PhD

Dunham writes: “We are focusing on establishing this in bacteria to understand frameshifting and protein folding as a consequence of codon preference. We will then build up our knowledge to potentially study eukaryotic translational control.”

The paper neatly links up with two Nobel Prizes: the 2017 Chemistry prize for cryo-electron microscopy and the 2009 Chemistry prize for ribosome structure, awarded in part to Dunham’s mentor Venki Ramakrishnan. Also, see this 2015 feature from Nature’s Ewen Callaway outlining how cryo-EM is a must have for structural biologists wanting to probe large molecules that are difficult to crystallize.

Construction now underway in the Biochemistry Connector will allow installation of microscopes (worth $6 million) necessary for Dunham and others to do cryo-EM here at Emory, although she advises that it will be several months until they are photo-op ready. For the Structure paper, Dunham collaborated with George Skiniotis at University of Michigan; he recently moved to Stanford. Read more

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Biomedical career fair April 13

We learned about this from Tami Hutto at BEST (Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training) and Maria Thacker Goethe at Georgia Bio . We will provide more information when it is available. Friday, April 13. Emory Conference Center + Hotel, 1615 Clifton.

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Four hot projects at Emory in 2017

Once activated by cancer immunotherapy drugs, T cells still need fuel (CD28)

— Rafi Ahmed’s lab at Emory Vaccine Center. Also see T cell revival predicts lung cancer outcomes. At Thursday’s Winship symposium on cancer immunotherapy, Rafi said the name of the game is now combinations, with an especially good one being PD-1 inhibitors plus IL2.

Pilot study shows direct amygdala stimulation can enhance human memory

— Cory Inman, Joe Manns, Jon Willie. Effects being optimized, see SFN abstract.

Immune responses of five returning travelers infected by Zika virus

— Lilin Lai, Mark Mulligan. Covered here, Emory Hope Clinic and Baylor have data from more patients.

Frog slime kills flu virus

— Joshy Jacob’s lab at Emory Vaccine Center. A follow-up peptide with a name referencing Star Wars is coming.

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Shaking up thermostable proteins

Imagine a shaker table, where kids can assemble a structure out of LEGO bricks and then subject it to a simulated earthquake. The objective is to design the most stable structure.

Biochemists face a similar task when they are attempting to design thermostable proteins, with heat analogous to shaking. Thermostable proteins, which do not become unfolded/denatured at high temperatures, are valuable for industrial processes.

Now imagine that these stable structures have to also perform a function. This is the two-part challenge of designing thermostable proteins. They have to maintain their physical structure, and continue to perform their function adequately, all at high temperatures. 

Eric Ortlund and colleagues, working with Eric Gaucher at Georgia Tech*, have a new paper published in Structure, in which they examine different ways to achieve this goal in a component of the protein synthesis machinery, EF-Tu. This protein exists in both mesophilic bacteria, which live at around human body temperature, and thermophilic organisms (think: hot springs).

A previous analysis by Gaucher used the ASR technique (ancestral sequence reconstruction) to resurrect ancient, extinct EF-Tus and characterize them. It was shown that that ancestral EF-Tus were thermostable and functional. EF-Tu’s thermostability declined along with the environmental temperature; ancestral bacteria started off living in hot environments and those environments cooled off over millions of years.

In the new paper, Ortlund and first author Denise Okafor show that stable proteins generated by protein engineering methods do not always retain their functional capabilities. However, the ASR technique has a unique advantage, Ortlund says. By accounting for the evolutionary history of the protein, it preserves the natural motions required for normal protein function. Their results suggest that ASR could be used to engineer thermostability in other proteins besides EF-Tu.

*Gaucher recently moved to Georgia State.

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A push for reproducibility in biomedical research

Editor’s note: guest post from Neuroscience graduate student Erica Landis.

Neuroscience graduate student Erica Landis

Evidence is increasing that lack of reproducibility, whatever the cause, is a systemic problem in biomedical science. While institutions like the NIH and concerned journal editors are making efforts to implement more stringent requirements for rigorous and reproducible research, scientists themselves must make conscious efforts to avoid common pitfalls of scientific research. Here at Emory, several scientists are making greater efforts to push forward to improve scientific research and combat what is being called “the reproducibility crisis.”

