The beautifully re-designed website for UNC’s Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program features interviews with Rodrigo Gonzalez (graduate student in Virginia Miller’s lab) and Bonnie Gunn (former graduate student in Mark Heise’s lab).

A recent article in mBio, ASM’s open access journal, is from Ralph Baric’s lab and describes a systems biology approach that combines transcriptomics, proteomics, and comparative biology to understand the mechanisms of acute lung injury. The result is identification and validation that the urokinase pathway has a major role in SARS-CoV pathogenesis. Postdoc Lisa Gralinski … Read more

M&I was well-represented in the programming of at least five international meetings. The FASEB Summer Research Conference on Autoimmunity was held in Saxtons River, Vermont. Jenny Ting spoke on “NLRs in Immunity and Beyond.” (Conference organizer Rachel Caspi will be one of our M&I seminar speakers in September.) The 38th Annual International Herpesvirus Workshop was … Read more

In the July 18 issue of PLOS Pathogens, Dirk Dittmer’s lab profiles circulating microRNAs associated with KSHV pathogenesis, revealing the potential of miRNA analysis for the diagnosis of diseases like Kaposi’s sarcoma and Primary Effusion Lymphoma. Postdoc Pauline Chugh is the first author on this paper, and collaborators include M&I faculty Blossom Damania, Jack Griffith … Read more

The July 2nd “Early Edition” of PNAS included an article from Nancy Raab-Traub’s lab that describes the impact of EBV and KSHV on the proteomes of B-cell exosomes. Postdoc David Meckes (first author) was selected to give a talk about this work at the 38th Annual International Herpesvirus Workshop. Access the article through PubMed.

From Terry Magnuson, Vice Dean for Research: After a productive and successful tenure as Associate Dean and Director of the Office of Graduate Education (OGE), Dr. Virginia Miller has elected to step down to devote her full effort to her research program in the Departments of Genetics and Microbiology & Immunology. Virginia was recruited to … Read more

In 1995, Bruce Alexander was hired by M&I to manage the medical microbiology laboratory sessions, and his role in the Department’s teaching enterprise has been expanding ever since then. Bruce has been serving as the coordinator for the first year medical student microbiology/immunology course; supervising the TAs and staff of the laboratory sessions for medical, … Read more

… with quotes from organizer Cheryl Miller (M&I student).

The UNC Simmons Scholar Program announced in April that M&I Assistant Professor Rita Tamayo will receive one of their career development awards. Originally established in 1994 by Dean Michael Simmons, this program has many goals, including recruitment of talented and diverse faculty members as well as salary support for junior faculty who will serve as … Read more

Congratulations to M&I Professor Roland Tisch, who was presented with the Living & Giving Award at The Hope Gala on April 27. This prestigious charity event is sponsored by the regional chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to raise funds for type 1 diabetes research. The annual award recognizes “outstanding community leaders who have … Read more