Welcome from the Director

Welcome from the Director

Richard Steinman, MD PhD

This newsletter celebrates some of the events in the past year for students in the Physician Scientist Training Program (PSTP) at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. This 5 year merit program offers select Pitt medical students an enrichment curriculum beyond medical school coursework that includes 6 research-oriented courses, two summers of lab work and a focused year of laboratory research. The PSTP is in its eighth year and has graduated 23 students who have averaged over 4 scientific papers each. Students in the PSTP have earned multiple awards, including a dozen Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellowship awards, travel awards to national and international meetings and grants from foundations.

Each PSTP student arrives with research experience and skills and grows beyond that level in critical ways in the program. Students learn to strategically and deliberately identify the best mentor for themselves, and stretch their comfort zone. They share what they are learning. Creative ideas ricochet around the classroom. This process churns the soil for innovative hypotheses to take root. It is a fun environment, importantly.

The dynamics that fuel progress through the PSTP will carry trainees through the rest of their careers. We do our best to promote reflection with biannual self-assessments and career advisor meetings aimed at identifying resources, calibrating goals and overcoming obstacles. I am hopeful that this blossoming culture of success will send its tendrils with our graduates through residency, fellowships and beyond.

It has been an honor to work with the 30 students in the program and with our graduates. I look forward to the next cycle of applicants to our PSTP.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

PSTP student achievements, 2014: National awards, Publications, and Conference Presentations

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellowship Awards:
Wai-Ying (Wendy) Yau
Zachary Yochum

Publications
PSTP First Authorship
  1. Al-Khafaji A, Moughania A, Al-Saadi M. Precaution (ihtiyāt): Do not proceed. American Journal of Bioethics. 2015;15(1):23.
  2. Dulmage BO, Feng H, Mirvish E, Geskin L. Black cat in a dark room: Absence of a directly oncogenic virus does not eliminate the role of an infectious agent in CTCL pathogenesis. Br J Dermatol. 2014 PMID:25385510.
  3. Hughes AD, Marshall JR, Keller E, Powderly JD, Greene BT, King MR. Differential drug responses of circulating tumor cells within patient blood. Cancer Lett. 2014;352(1):28-35.
  4. Johnson PJ, Schmidt DE, Duvvuri U. Output control of da vinci surgical system's surgical graspers. J Surg Res. 2014;186(1):56-62.
  5. Kondylis ED, Wozny TA, Lipski WJ, Popescu A, DeStefino VJ, Esmaeili B, Raghu VK, Bagic A, Richardson RM. Detection of high-frequency oscillations by hybrid depth electrodes in standard clinical intracranial EEG recordings. Front Neurol. 2014;5:149-149.
  6. Ludwig DR, Friehling M, Schelbert EB, Schwartzman D. Impact of scar on SPECT assay of left ventricular contraction dyssynchrony. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2014;41(3):529-535 PMID:24213619.
  7. Nakajima EC, Laymon C, Oborski M, Hou W, Wang L, Grandis JR, Ferris RL, Mountz JM, Van Houten B. Quantifying metabolic heterogeneity in head and neck tumors in real time: 2-DG uptake is highest in hypoxic tumor regions. PLoS One. 2014;9(8):e102452 PMID:25127378.
  8. Shakir S, MacIsaac ZM, Naran S, Smith D, Bykowski MR, Cray JJ, Craft TK, Wang D, Weiss L, PhD., Campbell PG, Mooney M, Losee JE, Cooper GM. Transforming growth factor beta 1 augments calvarial defect healing and promotes suture regeneration. Tissue Eng Part A. 2014.
  9. Shakir S, Razzak A, Malik SM. Wrong turn from right quadrant. Gastroenterology. 2014;146(1):34.
  10. Vangara BS, Grandis JR. Jak-STAT signaling in HNC. In: Burtness B, Golemis EA, eds. Molecular determinants of head and neck cancer. New York: Springer; 2014:163.

