Building research excellence in understanding causes of metabolic disease

A proposal submitted by former CIPHR faculty member Christine Lary, who left MHIR for a position at the Roux Institute in October, was funded by NIH at the end of September. Molecular and cellular mechanisms of prevention of bone loss by beta blockers was funded under PAR-21-055, Mechanistic Ancillary Studies to Ongoing Clinical Projects, as an ancillary study to a project led by researchers at the Mayo Clinic and MHIR’s Cliff Rosen.  While Dr. Lary is now at the Roux, the grant was awarded to MaineHealth and the two institutions will work together to transfer the award to Northeastern (Roux). Katie Motyl is named as key personnel in the NOA and she and Aaron Brown will be collaborators of Dr. Lary. Once the transfer from MH to Northeastern is complete, NU will issue a subaward back to MH to support Drs. Motyl and Brown. Congratulations to all three investigators!

Dr. Ziru Li joins MaineHealth Institute for Research as a Faculty Scientist I in the Center for Molecular Medicine. Dr. Li’s COBRE Project Title: Gut Regulation of Bariatric Surgery Induced Bone Loss

Congratulations to MHIR Faculty Scientist and M-COBRE Steering Committee Chair, Dr. Joe Nadeau for being awarded a a five-year, $9.6 million Transformative Research Award from the National Institutes of Health! Dr. Nadeau is a co-investigator with Van Andel Institute’s J. Andrew Pospisilik, PhD.  The funding will be used to study unknown factors that drive people’s health besides their genes and environment.

Congratulations to Dr. Lucy Liaw, Principal Investigator of the M-COBRE!  Dr. Liaw received a National Institutes of Health award on behalf of the Center for Biomedical Research Excellence in Metabolic Networks (M-COBRE) for instrumentation that will support and expand metabolic phenotyping equipment in our Physiology Core Facility.

Dr. Jackie Stephens joined the M-COBRE External Advisory Committee. Dr. Stephens is a Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Louisiana State University and Claude B. Pennington, Jr. Endowed Chair in Biomedical Research, Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

Michaela Reagan, PhD, was invited to serve as a permanent member of the National Institutes of Health Molecular Cancer Therapeutics 1 Study Section.

On April 29 a virtual ribbon cutting for MHIR’s mass spectrometer instrumentation took place. The new instrumentation will enable novel approaches that expand protein identification and quantification capabilities. Cal Vary, PhD, MHIR Faculty Scientist with Gusti Gartner, Technology Manager, and the new mass spectrometer. Dr. Vary gets help cutting the ribbon from Dr. Elizabeth Jacobs (VP Research), and Dr. Doug Sawyer (Chief Academic Officer).

Principal Investigator:  Aldona Karaczyn, PhD

Title:  Novel roles of miR-199b in regulating fat and bone metabolism

Principal Investigator:  Susan Santangelo, PhD

Title:  OMOP ATLAS web implementation to support translational research in metabolic health and disease

Congratulations to MHIR Faculty Scientist and M-COBRE Project Leader Alum, Dr. Michaela Reagan for being awarded a MERIT award from the National Cancer Institute!  Dr. Reagan will study how multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer, is understood and treated. Specifically her work will focus on new forms of cancer drug resistance that are driven by fat cell-derived factors.