This newsletter aims to facilitate communication within the Department of Human Genetics, and was conceived by the Research Retreat Committee in 2006. Please send items for the next edition to Joyce Lloyd at jlloyd@vcu.edu
Congratulations to Santhosh Girirajan and Ian Martin for winning the contest to name this newsletter! Both suggested the same name: The Genotype. The Research Retreat Committee selected the name from 18 entries. Santhosh and Ian will receive gift certificates from the VCU bookstore. Thanks for coming up with a great name.
Latasha Redmond receives fellowship
Latasha Redmond was awarded an NIH predoctoral fellowship for her grant titled "KLF2 and the Profile of Mouse Primitive Erythropoiesis" in May 2006. She works in the laboratory of Dr. Joyce Lloyd. The fellowship will fund Latasha's stipend and tuition for the rest of her Ph.D. thesis work.
Lin Li receives her Ph.D.
Lin Li successfully defended her dissertation on June 8, 2006. Her dissertation is entitled, Characterization of the /Tcof1/ gene using a neuroblastoma cell line and a mouse model and her advisor is Dr. Rita Shiang. Lin will be staying in the Department as a postdoc for the following year.
Graduate Students Honored
This past year we have had several students who have received special honors. Two students, Eric Schmitt and Julie Williams, representing the School of Medicine, received a Phi Kappa Phi Scholarship. They were chosen from students nominated from all School of Medicine Departments.
In addition, Eric Schmitt and Lin Li were invited to be members of the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society. The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi is the nation's oldest and largest all-discipline honor society.
Lin Li also received a travel scholarship from the Graduate School so she could present her work in poster format at the America Society of Human Genetics Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the fall of 2005.
Amy Depcrynski and Malissa Liu shared the C.C. Clayton Award for Human
Genetics. This award from the School of Medicine, honors second year
students with one criteria being a high GPA.
The Departmental Roscoe D. Hughes Fellowship was awarded to Ian Martin and Latasha Redmond. These awardees must be continuing students who have passed their comprehensive exams. They were honored due to their research productivity, participation in Watts and/or Forbes Day and general Departmental and School involvement. Ian was also honored with a second place award for his paper and presentation at Forbes Day.
Lastly, for those students who graduated during the 2005-2006 term, Lin Li was awarded the Roscoe D. Hughes Departmental Award and Emily Edelman the Lang Kucera Award for excellence in genetic counseling.
New graduate students
Two new students have joined the Department from the Molecular Biology and Genetics (MBG) Program. Michelle Holser is a Master's student and will be working in Dr. Jim Lister's laboratory, and Sami Amr is a Ph.D. student who will be working with Dr. Rita Shiang. In addition, Tina Lung, a Masters student from the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, is working with co-advisors Drs. Joyce Lloyd and Jack Haar.
John Quillin and Joann Bodurtha have co-authored a study showing that patients may under-report the incidence of breast cancer on their father's side of the family. The article is "Paternal Relatives and Family History of Breast Cancer" by John M. Quillin, Ph.D., Viswanathan Ramakrishnan, Ph.D., Joseph Borzelleca, M.D., Joann Bodurtha, M.D., Deborah Bowen, Ph.D., and Diane Baer Wilson, Ed.D. It is in the September issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Information describing the article has been widely published in the media, including the New York Times, WebMD, CNN Radio, Reuters Health, CBS News online, Health Orbit, and ABCNews.com. This project was supported by a grant from NIH on which Dr. Bodurtha is the Principal Investigator, and represents work done by Dr. Quillin as a Masters student. The work has been a team effort involving multiple partners, including several from the Department of Human Genetics. Contributions came from Karen Beck and Laurie Tams (recruitment), Kelly Tracy (database management), and Aeman Rasul (administrative assistance). For the New York Times piece, follow the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/health/25scre.html.
