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Research Office Updates

Greetings and Happy New Year from the COM Office of Research. As part of our ongoing effort to enhance communications with the COM research community, we have implemented this newsletter that will be published initially on a semester basis. We hope to use this newsletter to covey program information, announce changes in policy and procedure, and to highlight accomplishments by our researchers. If there are specific things you would like to see included in the newsletter or if you have any suggestions on how to improve it please let us know - it's an evolving process, and we would be happy to receive feedback!

The COM had a very productive research year in FY11. The research faculty continued their aggressive submission of grant applications, and even with the dwindling pay lines we held steady in research expenditures compared to FY10. Current Research expenditures are hovering aroung $15 million and our effective IDC rate increased slightly from 30.0% in FY10 to 30.9% in FY11. The bulk of our funding still comes from NIH, but there have been significant inroads into development of alternative funding sources. On another positive note there has been a significant increase in our commercialization activity as evidenced by increased numbers of disclosures and patents. Kudos to all who have worked so vigorously and effectively to keep their programs funded in these difficult times!

grantapps

expenditures

funding

disclosures

Patents

On a related note, the grants administration function provided by the Research Foundation is being phased into the new Office of Sponsored Research Services, OSRS (http://www.tamus.edu/offices/cro/osrs/). OSRS began operations on September 1, 2011 by assuming all pre-award functions and will gradually expand to cover all post-award functions as well. The good news is that the RF staff that previously handled the COM grants has all been moved to OSRS so services have not been impacted.

Announcements

SRP 2011 Booklet
 The Summer Research Program will be Monday, June 4, 2012 and continue until Wednesday, August 15, 2012, culminating in a poster session from 9:00 am - 2:00 pm in the Health Professions Education Building (Bryan, Hwy 47 campus). The research objectives of this program are substantial and rigorous and require full-time student commitment; both undergraduates and medical students can apply. Participants are expected to complete the entire program and will present their research at the poster session. Please contact Dr. Warren Zimmer (wezimmer@medicine.tamhsc.edu) for more information or check out the web site at http://medicine.tamhsc.edu/research/student/summer-research-programs/index.html.  

Congratulations to Dr. Andreea Trache for completing the fourth year of her Saturday Morning Biophysics - Image Life Program (http://medicine.tamhsc.edu/basic-sciences/sbtm/homepages/trache/outreach.php). This program introduces high school girls to current research topics in the physical and life sciences. The presentations are designed to be enjoyed by anyone and teachers are encouraged to attend!

Registration for the 2012 program will open in August.

outreach
IRM logo

On November 4, 2011 Dr. Darwin Prockop (College of Medicine) and Dr. Terry Fossum (the Texas A&M Institute for Preclinical Studies) hosted a symposium entitled "Moving Adult Stem Cells and the Therapeutic Protein They Produce from the Laboratory to the Patient". This outstanding event featured both plenary talks and a poster competition. Below are the first, second, and third place winners. Congratulations to them and to all who participated and presented their work.
  • First place: "Systemic administration of hMSCs delays the onset of type 1 diabetes in NOD mice by secreting the anti-inflammatory protein TSG-6" Authors: Daniel J. Kota, Lindsey L. Wiggins, Daisuke Yasuda, Darwin J. Prockop, and Ryang Hwa Lee.
  • Second place: "Anti-inflammatory Protein TSG-e6 Secreted by Activated MSCs Attenuates Zymosan-induced Mouse Peritonitis  by Decreasing TLR2/NF-kB signaling in Residents Macroophages" by Hosoon Choi.
  • Third place (tie): "Human mesenchymal stem cell-derived matrices for enhanced osteoregeneration: by Ulf Krause, Suzanne Zeitouni, Bret H. Clough, Hillary Halderman, Alexander Falster, Darryl T. Blalock, Christopher D. Chaput, H. Wayne Sampson, and Carl A. Gregory and "Preconditioning hMSCs with TNF-a produce tumor suppressive effects in breast cancer cell MDA-MB-231" by Ryang Hwa Lee, Nara Yoon, John C. Reneau, Ulf Krause, Carl Gregory and Darwin J. Prockop.

The Clinical & Translational Grand Rounds series that began in the fall of 2011 will continue this spring. Presentations will be the first Tuesday of each month at noon and the list of presenters is below:

 

January 17, 2012 Richard B. Kreider PhD
February 7, 2012 Allison D. Rice-Ficht, PhD
March 6, 2012 Robert S. Chapkin, PhD
April 3, 2012 Sarah E. Bondos, PhD
May 1, 2012 Stephen H. Safe, PhD

Faculty

  • The College of Medicine Research Excellence Award recipients for 2011 were announced at the December 14th holiday party. Congratulations to this year's recipients for their outstanding accomplishments in their research programs!
          Junior Category: Dr. Kayla Bayless from the Department of Molecular & Cellular Medicine
        Senior Catergory: Dr. Jeff Cirillo from the Department of Microbial & Molecular Pathogenesis 
cirillo
  • On November 29, 2011, the College of Medicine hosted a joint research presentation and reception for last year's Reseach Excellence Award recipients, Drs. Helene Andrews-Polymenis (Junior Category) and Dr. Jim Samuel (Senior Category).

