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TSRI and Scripps Clinic Lay Groundwork for Parkinson’s Disease Clinical Trials
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In Brief


TSRI to Host 24th Frontiers in Chemistry Symposium

Four noted scientists, including a Nobel laureate, are the featured speakers at the 24th Annual Frontiers in Chemistry Symposium, to be held at The Auditorium at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) on Friday, February 22, 9 AM to 1:30 PM. They are:

  • Professor Roger Tsien of the University of California, San Diego, who is a 2008 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, who will speak on “Building Molecules to Image and Treat Diseases”
  • Professor Tom Muir of Princeton University, who will speak on “Chromatin as an Expansive Canvas for Chemical Biology”
  • Professor Christopher Walsh of Harvard Medical School, who will speak on “Biosynthetic Simplicity on the Far Side of Complexity: The Chemical Logic and Enzymatic Machinery for Fungal Peptidyl Alkaloids”
  • Professor Yoshito Kishi of Harvard University, who will speak on “Natural Product Synthesis”

The event, organized by TSRI Professors Dale Boger and Phil Baran, is sponsored by Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Genentech, Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, Janssen, Lilly, Pfizer and Vertex.

The Auditorium at TSRI is located at 10640 John Jay Hopkins Drive, San Diego, CA 92121. Limited parking will be available in the South Employee Parking Lot (Lot 2), starting at 8 AM. Symposium admittance is free; attendance is limited to 300. Further details are available at the symposium website or by contacting Vicky Armstrong at x4-2400 or vbn@scripps.edu.


Collaboration Lays Groundwork for Parkinson’s Disease Clinical Trials

A team from TSRI and Scripps Clinic has begun the research phase of a proposed clinical trial using induced patient-derived stem cells to halt or reverse the effects of Parkinson’s disease. While there are several clinical trials using a stem cell approach to treating injury and neurodegenerative disease, this will be the first to attempt re-implantation of cells made from a patient back into the same patient.

In the current phase of the project, led by Melissa Houser, neurologist and medical director of Scripps Clinic’s Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center, and Jeanne F. Loring, professor of developmental neurology at TSRI, the team is taking skin cells from Parkinson’s disease patients who meet select criteria. These cells are then cultivated in vitro and turned into pluripotent stem cells, unspecialized cells with the potential to become many different types of tissue. The team will then induce these stem cells to become brain cells.

The longer-term plan, which will require obtaining US Food and Drug Administration approval and setting up a national, multi-center trial, is to implant these cells into the patients’ brains; the goal is for the cells to produce enough of the neurotransmitter dopamine to alleviate the worst symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.


Evgenia Nikolova Named Robert Black Fellow

Evgenia Nikolova, research associate in the Wright lab, has been named a Robert Black Fellow of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting innovative early-career researchers. The three-year fellowships are presented to “outstanding postdoctoral scientists conducting basic and translational cancer research in the labs of leading senior investigators throughout the country,” according to the award announcement. 

The foundation cited Nikolova’s research in elucidating the molecular mechanism of gene silencing mediated by the protein Kaiso. Irregular Kaiso function is linked to cancer cell proliferation in several human cancers, including colon, prostate, breast and lung cancers, as well as leukemia.

Since its founding in 1946, The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has funded more than 3,380 young scientists, 11 of whom went on receive the Nobel Prize.


George Siggins to Speak at February 13 Faculty Lecture Series

Professor George Siggins is the featured speaker at the Faculty Lecture Series presentation on Wednesday, February 13, at 5 PM in the Timken Amphitheater at Green Hospital in La Jolla, CA. Siggins will speak on “The Drugged Synapse:  Regulation by Neuropeptides and Neuroimmune Factors.” A reception will follow the lecture in the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Building, first floor. For further information on Siggins’s lecture, see the Faculty Lecture Series website.


CA NWiS Speaker to Share Academia-to-Industry Experience

“Five Lessons” in transitioning from academia to industry is the topic of featured speaker Dawn Mattoon of Life Technologies at the Network for Women in Science (NWiS) meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, February 6, from 3 to 4 PM in the Skaggs/Molecular Biology Building’s Committee Lecture Hall, California campus.

Mattoon, who completed her PhD and postdoctoral work at Yale University, directs the Global Science & Innovation Office at Life Technologies, a worldwide biotechnology company headquartered in Carlsbad, CA. She has worked in several positions at Life Technologies, including leader of Protein Microarray R&D and program manager for the company’s single molecule sequencing initiative. In addition, Mattoon is a founder and member of the Global Leadership Team for the International Women’s Influential Network, a grassroots organization within Life Technologies that creates opportunities for networking, mentoring and leadership development.

Refreshments will be served following the presentation. Additional information about Scripps California NWiS activities is available at the group’s website.


2013 TSRI Institutional Biosafety Meeting Dates

In 2013, the TSRI Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) will meet from 3:30 to 4:30 PM in the Faculty Club Tennis Court Room, California campus. To receive committee consideration, registration documents must be submitted via email to rachellv@scripps.edu by each meeting’s submission deadline, listed on the chart below. Note the next deadline is Friday, February 22.

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Send comments to: mikaono[at]scripps.edu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FL Campus Hosts Career Options Panel
career
The Florida campus recently hosted an Emerging Leadership Network panel discussion on “Career Options in the Life Sciences,” featuring scientists from academia, industry and government. Students from TSRI and other local institutions attended. Shown here, Raven Hardy, a first-year TSRI graduate student rotating in the Grill lab, poses a question to the speakers.