We are hiring and looking for new postdocs to move into our shiny new lab space in an old Ford factory that the University of Pittsburgh has renovated. If you are interested in senescence, metabolism, epigenetics, the microenvironment in cancer- reach out!
Our lab expansion is underway! Dr. Zhentai Huang is our new Research Scientist and lab manager. His lengthy experience in cell culture and management is a huge benefit to our lab. We are excited to have Zhentai in the lab!
Congratulations to the newly-minted Dr. Leon for the successful defense of her PhD this morning! Her work on DOT1L and the SASP was viewed as highly impactful by her committee!
Kelly will be transitioning to a consulting position in the near future.
The lab is expanding! We are so excited for Apoorva Uboveja to join the lab this summer. She comes to us from the University of Delhi, where she received her PhD in cancer biology, studying the tumor suppressor p73. Welcome (soon) Apoorva!
Raquel’s paper on p16 loss in abrogation of the SASP was accepted this week! We initially thought this was an uninteresting observation, and it has not only turned into a paper, but also a new direction for her work. Congratulations Raquel and co-authors Kelly Leon and Marlyn Anguelov.
We bid a fond farewell to postdoc Daniel (Chi-Wei) Chen, who is moving back to Taiwan to start as an Assistant Professor at National Dong Hwa University. While we will miss him, this was an outstanding opportunity and huge accomplishment. Congrats!
We are looking to expand our lab team! With new anticipated funding in 2021, multiple positions are open to study metabolism, epigenetics, and senescence in cancer. We support both scientific and professional development and foster a diverse and inclusive lab environment. For more information, see: https://airdlab.com/positions.
Email Dr. Aird with a cover letter and CV if interested.
We are thrilled that our DoD Ovarian Cancer Research Program Teal Expansion Award application was recommended for funding. This project will expand on Daniel’s finding that ATM inhibition increases tumor cell branched chain amino acid uptake via macropinocytosis. We are even going to do some immunology (in collaboration with Dr. Greg Delgoffe)! We are grateful for this opportunity to learn more about ovarian cancer and how to treat it.
Graduate student Erika Dahl passed her defense today! What an accomplishment, especially during a pandemic!
Lab t-shirts were made to celebrate!
Congratulations to Daniel and co-authors Raquel, Erika, and Kelly for the acceptance of this pandemic-derived paper! Daniel had an interesting observation that ATM status corresponds to metabolic gene signatures, and inhibition of ATM in high grade serous ovarian cancer (usually ATM wildtype) synergizes with the FDA-approved metabolic drug fenofibrate.
Congrats to Kelly for getting her first author paper out the door! She found that H3K79me2/3 and the H3K79 histone methyltransferase DOT1L are increased in oncogene-induced senescent cells to promote increased transcription of the upstream SASP regulator IL1A. You can read the preprint here: doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.21.258020
Congrats to Raquel for getting this small paper out the door during these hard times. She found that p16 loss decreases IL6 and IL8 (two of the main effectors of the SASP), which is uncoupled from its role in the cell cycle. These studies have potential implications for understanding the tumor microenvironment of p16-low tumors, and we are planning to do more studies in the area with our new immunology colleagues at Pitt. Read the preprint here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.19.257717v1
We have big news to share- starting Sept 1, the Aird lab will be a part of the Hillman Cancer Center at the University of Pittsburgh! We are so excited for this next chapter!
We are hiring at multiple levels- postdocs and technicians/lab managers. Email us to learn more!
Congrats to Daniel for his 2nd preprint of the year! He found that ATM inhibition synergizes with the FDA-approved drug fenofibrate in ovarian cancer cell lines. You can read more: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.29.123919v1
Hats off to Daniel, who submitted his first paper from the lab today. He found that inhibition of ATM induces nutrient uptake via macropinocytosis- a non-specific endocytic process. This discovery adds to growing evidence that ATM has tumor suppressive roles outside of the canonical DNA damage response pathway. You can read the preprint here.
The lab’s first R01 was awarded and converted to an R37 MERIT Award (7 years of funding)! These studies will follow up and expand upon Dr. Raquel Buj’s work on how p16 loss affects nucleotide metabolism.
Both Erika and Kelly received oral presentations for Penn State’s Annual Graduate Student Research Forum! They did an outstanding job!
Congratulation to grad student Kelly Leon for receiving her NCI F31 Notice of Award today! She wrote a beautiful proposal and got an amazing score- so much hard work paid off! She will study how the epigenome affects the senescence-associated secretory phenotype in cancer.
Happy New Year! With recent grant success, we have funds for another postdoctoral scholar to join the lab. We have a number of projects related to cellular metabolism in both cancer and senescence. See our ad below for more details and do not hesitate to reach out!
The lab recently participated in the Sandy Sprint to raise funds for ovarian cancer research for the Sandy Rollman Ovarian Cancer Foundation. Penn State College of Medicine wrote an article about the event and our work. Read the article here
