Trainee Accomplishments from June 2015 to June 2016

Published August 8, 2016 This content is archived.

Students and postdoctoral scholars in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology have given invited talks at a variety of meetings and have received many honors and awards over the past year.

Invited Talks

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Michaelle Chojnacki (lab of Thomas Melendy, PhD) gave an oral presentation titled “A Functional Interaction Between the PV DNA Replication Protein E1 and Cellular DNA Polymerase Epsilon” at the Buffalo DNA Replication and Repair Symposium, Buffalo, N.Y., May 2016.

Michaelle Chojnacki (Melendy lab) gave an oral presentation titled “A Functional Interaction Between the PV DNA Replication Protein E1 and Cellular DNA Polymerase Epsilon” at the 28th annual Buffalo Conference on Microbial Pathogenesis, Buffalo, N.Y., May 2016.

Caleb Homiski (Melendy lab) gave an oral presentation titled “Inhibition of SV40 Large T-antigen Replication Function by DNA Damage Kinase Phosphorylation” at the 19th annual Buffalo DNA Replication and Repair Symposium, Buffalo, N.Y., June, 2015.

Caleb Homiski (Melendy lab) gave an oral presentation titled “Characterization of DNA Replication Functions of SV40 Large T-Antigen with a Phospho-Dominant Mutation at a DDR Kinase Site” at the 20th annual Buffalo DNA Replication and Repair Symposium, Buffalo, N.Y., May 2016. 

Richard Jin (lab of Elizabeth Wohlfert, PhD) gave an oral presentation titled “Pathogenic Tregs Promote Immunopathology During Infectious Myositis” at the 20th annual Annual Woods Hole Immunoparasitology Meeting, Woods Hole, Mass., April 2016.

Jan Naseer Kaur (lab of John Panepinto, PhD) gave an oral presentation titled “Functional Analysis of Pum1 Mediated Post-Transcriptional Regulation in Cryptococcus neoformans” at RNA Stability 2015: RNA Decay with an Altitude, Estes Park, Colo., June 2015.

Ryan Reddinger (lab of Anthony Campagnari, PhD) gave an oral presentation titled “Transition from Asymptomatic Colonization to Invasive Disease in Staphylococcus Aureus Secondary Pneumonia” at the 28th annual Buffalo Conference on Microbial Pathogenesis, Buffalo, N.Y., May 2016.

Rachel Simpson (lab of Laurie Read, PhD) gave an oral presentation titled “High Throughput Sequencing of Partially Edited RNAs Provides Insight into Trypanosome RNA Editing Progression and the Role of the TbRGG2 Subcomplex” at the second annual UB Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics Research Day, January 2016.

Awards

Christian Ahearn (lab of Timothy Murphy, MD) received an Outstanding Poster Award for his poster titled “Evaluating Current Candidate Vaccine Antigens of Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae in Persistent Strains from Adults with COPD” at the 28th Annual Buffalo Conference on Microbial Pathogenesis, Buffalo, N.Y., May 2016.

Dithi Banerjee (Panepinto lab) received an Outstanding Poster Award for her poster titled “Role of cAMP/Pka Pathway in the Positive Regulation of mRNA Stability in Cryptococcus neoformans” at the RNA Stability Meeting 2015, Estes Park, Colo., June 2015.

Richard Jin (Wohlfert lab) was awarded a Burroughs Welcome Trust Travel Award to attend 20th annual Woods Hole Immunoparasitology Meeting, Woods Hole, Mass., April 2016.

Richard Jin (Wohlfert lab) was awarded an American Association for Immunology Travel Award to attend IMMUNOLOGY 2016, Seattle, Wash., May 2016.

Richard Jin (Wohlfert lab) received a Glenn/AFAR Scholarship for Research from the American Federation for Aging for his proposal titled “Understanding the Role of Infection and Immune Regulation in Age Related Sarcopenia” in March 2016.

Ryan Reddinger (Campagnari lab) won the Erwin Neter award for Outstanding Oral Presentation for his talk titled “Transition from Asymptomatic Colonization to Invasive Disease in Staphylococcus aureus Secondary Pneumonia” at the 28th annual Buffalo Conference on Microbial Pathogenesis, Buffalo, N.Y., May 2016.

Rachel Simpson (Read lab) received an Outstanding Poster Award for her poster titled “High Throughput Sequencing of Partially Edited RNAs Provides Insight into Trypanosome RNA Editing Progression and the Role of the TbRGG2 Subcomplex” at the 2015 Rustbelt RNA Meeting, Sandusky, Ohio, October 2015.

