This is the twice-per-month electronic newsletter for basic, preclinical and translational research news related to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Please forward freely. Direct comments or questions about this newsletter to Joanna Downer, PhD, in the Office of Corporate Communications (4-5105, jdowner1@jhmi.edu).
IN THIS ISSUE:
+ Disease-Causing Genetic Mutations In Sperm Increase With Men's Age
+ Hypothesis: HIV Can Mimic Exosomes To Enter Cells
+ New NMR Facility Coming to Homewood
NEWS BRIEFS:
Colwell To Give Career Seminar at Noon, Sept. 18
Berg to Head NIH Institute
Mandatory University-Wide Conflict of Interest Training
Vogelstein, Snyder and Kinzler Are "Most Cited"
AWARDS AND HONORS:
Huganir Receives Santiago Grisolia Prize and Chair
JHM Science e-Newsletter Recognized by AAMC
Do you have an interesting research finding about one month from publication or presentation? Send manuscripts to Joanna Downer at jdowner1@jhmi.edu or fax to 410-614-8951. Information about awards and honors received by laboratory personnel and others is welcomed also.
For more info on a story, click the accompanying hyperlink.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS:
8/18/03
Disease-Causing Genetic Mutations In Sperm Increase With Men's Age
By analyzing sperm from men of various ages, scientists from the McKusick-Nathans Institute for Genetic Medicine have discovered that older men's sperm is more likely to contain specific disease-causing genetic mutations. Furthermore, one of the mutations may be increasing the sperm's chances of fertilizing an egg, compared to the other mutation, the researchers suggest.
The findings, which appear in the advance online section of the American Journal of Human Genetics, emerged during efforts to explain why a rare genetic disease is more common in children born to older fathers. The disease, Apert syndrome, leads to webbed fingers and early fusion of the skull bones, which must be surgically corrected.
The researchers found that mutation rates in sperm increased as men aged, but not enough to fully account for the increased incidence of Apert syndrome in children born to older fathers, leading to the suspicion that at least one of the disease-causing mutations confer some benefit to the sperm, despite the mutations' effects on the resulting baby.
"Mutations causing this disease occur more frequently in the sperm of older men, but the mutation rate isn't quite as high as the incidence of Apert syndrome," says Ethylin Jabs, MD, director of the Center for Craniofacial Development and Disorders at Johns Hopkins. "There's a lot of work left to determine additional contributors to this condition's paternal-age effect."
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/2003/August/030818.htm
AJHG 2003 (published online July 31)
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v73n4/40284/40284.html
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8/26/03
Hypothesis: HIV Can Mimic Exosomes To Enter Cells
Three Johns Hopkins researchers propose, for the first time, that HIV and other retroviruses can use a Trojan horse style of infection, taking advantage of a cloak of human proteins to sneak into cells.
The hypothesis explains 20 years of perplexing observations and suggests new ways to reduce HIV transmission and treat HIV infection, but it also implies that existing approaches to developing vaccines against HIV won't work. A description of the hypothesis and its supporting evidence appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online Aug. 28.
"This hypothesis links what is known about how molecules are transported within and between cells and a great deal of what is known about HIV and other retroviruses," says Stephen Gould, PhD, professor of biological chemistry in Hopkins' Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. "When the pieces are put together, it's such an obvious connection. The biggest surprise is that the idea hasn't been widely discussed before."
To go from cell to cell, all retroviruses are packaged in an envelope of both viral proteins and proteins from human cell membranes. Conventional wisdom says the viral proteins do all the work to enter new cells and the human proteins are just along for the ride. But the Hopkins team suggests that sometimes the viral proteins take the back seat, and the retrovirus relies instead on the cells' own mechanism of shuttling molecules.
"Most researchers have focused on viral proteins when trying to understand HIV's mechanisms or develop vaccines," says James Hildreth, MD, PhD, professor of pharmacology and molecular sciences in the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. "But so many aspects of retroviral biology have not been reconciled, including that of HIV, that we have to take a broader view. If our hypothesis is true and retroviruses can rely on human proteins, vaccines based solely on a few key viral proteins will never be able to completely prevent infection. There needs to be serious attention to this hypothesis."
