News

Andreas Bergmann, PhD, has received a five-year, $3.5 million Maximizing Investigators' Research Award from the National Institutes of Health.

UMass Medical School scientist Craig L. Peterson, PhD, has received a five-year, $4.5 million Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institutes of Health for research that explores the role chromosome structure plays in regulating gene expression, DNA repair and DNA fidelity during cell division.

Researchers at UMass Medical School have developed a genome-editing strategy to correct disease-causing DNA mutations in mouse models of human genetic diseases. Dan Wang, PhD, is first author and Guangping Gao, PhD, is a co-corresponding author on the paper published in the Aug. 18 edition of Nature Biotechnology.

Guangping Gao, PhD, has been ranked one of the world’s top translational researchers, according to a new tabulation from Nature Biotechnology. The Top 20 Translational Researchers of 2017, published this month by Nature Biotechnology, places Dr. Gao fourth.

Job Dekker, PhD, creator of high-throughput chromosome conformation capture (known as Hi-C), and a team of researchers have developed a new computational framework combining optical mapping, Hi-C, and whole genome sequencing to find what are called “structural variants” within cancer genomes and learn more about how such cancers begin.

As part of UMass Medical School’s ongoing initiatives to share news about the research, academic and service achievements that take place every day on our campuses, a new magazine debuts this week, @umassmed.

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Dean Mary Ellen Lane, PhD, welcomed and congratulated 52 graduate students entering the transformative years of their doctoral research during the GSBS Qualifying Exam Recognition Ceremony on Tuesday, Sept. 18.

A gene therapy delivered to motor neurons was able to silence SOD1 protein, mutations of which are linked to ALS, without causing any adverse effects, according to a new study published in Science Translational Medicine, by Christian Mueller, PhD, and Robert H. Brown Jr., DPhil, MD.

The Toronto-based Blu Genes Foundation, which is dedicated to developing gene therapies for rare disease, has given $1.4 million to UMass Medical School to advance a Phase I/II clinical trial for Tay-Sachs. Miguel Sena-Esteves, PhD, Terence Flotte, MD, Heather Gray-Edwards, PhD, DVM, and colleagues at  Auburn University are leading the research.

Victor Ambros, PhD, has been elected by his peers as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Jeanne Lawrence, PhD, and Jaime Rivera, PhD, received a five-year, $2.8 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development at the National Institutes of Health to test a strategy in a mouse model for silencing the extra chromosome that causes Down Syndrome.

A new study by Sybil Crawford, PhD, finds that younger women with menopausal symptoms may have foregone hormone therapy for relief as a result of the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative recommendations, despite new research showing favorable benefits versus risks for their age group.

Lori Pbert, PhD, has been appointed a member of the United States Preventive Services Task Force, an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine that works to improve the health of all Americans.

In a health report from WJAR-TV/NBC 10 of Providence, reporter Barbara Morse Silva explains research by Silvia Corvera, MD, into transforming white fat into beige to harness its ability to burn energy, accelerate metabolism and fight disease.

The American Society of Transplant Surgeons has recognized Paulo N. Martins, MD, PhD, with the 2019 Veloxis Rising Stars in Transplantation Surgery Award for his research of transplant immunobiology.