Congratulations to Aidan for receiving funding through the Pharmacology T32!
/Congrats to Aidan- the very first proposal he wrote was funding through a spot on the highly competitive Pharmacology T32! Next up- submitting his F31!
Congratulations to Dr. Apoorva Uboveja for being named a Hillman Postdoctoral Fellow for Innovative Research!
/A huge congratulations to Apoorva who was named this week as a Hillman Postdoc Fellow for Innovative Research! This will provide professional development support as she works toward her K99 application.
Macropinocytosis paper published in Journal of Cell Biology!
/Out now! The lab’s paper on how ATM inhibition induces macropinocytosis to promote survival through uptake of nutrients. Congrats to all authors!
Read the paper here: https://rupress.org/jcb/article-abstract/222/1/e202007026/213697/ATM-inhibition-drives-metabolic-adaptation-via?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Congratulations Dr. Apoorva Uboveja for being awarded an OCRA Mentored Investigator Grant!
/Big congrats to Dr. Uboveja- this is her first grant! A huge milestone! This award will allow her to continue her very exciting work on wildtype IDH1 in cyclin E-driven ovarian cancer.
Congratulations to Dr. Raquel Buj for receiving a career development award from MRF!
/Congrats to Raquel who recently received a career development award from the Melanoma Research Foundation to better understand how a secreted factor promotes immunotherapy resistance in melanoma. This 2-year award will allow her to continue this very important work as she becomes an immunologist!
We are expanding (and moving into shiny new lab space)!
/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!
Welcome new lab member Dr. Huang
/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!
Dr. Kelly Leon, 2nd graduate student from the lab, successfully defends her PhD!
/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.
Excited to welcome Apoorva Uboveja as a postdoc this summer!
/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!
Congratulations to Raquel- 1st and co-corresponding author paper accepted!
/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.
Goodbye and good luck to Daniel, who is leaving to start his faculty position.
/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!
The lab is looking to expand! Postdoc applicants and rotation students welcome!
/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.
DoD Ovarian Cancer Research Program grant recommended for funding!
/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.
Congratulations to Dr. Erika Dahl for passing her defense!
/Graduate student Erika Dahl passed her defense today! What an accomplishment, especially during a pandemic!
Lab t-shirts were made to celebrate!
Daniel's ATM inhibitor + fenofibrate paper accepted!
/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.
Kelly's preprint on DOT1L regulation of IL1A and the SASP is up!
/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
Raquel's preprint on p16's regulation of the SASP posted to bioRxiv!
/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
The lab is moving to the Hillman Cancer Center and the University of Pittsburgh!
/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!
Another preprint posted!
/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
Congratulations to Daniel for submitting his paper on macropinocytosis!
/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.