2011 ERA Samuel and Andrews Polymeins

Post-doc

The COM post-doc organization had an exciting and productive 2011. The organization leadership (Sanjukta Chakraborty, Dinorah Leyva, Rose-Anne Meissner, and Erin van Schaik) and their faculty advisors (Sharon DeMorrow and Tina Gumienny) worked closely with the post-docs in the School of Veterinary Medicine to foster a more extensive and collaborative network, established a professional development series (http://medicine.tamhsc.edu/research/postdocs/pdfs/pep.pdf), arranged several social events, helped develop a post-doctoral web site under the college Research Office (http://medicine.tamhsc.edu/research/postdocs/index.html), and are working on a constitution to become a formally recognized Post-Doctoral Association (PDA) within the Health Science Center. They also set up Facebook group at http://facebook.com/groups/223269947692926/, and all post-docs are encouraged to join this group so that they can keep up with the latest news on activities and events.

postdoc

We also want to thank Karan Chavis and her group the developing the Post-doctoral Information Book which can be found at http://medicine.tamhsc.edu/audiences/faculty-staff/postoc/index.html. This is a valuable resource for all new and existing post-docs and we highly recommend taking a look at this booklet.

It is clear that there was great progess in 2011 in getting our post-docs more organized and in providing them with better institutional resources. We hope that 2012 will bring even more visibility to this important group of trainees and that we can increase institutional support for their professional development.

  • Postdoc enrichment program: a vauable resource for postdoc training.

We have had a number of great seminars and workshops as part of the postdoc enrichments program as far. Career and professional development are an important part of the posdoctoral training experience. This seminar series is designed to equip attendees with the knowledge and skills needed to take ownership of their career paths and succeed as scientific professionals. It is open to all who are interested; including, but not limited to, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and junior faculty. Principle investigators are alo encouraged to attend to facilitate conversation and offer different perspectives. These seminars are intended to be interactive and informal, providing time for questions, input from the audience and discussion amount the group present.

The schedule of upcoming seminars can be found at our website http://www.medicine.tamhsc.edu/clinical-departments/internal-medicine/pep/index.html. We have also recorded some of the past seminars, which can also be found on our website. If anyone has suggestions for improvement or for future topics please contact us.

Sharon DeMorrow, PhD. (demorrow@medicine.tamhsc.edu)

Dave Dostal, PhD (ddostal@medicine.tamhsc.edu)

  • Presentations:

Dr. Sanjukta Chakraborty was an invited speaker for the Texas A&M Health Science Center 2011-2012 Postdoctoral Enrichment Program on October 25, 2011. Her presentation was titled "Writing your individual development plan and setting career goals."

PUBLICATIONS
Nepiyushchikh ZV, Charkraborty S, Wang W, Davis MJ, Zawieja DC, Muthuchamy M1.(2011).
Differential effects of inhibition of myosin light chain kinase on contractility and force development to rat cervical and thoracic duct lymphatics. J Physiol. In Press. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.2011.218446, Sharing corresponding authorship. PMID: 21930597

Akl TJ, Nagai T, Cote GL, Gashev AA. Mesenteric lymph flow in adult and aged rats.Am J Physoil Heart Circ Physoil. 2011 Aug26.[Epub ahead of print] PMIN: 21873496

Dr. Wei Wang, Dr. Eric Bridenbaugh, Dr.Ed Childs and Dr. David C. Zawieja presented an abstract at the 23rd InternationalCongress of lymphology in Malmo, Swedenon September 23, 2011. The presentation was titled "Antigen-presenting cell function within rat muscular lymphatics."

 

Compliance

compliance

The HSC has established an Office of Research Compliance (website coming soon) within the Office of the Vice-President for Research.

nobles

 In the fall of 2011 Dr. Robert Nobles, Dr.P.H. was hired as the Director of Research Compliance (979-862-3673 or nobles@tamu.edu). More information about Dr. Nobles and his new position can be found in the TAMHSC News (http://news.tamhsc.edu/2011/09/13/nobles-new-director-of-research-compliance/). In addition to his role in the HSC, Dr. Nobles is also serving at the Interim Executive Director of Research Compliance and Biosafety for TAMU.
Dr. Bruce Whitney has been appointed Deputy Chief Research Compliance Officer for the TAMU System and will now be responsible for compliance oversight at all TAMU system schools.

Dr. Christine McFarland has replaced Dr. Whitney as the Director of the Office of Biosafety at TAMU and the Biological Safety Officer (BSO).

Commercialization