Drs. Arti Pandya and Kathy Arnos (Gallaudet University) are guest editors for the August 2006 issue of Seminars in Hearing on GENETICS AND HEARING LOSS.
Dr. Paula Hauck, a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Sarah Elsea, received a travel award (one of 20) from ASHG to attend and present her research at the 11th International Congress of Human Genetics in Brisbane, Australia in August 2006. Her contribution to the meeting is "The role of TOM1L2 in Smith-Magenis syndrome".
Matthew Keller (PSYC), Eric Schmitt (HGEN) and Tim York (HGEN) recently taught a three part workshop at the VIPBG entitled, "Introduction to Data Analysis and Graphics using the R Statistical Software Program". If interested in additional course offerings please contact Tim York (tpyork@vcu.edu).
Drs. Arti Pandya, Walter Nance and Kathy Arnos taught the 4th “Summer Program in Genetics” for Audiology Faculty at Gallaudet University from July 10th -14th. This was a week long residential workshop on Basic Genetic concepts as well as advances in understanding the Genetics of Hearing Loss. As in the past it was extremely well received.
Heather Creswick, John Quillin and Joann Bodurtha prepared and presented to the VCUHS managers a talk about the familial cancer clinic.
Drs. Joyce Lloyd and Steven Townson and their lab staff/grad students (Mohua Basu, Megan Smith, Latasha Redmond, Sean Fox, Tina Lung, Walter Wooldridge, Cathy Sun and Mariam Fida Mohammed) have moved to the new Massey Cancer Center building, Goodwin Research Lab at 401 College Street. For the moment, their campus mail is still being delivered to BOX 980033. Their new phone numbers and lab/office locations are as follows:
Joyce Lloyd's office is 628-2182, Room 163
Lloyd's lab phone is 628-2183, Module 134
Steven Townson's office phone is 628-1992, Room 165
Townson/O'Connell lab phone is 628-1984, Module 134
Heather Creswick's office is moving from Sanger 4th floor to North Hospital G-138:
Heather Creswick, MS, CGC
Genetic Counselor
Virginia Commonwealth University
Massey Cancer Center
PO Box 980033
Richmond, VA 23298-0033
804-828-6245
804-828-3760 (fax)
There is a new ABI 7500 Real Time PCR instrument for SNP genotyping in the Nance/Pandya laboratory, and there is a new shared ABI 7500 Fast Real Time instrument in Sanger Room 11-055 for department use. A new departmental Shimadzu spectrophotometer has also been purchased and is in Sanger Room 11-048.
Recent Publications (Department members and adjunct faculty in bold)
Bhandari, P., Warner-Gargano, J., Goddeeris, M. M. and Grotewiel, M. S. (2006). Behavioral responses to odorants in Drosophila require nervous system expression of the β integrin gene myospheroid. Chemical Senses (in press).
Vadlamudi, L., Kjeldsen, M.J., Corey, L.A., Solaas, M.H., Friis, M.L., Pellock, J.M., Nakken, K.O., Milne, R.L., Sheffer, I.E., Harvey, A.S., Hopper, J.L., and Berkovic, S.F.: Analyzing the etiology of benign rolandic epilepsy – A multicenter international collaborative twin study. Epilepsy 47:550-555, 2006.
Eaves LJ: Genotype x Environment Interaction if Psychopathology: Fact or Artifact? Twin Res Hum Genetic Feb;9(1): 1-8, 2006.
Girirajan S, Vlangos CN, Szomju BB, Edelman E, Trevors CD, Dupuis L, Nezarati M, Bunyan DJ, Elsea SH. Genotype-phenotype correlation in Smith-Magenis syndrome: Evidence that multiple genes in 17p11.2 contribute to the clinical spectrum. Genet Med. 2006 Jul;8(7):417-427.
P.M. Hauck, C.N. Vlangos, B.B. Szomju, and S.H. Elsea (2006) “The role of TOM1L2 in Smith-Magenis syndrome." Intl. Congr. Hum. Genet., in press.