Even if a vaccine against the viral proteins physically blocks a retrovirus's primary way of infecting cells, the retrovirus's ability to enter new cells by way of its cover of human proteins -- the Trojan horse -- provides previously unrecognized ways to escape the vaccine's effects, says Gould, whose graduate student Amy Booth is a co-author.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/2003/August/030812.htm
PNAS 2003 (published online Aug. 28)
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/1831413100v1
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9/2/03
New NMR Facility Coming to Homewood
Last week, faculty, staff and students on the Homewood campus began moving into the new $18 million, 50,000-square-foot chemistry building, which replaces the antiquated 40-year-old Dunning Hall.
The completed construction also includes an adjoining underground structure that will house the multidepartmental Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Center for Fundamental Studies of Biological Molecules.
The NMR center soon will house a 600 MHz instrument and has room for installation of two or three more such instruments in the future. In October, a top-of-the-line 800 MHz NMR unit will be delivered. The high-field spectrometers will allow scientists to use NMR to study more complicated systems with greater sensitivity.
Acquisition of the 800 MHz spectrometer was made possible in large part through a grant from the National Science Foundation and matching grants from the departments of Biophysics in the School of Arts and Sciences on the Homewood campus and Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences in the School of Medicine on the East Baltimore campus. Additional funding was supplied by the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2003/02sep03/02chem.html
Colwell To Give Career Seminar at Noon, Sept. 18 - Rita Colwell, PhD, director of the National Science Foundation, will speak at noon, Sept. 18, in Mountcastle Auditorium in the Pre-Clinical Teaching Building on "Setting the Course: Post-doctorates in Transition." The Johns Hopkins Postdoctoral Association invited Colwell and organized the seminar. A reception will follow.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/jhpda/
Berg to Head NIH Institute -- Jeremy Berg, PhD, professor and director of biophysics and biophysical chemistry and director of the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences at the School of Medicine, has been appointed director of the National Institute for General Medical Sciences at the National Institutes of Health. He is expected to begin in early November. As NIGMS director, Berg will oversee a $1.8 billion budget that funds basic research in the areas of cell biology, biophysics, genetics, developmental biology, pharmacology, physiology, biological chemistry, bioinformatics and computational biology.
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/2003/August/030827.htm
Mandatory University-Wide Conflict of Interest Training -- All University faculty, staff, researchers, students, trainees and administrators (including administrative assistants) must complete the "Conflict of Interest and Commitment" online training module by Dec. 31, 2003. Individuals who submit private agreements to the Office of Policy Coordination for review and approval, and all individuals proposing arrangements that are subject to review by the Committee on Conflict of Interest must complete the course by Oct. 31, 2003. The training module is at https://secure.lwservers.net .
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/research/coi_training_module.html
Vogelstein, Snyder and Kinzler Are "Most Cited" -- Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researcher Bert Vogelstein, MD, once again is ranked as the most cited researcher of the last 20 years (1983-2002) with 361 papers and more than 100,000 citations according to the Sept/Oct issue of ScienceWatch, which tracks trends and performance in various basic research fields. According to their accounting, his 1983 paper in Analytical Biochemistry on radiolabeling DNA is the second most cited paper with more than 20,000 citations. Director of neuroscience Solomon Snyder, MD, is ranked third on ScienceWatch's list, and Kenneth Kinzler, PhD, co-director of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory with Vogelstein, is ranked nineteenth.
http://www.isihighlycited.com
Huganir Receives Santiago Grisolia Prize and Chair -- Richard Huganir, PhD, professor of neuroscience and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, has been selected by the University of Valencia in Spain to receive the 2004 Santiago Grisolia Prize and accompanying Chair in Neuroscience and Biomedicine. As holder of the chair, he will give three lectures at the Fundacion Valenciana de Investigaciones Biomedicas next year.
JHM Science e-Newsletter Recognized by AAMC -- Joanna Downer, PhD, assistant director of science communication in the new Office of Corporate Communications, has received an Award of Distinction from the Association of American Medical Colleges for the JHM Science e-Newsletter. She will claim the award, issued in the "Shoestring" category, at a reception Nov. 8 during the AAMC's annual meeting.
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