In 2012, C. Glenn Begley, then a scientist with the pharmaceutical company Amgen, published a commentary in Nature on his growing concern for the reproducibility of preclinical research. Begley and his colleagues had attempted to replicate 53 published studies they identified as relevant to their own research into potential pharmaceuticals. They found that only 6 of the 53 publications could be replicated; even with help from the original authors. Similar studies have consistently found that greater than 50 percent of published studies could not be replicated. This sparked a period of great concern and questioning for scientists. It seemed to Begley and others that experimenter bias, carelessness, poor understanding of statistics, and the career-dependent scramble to publish contributes to a misuse of the scientific method. These factors contribute to what is now called the reproducibility crisis. In April 2017, Richard Harris published Rigor Mortis, a survey of the problem in preclinical research, which has kept the conversation going and left many wondering what the best solution to these issues could be. To combat the reproducibility crisis, Harris argues that funding agencies, journal editors and reviewers, research institutions, and scientists themselves all have a role to play.

Read more

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New pediatric digestive/liver disease gene identified by international team

In a study published this month in Hepatology, a multinational team of researchers describes a newly identified cause of congenital diarrhea and liver disease in children.

The rare disorder is characterized by significant diarrhea beginning soon after birth, low serum levels of fat-soluble vitamins and evidence of liver disease. Despite continued symptoms, with medical support, the children grow and develop normally, at least to the age of 12.

From left to right: Mutaz Sultan, Orly Elpeleg and Paul Dawson, representing three collaborating institutions.

Researchers from Emory University School of Medicine and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, working with colleagues from Makassed Hospital, Al-Quds University and Hadassah Medical Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem studied a family with two children from the Palestinian territories who suffer from the disorder.

The team found that both children had inherited a mutation in a gene responsible for the transport of bile acids, which facilitate the digestion and absorption of dietary fats and fat-soluble vitamins. Although mutations had been identified in other genes important for the recycling of bile acids, this is the first report in humans of disease-associated defects in this gene, called Organic Solute Transporter-beta (SLC51B).

Almost 20 years ago, pediatric GI & hepatology researcher Paul Dawson, PhD, and colleagues identified mutations in another bile acid transporter gene (ASBT; SLC10A2) that caused congenital bile acid diarrhea.

“Even at that time, we knew that there were patients with similar symptoms that did not carry mutations in ASBT. But the genetic cause remained a mystery.” Dawson says. “What’s distinctive about this report is that these patients also have features of liver disease, which was not observed in previously described congenital bile acid diarrhea patients.” Read more

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IMSD program nurtures young scientists

Guest post from Megan McCall, who works at Winship Cancer Institute. Thanks Megan!

On a Thursday afternoon this past semester, a diverse group of 50 students were listening to a lecture on the art of storytelling by Eladio Abreu, a lecturer in the Biology department. This was an unusual topic for these students, but they sat enrapt, not distracted by cell phones or laptops.

Eladio Abreu, PhD

The weekly seminar was part of the Emory Initiative to Maximize Student Development (IMSD) program, aimed at the professional development of undergraduate and graduate students in STEM fields. What sets this program apart is its commitment to increase diversity in the biological, biomedical and behavioral sciences by nurturing students who may be underrepresented in these fields. IMSD’s associate director Amanda James says the program includes some of Emory’s strongest students.

The two-year, NIH-funded research program has three main goals: preparing undergraduate students for doctoral programs in STEM fields, nurturing graduate students during their matriculation into Emory’s Ph.D. programs and increasing diversity through mentoring. They accomplish these goals by connecting undergraduates and graduates through mentorship, seminars, and career coaching, says Keith Wilkinson, IMSD director and vice-chair of the Department of Biochemistry.

(from left) Lina Jowhar, Max Cornely, Chayla Vazquez, and Jamie Guillen at an Initiative to Maximize Student development meeting.

This meeting included updates from students on their summer research plans. Answers ranged from epidemiology research with a children’s hospital in Philadelphia, to influenza research at Johns Hopkins. In addition to weekly seminars, IMSD offers classes aimed at increasing success post-graduation, workshops for career development, medical assistant programs, and pathways to funded research, a rare commodity for undergraduates. Students who can’t do funded research may use resources that IMSD offers to find other opportunities.

Lina Jowhar is an undergraduate who started the program in her third year at Emory. She is engaged in research on cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder of the lungs, and she values the weekly meetings, particularly Abreu’s lecture on the art of storytelling. “I love his interactive teaching style,” she says. “He was comfortable letting us know that he changed the examples in his PowerPoint to include Biggie and Tupac which showed me how important it is to connect with your audience.” Read more

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