Congratulations to Dr. Jianbin Ruan for having his paper, "Structural Basis for GSDMB pore formation and it's Targeting by IpaH7.8", published in the journal Nature. This paper presents the cryo-EM structures of both Gasdermin B (GSDMB) pore and GSDMB in complex with a Shigella effector, IpaH7.8. The study sheds light on the structural mechanisms that govern GSDMB-mediated pyroptosis, which is regulated by pathogenic bacteria and alternative splicing. This work is a significant contribution to the field and is sure to have a lasting impact on future research in this area. 

Congratulations to Dr. Beiyan Zhou on being elected Fellowship of the American Heart Association (FAHA) conferred by the Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology (ATVB). Fellowship recognizes members for excellence, innovative and sustained contributions in the areas of scholorship, practice, and/or education.

Dr. Anthony Vella, Chair of the Department of Immunology who holds the Boehringer Ingelheim Chair in Immunology and is the Senior Associate Dean of Research Planning and Coordination; has been elected as a Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. Dr. Vella's laboratory research focuses on aspects of T cell costimulation and inflammation biology with the aim to uncover how T cells function. Overall, his laboratory has uncovered fundamental concepts in basic immunology and adjuvant research, and has extended these finds into tumor immunotherapy projects, T cell immunobiology, inflammatory based disease models including lung injury and metabolism research. 

Congratulations to Dr. Adam Adler from the Department of Immunology and Dr. Annabelle Rodriguez-Oquendo from the Center for Vascular Biology on the award of their NIH R21 grant through the National Cancer Institute entitled, "Understanding how the interaction between Lag3 deficiency and hypercholesterolemia impact anti-tumor immunity and cardiovascular disease in a melanoma model".

Ziming Cao was selected as a Robert Gunn Student Award finalist by the American Physiology Society Cell & Molecular Physiology Section and was invited to present a poster at the Robert Gunn Student Award competition at the APS Summit 2023 in Long Beach, California. Ziming’s project in Dr. Zhichao Fan's lab is using single-cell RNA sequencing to understand the heterogeneity of neutrophils in cherubic mice. This work is a collaboration with the labs of Dr. Beiyan Zhou and Dr. I-Ping Chen.

Congratulations to Dr. Beiyan Zhou on her nomination to the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE). Members are elected by the current membership on the basis of their accomplishments in science, engineering and/or technology.

Congratulations to Dr. Penghua Wang on the award of his NIH R21 grant through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases entitled, “UBXN1 Regulates Inflammasome Signaling.”

Congratulations to Alyssa Matz and Keaton Karlinsey for receiving  Predoctoral Research Awards from the American Heart Association! These highly competitive awards provide two years of full stipend support to carry out their innovative projects. Alyssa will apply her newly developed computational program to decipher B cell function in obesity. Keaton will develop a supernetwork-guided prediction model for cardiovascular disease risks in the diabetic population. Alyssa (Ph.D. candidate) and Keaton (M.D./Ph.D. candidate) are members of Dr. Beiyan Zhou’s lab.

Congratulations to Dr. Vijay Rathinam on being listed for the fourth year in a row on the 2022 Highly Cited Researchers list released by Clarivate and the Web of Science index. Read the full story.

October 2022
New England Immunology Conference held in Woods Hole, MA.

Timofey Karginov received the Charles Janeway Poster Award at the 2022 New England Immunology Conference held in Woods Hole, MA for his poster entitled “Splicing of ultraconserved poison exon elements in RNA binding proteins reprograms the T effector immune response”. His project is a significant joint effort by his thesis mentor Dr. Anthony Vella and Dr. Antoine Ménoret as well as the labs of Dr. Olga Anczuków, Dr. Linda Cauley, Dr. Beiyan Zhou, Dr. Adam Adler, and Dr. Patrick Murphy.