PSTP Co-authorship
  1. Chen X, Sadowska GB, Zhang J, Kim JE, Cummings EE, Bodge CA, Lim YP, Makeyev O, Besio WG, Gaitanis J, Threlkeld SW, Banks WA, Stonestreet BS. Neutralizing anti-interleukin-1beta antibodies modulate fetal blood-brain barrier function after ischemia. Neurobiol Dis. 2015;73:118-129 PMID:25258170.
  2. Ahmed M, Gorcsan J,3rd, Marek J, Ryo K, Haugaa K, Ludwig DR, Schwartzman D. Right ventricular apical pacing-induced left ventricular dyssynchrony is associated with a subsequent decline in ejection fraction. Heart Rhythm. 2014;11(4):602-608.
  3. Basu S, Hertsenberg A, Funderburgh MK, Burrow MK, Mann MM, Du Y, Lathrop K, Syed-Picard FN, Adams SM, Birk DE, Funderburgh JL. Human limbal biopsy–derived stromal stem cells prevent corneal scarring. Sci Transl Med. 2014;6(266):ra172.
  4. Benson JA, Cummings EE, O'Reilly L,P., Lee M, Pak SC. A high-content assay for identifying small molecules that reprogram C. elegans germ cell fate. Methods. 2014;68(3):529-535.
  5. Boone BA, Zeh HJ, Mock BK, Johnson PJ, Dvorchik I, Lee K, Moser AJ, Bartlett DL, Marsh JW. Resection of isolated local and metastatic recurrence in periampullary adenocarcinoma. HPB (Oxford). 2014;16(3):197-203 PMID:23601033.
  6. Bowden G, Kano H, Caparosa E, Tonetti D, Niranjan A, Monaco EA,3rd, Flickinger J, Arai Y, Lunsford LD. Stereotactic radiosurgery for arteriovenous malformations of the postgeniculate visual pathway. J Neurosurg. 2014:1-8 PMID:25423270.
  7. Bowden G, Kano H, Tempel ZJ, Caparosa E, Monaco E,3rd, Niranjan A, Flickinger J, Luketich JD, Lunsford LD. Gamma knife radiosurgery for management of cerebral metastases from esophageal carcinoma. J Neurooncol. 2014;118(1):141-146.
  8. Chen X, Leeman JE, Wang J, Pacella JJ, Villanueva FS. New insights into mechanisms of sonothrombolysis using ultra-high-speed imaging. Ultrasound Med Biol. 2014;40(1):258-262.
  9. Cheng X, Zhang X, Gao Q, Ali Samie M, Azar M, Tsang WL, Dong L, Sahoo N, Li X, Zhuo Y, Garrity AG, Wang X, Ferrer M, Dowling J, Xu L, Han R, Xu H. The intracellular Ca2+ channel MCOLN1 is required for sarcolemma repair to prevent muscular dystrophy. Nat Med. 2014;20(10):1187-1192.
  10. Das PP, Shao Z, Beyaz S, Apostolou E, Pinello L, De Los Angeles A, O'Brien K, Atsma JM, Fujiwara Y, Nguyen M, Ljuboja D, Guo G, Woo A, Yuan GC, Onder T, Daley G, Hochedlinger K, Kim J, Orkin SH. Distinct and combinatorial functions of Jmjd2b/Kdm4b and Jmjd2c/Kdm4c in mouse embryonic stem cell identity. Mol Cell. 2014;53(1):32-48 PMID:24361252.
  11. Domsic RT, Dezfulian C, Shoushtari A, Ivanco D, Kenny E, Kwoh CK, Medsger TA, J., Champion HC. Endothelial dysfunction is present only in the microvasculature and microcirculation of early diffuse systemic sclerosis patients. Clin Exp Rheumatol. 2014;32(6):S-154-60.
  12. Friehling M, Menon PG, Ludwig DR, Schwartzman D. Single-photon emission computed tomographic-multidetector computed tomographic fusion image integration: A potential aid to left ventricular substrate ablation. Europace. 2014;16(12):1860-1863.
  13. Kozai TDY, Li X, Bodily LM, Caparosa EM, Zenonos GA, Carlisle DL, Friedlander RM, Cui XT. Effects of caspase-1 knockout on chronic neural recording quality and longevity: Insight into cellular and molecular mechanisms of the reactive tissue response. Biomaterials. 2014;35(36):9620-9634.
  14. Naran S, Shakir S, Emelife P, Quigley M, Russavage J, Manders E, Rubin JP, De La Cruz C, Gimbel M, Nguyen V. Abstract 44: Components separation for abdominal wall reconstruction: The pitt experience, a review of 605 cases. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2014;133(3S):54-55 10.1097/01.prs.0000445077.09085.b1. 
  15. Naran S, Zaulan Y, Shakir S, Gilula LA, Werner FW, Wollstein R. Radiographic assessment of ligamentous injuries in distal radius fractures after open reduction and internal fixation. Eur J Orthop Surg Traumatol. 2014;24(7):1151-1154.
  16. O'Reilly L,P., Benson JA, Cummings EE, Perlmutter DH, Silverman GA, Pak SC. Worming our way to novel drug discovery with the caenorhabditis elegans proteostasis network, stress response and insulin-signaling pathways. Expert Opin Drug Discov. 2014;9(9):1021-1032.
  17. Schowalter MK, Dulmage BO, Ho J, Vu JR, Falo,Louis D.,,Jr, Geskin LJ. Comparative proteomic analysis reveals unique tumor protein composition among the melanoma subtypes pure desmoplastic and superficial spreading. Melanoma Res. 2014;24(4):397-400.
  18. Strachan RT, Sun J, Rominger DH, Violin JD, Ahn S, Rojas BT, Zhu X, Kleist A, Costa T, Lefkowitz RJ. Divergent transducer-specific molecular efficacies generate biased agonism at a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR). J Biol Chem. 2014;289(20):14211-14224.