Rachel Simpson (Read lab) received the 2nd Prize Best Talk Award for her talk titled “High Throughput Sequencing of Partially Edited RNAs Provides Insight into Trypanosome RNA Editing Progression and the Role of the TbRGG2 Subcomplex” at the second annual UB Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics Annual Research Day, January 2016.

Fellowships

Michaelle Chojnacki (Melendy lab) received continued support for her NIH/NCI F31 Predoctoral Fellowship titled “Functional Interactions of HPV Replication Proteins E1 and E2 with Cellular DNA Polymerase Epsilon.”

Richard Jin (Wohlfert lab) received a Careers in Immunology Fellowship from the American Association for Immunology for his proposal titled “Understanding how Pathogenic Tregs Promote Muscle Damage During Infection.”

Lucie Kafková (Read lab) received an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship for her project titled “Protein Arginine Methyltransferase Heteromer in Trypanosomes.”

Emilia Kruzel (lab of James D. Bangs, PhD) received continued support for her NIH/NIAID F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship titled “Secretory Cargo Selection by p24 Transmembrane Proteins in African Trypanosomes.”

Publications

Brooks J.M., Carrillo G.L., Su J., Lindsay D.S., Fox M.A., Blader I.J. 2015. Toxoplasma gondii Infections Alter GABAergic Synapses and Signaling in the Central Nervous System. mBio 6(6):e01428-15.

Dittmar A.J., Drozda A.A., Blader I.J. 2016. Drug Repurposing Screening Identifies Novel Compounds That Effectively Inhibit Toxoplasma gondii Growth. mSphere 1(2): e00042-15.

Vance D.J., Greene C.J., Rong Y., Connell T.D., Mantis N.J. 2015. Comparative Adjuvant Effects of Type II Heat-Labile Enterotoxins in Combination with Two Candidate Ricin Toxin Vaccine Antigens. Clinical and Vaccine Immunology 22:1285-1293.

Greene C.J., Marks L.R., Hu J.C., Reddinger R., Mandell L., Hakansson H., Connell T.D. (co-senior), Hakansson Anders P. 2016. Intradermal Immunization with PspA Protects Against Influenza-Induced Invasive Pneumococcal Disease Without Interfering with Commensal Colonization. Infection and Immunity 84:1693-703.

Hu J.C., Greene C.J., Connell T.D. 2015. The Divergent CD8+ T Cell Adjuvant Properties of LT-IIb and LT-IIc, Two type II Heat-Labile Enterotoxins, are Conferred by their Ganglioside-Binding B Subunits. PLoS ONE 10(11):e0142942.

Jones M.M., Murphy T.F. 2015. Expression of the Oligopeptide Permease Operon of Moraxella catarrhalis Is Regulated by Temperature and Nutrient Availability. Infection and Immunity 83(9):3497-3505.

Murphy T.F., Kirkham C., Jones M.M., Sethi S., Kong Y., Pettigrew M.M. 2015. Expression of IgA Proteases by Haemophilus influenzae in the Respiratory Tract of Adults With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. The Journal of Infectious Diseases 212(11):1798-1805.

Huang Z., Faktorova D., Krizova A., Kafkova L., Read L.K., Lukes J., Hashimi H. 2015. Integrity of the Core Mitochondrial RNA-Binding Complex 1 is Vital for Trypanosome RNA Editing. RNA 21:2088-2102.

Kaur J.N., Panepinto J.C. 2016. Morphotype-Specific Effector Functions of Cryptococcus neoformans PUM1. Scientific Reports 6:23638.

Shaw P., McAdams N.M., Hast M.A., Ammerman M.L., Read L.K., Schumacher M.A. 2015. Structures of the T. brucei kRNA Editing Factor MRB1590 Reveal Unique RNA-Binding Pore Motif Contained Within an ABC-ATPase Fold. Nucleic Acids Research 43:7096-7109.

Simpson R.M., Bruno A.E., Bard J.E., Buck M.J., Read L.K. 2016. High-Throughput Sequencing of Partially Edited Trypanosome mRNAs Reveals Barriers to Editing Progression and Evidence for Alternative Editing. RNA 22(5):677-695.

Umaer K., Williams N. 2015. Kinetoplastid Specific RNA-Protein Interactions in Trypanosoma cruzi Ribosome Biogenesis. PLoS One 10(6):e0131323.