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Agenda for the 2020 virtual University of Massachusetts Medical School Research Retreat.

Moderator: Dr. Roger Davis, Chair and Professor in Molecular Medicine

Presenters:

Dr. TengTing (Elaine) Lim, Assistant Professor, Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology and Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology: “Multiplexing and demultiplexing with cerebral organoids for neurological diseases”

Dr. William Flavahan, Assistant Professor, Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology: “Insulator dysfunction and epigenetic alterations as tumor drivers"

Dr. Marcus Ruscetti, Assistant Professor, Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology: "Harnessing cellular senescence for cancer immunotherapy”

Moderator: Dr. Marian Walhout, Professor, Program in Molecular Medicine and Co-Director, Program in Systems Biology

Presenters:

Dr. Travis Thomson, Assistant Professor, Neurobiology: “All hail our viral overloads - Traversing synaptic plasticity with transposons”

Dr. Rigel Chan, Assistant Professor, Neurology: “Multiplex pooled in-vitro modeling for genetic studies”

Dr. Milena Bogunovic, Associate Professor, Pathology: “Heterogeneity and function of intestinal macrophages"

List of poster session presentations for the 2020 virtual University of Massachusetts Medical School Research Retreat.

Moderator: Dr. Kendall L. Knight, Associate Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology

Presenters:

Maureen Hester, Division of Infectious Disease and Immunology (Stu Levitz lab): “Antigen specificity and cross reactivity in vaccine-mediated protection against cryptococcosis”

Xue Li, Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology (Elinor Karlsson lab): “Investigating the genetics of social behavior in wolf-dog hybrids”

Nicholas Rice, Program in Molecular Medicine (Bill Theurkauf lab): “Heat stress disrupts piRNA biogenesis machinery”

Moderator: Dr. Mary Ellen Lane, Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Professor, Neurobiology

Presenters:

Sneha Shah, Program in Molecular Medicine (Joel Richter lab): “FMRP loss alters the epigenetic landscape and alternative splicing of mRNAs in Fragile X Syndrome”

Emmanouela Tsagkaraki, Program in Molecular Medicine (Mike Czech lab): “CRISPR RNP-enhanced adipocyte 'browning' as cell therapy for metabolic disease”

Khursheed Wani, Laboratory of Comparative Immunology (Javier Irazoqui lab): “NHR-49/PAARα and HLH-30/TFEB cooperate for C. elegans host defense via a flavin-containing monooxygenase“

Virtual Poster Session #2 (see Poster Session agenda for presenter details) for the University of Massachusetts Medical School Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences 25th Annual Research Retreat, held online on October 26-27, 2020.

Full-text posters made available by presenters in this session:

Poster 27: "Frailty Index Scores are Stronger Predictors of Complications in Free Flap Breast Reconstruction than BMI, Age, and ASA Class: A Retrospective Analysis on the ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Program from 2010 - 2018," Alex Joo and Giorgio Giatsidis

Poster 29: "A ThinPrep Cytopathology of Cutaneous Meningioma with Histologic Correlation," Ahmed M. Alhusseiny and Rukmini M. Kashikar

Poster 35: "Targeted multielectrode tDCS increases functional connectivity within the arcuate fasciculus network: An exploratory study and analysis," Karl D. Lerud, Anant B. Shinde, Axel Thielscher, David A. Ross, and Gottfried Schlaug

Poster 42: "Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for Post-stroke Motor Recovery - a Phase II Study (TRANSPORT2)," Muhammed E. Gunduz, Anant B. Shinde, Karl D. Lerud, Wayne Feng, and Gottfried Schlaug

Poster 49: "PAD2 Dysregulation and Abnormal Protein Citrullination in ALS Disease Models," Issa Yusuf, Tao Qiao, Ronak Tilvawala, Paul R. Thompson, and Zuoshang Xu

Virtual Poster Session #3 (see Poster Session agenda for presenter details) for the University of Massachusetts Medical School Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences 25th Annual Research Retreat, held online on October 26-27, 2020.

Full-text posters made available by presenters in this session:

Poster 75: "PFN1 phosphorylation marks protein aggregation and white matter pathology in ALS," Sepideh Parsi, Tao Qiao, Lyle Wilfred Ostrow, Marco B. Rust, and Zuoshang Xu

The Dan Mullen Poster Awards to best graduate student posters at the research retreat, presented by:

Dr. Kendall L. Knight, Associate Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

Dr. Mary Ellen Lane, Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

2020 Dan Mullen Poster Award winners:

Emily Agnello (Brian Kelch lab) – “Investigating the Self Assembly and Structural Features of a Thermophilic Bacteriophage”

Hao-Ching Jiang (Paul Greer lab) – “Analyzing the Role of MS4A1 in Olfaction”

Christine Carbone (Andrei Korostelev lab) – “Time-resolved Cryo-EM Visualizes Ribosomal Translocation with EF-G and GTP”

Naema Nayyar (Michael Brehm lab) – “Intracranial Responses to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Pre-clinical Models of Melanoma Brain Metastasis”

Moderator: Dr. Beth McCormick, Vice Chair and Professor, Microbiology and Physiological Systems

Presenters:

Dr. Hyun Youk, Associate Professor, Program in Systems Biology: “Quantitative approach to understanding autonomous and collective deaths of microbial and mammalian cells”

Dr. Vanni Bucci, Associate Professor, Microbiology and Physiological Systems: “Machine learning to decouple associations between microbiome, host immunology and clinical outcome”

Dr. James Munro, Associate Professor, Microbiology and Physiological Systems: “Single-molecule analysis of HIV-1 genomic RNA conformation and dynamics”

Dr. Elizabeth Shank, Associate Professor, Program in Systems Biology and Microbiology and Physiological Systems: "Metabolic interactions in microbial communities"

Moderator: Dr. Michael Green, Chair and Professor, Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology

Presenters:

Dr. Johanna Seddon, Professor, Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences: “Macular Degeneration epidemiology: nature-nurture, lifestyle factors, genetic risk, and gene-environment interactions: clues to therapies”

Dr. Sohye Kim, Assistant Professor, Psychiatry: “Neural markers of social engagement in the first year of life”

Dr. Andres Colubri, Assistant Professor, Microbiology and Physiological Systems: "ORAN: A meta-modeling platform to drive real-life and online outbreak simulations"

Moderator: Dr. Thoru Pederson, Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and Associate Vice Provost for Research

Presenters:

Dr. Robert Finberg, Chair and Professor, Medicine: “SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza-What's the difference and why do I care?"

Dr. Celia Schiffer, Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology: "Structural insights to antivirals against SARS-CoV-2”

Dr. Anastasia Khvorova, Professor, RNA Therapeutics Institute: “Developing RNAi-based therapeutics for COVID-19 in five months”

Closing Remarks by:

Dr. Terence R. Flotte, Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor of Medical Education; Dean, Provost and Executive Deputy Chancellor and Chief Research Officer