Conference Presentations
Chapman, B.V., Kabolizadeh, P., Berhane, H., Smith, R.P., Clump, D.A., Heron, D.E. Post-operative simultaneous integrated boost-intensity modulated radiation therapy in head and neck cancer: outcomes from a single institution series (#14042493), Radiological Society of North America 100th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, December 2, 2014.

Cummings EE, King DE, O'Reilly LP, Luke CJ, Pak SC, Silverman GA.  Modeling rare alpha-1 antitrypsin variants in C. elegans.  Oral presentation given at 7th International Symposium on Serpin Biology, Structure, and Function, Leogang, Austria, April 1, 2014.  

Nakajima, E. Taking 'Time Off': Exploration and Research in the Pursuit of a Medical Career. Carleton College, Northfield, MN; Feb 2014.

Shakir S, Wang D, Shaw MA, Smith DM, Naran S, Gilbert JR, MacIsaac ZM, Losee JE, Cooper GM. BMP2 Stimulation of Adipose, Bone Marrow, and Muscle-Derived Stromal Cells Fails to Augment Cranial Repair. 71st Annual Meeting of the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association. Indiana, IN. March 24-29, 2014.

Shakir S, Jarrett NJ, Kumar AR. An Evaluation of a Novel Craniofacial Skills Laboratory Curriculum: An Aid to Plastic Surgery Resident Milestone Achievement in Technical Skills and Instrument Knowledge. 71st Annual Meeting of the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association. Indiana, IN. March 24-29, 2014.

Shakir S, Wang D, Shaw MA, Smith DM, Naran S, Gilbert JR, MacIsaac ZM, Losee JE, Cooper GM. BMP2 Stimulation of Adipose, Bone Marrow, and Muscle-Derived Stromal Cells Fails to Augment Cranial Repair. 60th Annual Meeting of the Robert H. Ivy Society of Plastic Surgeons. Bedford, PA. May 17, 2014.

Vasireddi A, Vasquez A, Whitney D, Georgopoulos A, Kim SG. Sub-millimeter scale resting state functional connectivity in the mammalian visual cortex. Organization for Human Brain Mapping 2014 Annual Meeting, Hamburg, Germany, June 10, 2014.
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