Ian Martin and Michael S. Grotewiel (2006) Oxidative Damage and Functional Senescence. Mech Ageing Dev, 127(5): 411-23.
Lister, J.A., Cooper, C., Nguyen, K., Modrell, M., Grant, K., and Raible, D.W. (2006) Zebrafish foxd3 is required for development of a subset of neural crest derivatives. Dev. Biol. 290(1):92-104.
Redmond, L.C., Haar, J.L., Giebel, M. L., Dumur, C.I., Basu, P., Ware, J.L. and J.A. Lloyd “Isolation of Erythroid Cells from the Mouse Embryonic Yolk Sac by Laser Capture Microdissection and Subsequent Microarray Hybridization” Blood Cells, Molecules, and Diseases. Jul-Aug;37(1):27-32. (2006).
*Chervenak, A.P., *Basu, P., Shin, M., Redmond, L.C., Sheng, G. and J.A. Lloyd. Identification, characterization and expression pattern of the chicken EKLF gene. Developmental Dynamics. 235(7):1933-40. (2006). *The first two authors contributed equally to this work
Rupon, J., Wang, S.Z., Gaensler, K., Lloyd, J.A. and G.D. Ginder. Methyl binding domain protein 2 mediates gamma-globin gene silencing in adult human ßYAC transgenic mice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 103(17):6617-22. (2006).
Maes, H.H., Neale, M.C., Kendler, K.S., Martin, N.G., Heath, A.C., Eaves, L.J.: Genetic and cultural transmission of smoking initiation. An extended twin kinship model. Behavior Genetics, in press.
Neale, M.C., Aggen, S.H., Maes, H.H., Kubarych, T.S., Schmitt, J.E.: Methodological issues in the assessment of substance use phenotypes. Addict Behav. 31:1010-34, 2006.
Neale, M.C., Harvey, E., Maes, H.H., Sullivan, P.F., Kendler, K.S.: Extensions to the Modeling of Initiation and Progression: Applications to Substance Use and Abuse. Behavior Genetics 36:507-524, 2006.
Nance WE, Lim BG, Dodson KM. Importance of Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infections as a Cause for Prelingual Hearing Loss. J Clinical Virol 35: 210-215, 2006.
Yan D, Ke X, Blanton SH, Ouyang XM, Pandya A, Du LL, Nance WE, Liu XZ: A Novel Locus for Autosomal Dominant Non-syndromic Deafness, DFNA53, maps to chromosome 14q11.2-q12. J Med Genet 43:170-74, 2006
Burton SK, Blanton SH, Culpepper B, White KR, Pandya A, Nance WE, Arnos KS: Education in the Genetics of Hearing Loss: A survey of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Programs. Genet Med 2006 August 2006 8(8)
Morton C, Nance WE: Newborn Hearing Screening: A Silent Revolution. New Eng J Med 354:2006 (in press)
Martin MD, Hilsenbeck S, Mohsin SK, Hopp, TA, Clark GM, Osborne CK , Allred DC, O’Connell P (2006) Breast tumours overexpressing nuclear isoforms of metastasis-associated 1 (MTA1) protein have high recurrence risks and enhanced response to systemic therapies, BCRT 95:7-12
Dumar T, Arcan ST, Ylmaz ST, Kupka S., Pandya A., Akar N, Incesulu A. Tekin M. Mitochondrial DNA Alterations involving position 961 are not sufficient to explain sensorineural hearing loss. Mediterranean Journal of Otology, in press 2006 Mar.
Virginia Norris, Kathleen S. Arnos, Wendy D. Hanks, Xia Xia, Walter E. Nance, Arti Pandya. Does Universal Newborn Hearing Screening identify all children with GJB2 (connexin 26)deafness? Penetrance of GJB2 deafness. Ear and Hearing
Quillin J, Jones R, Wilson DB, Borzelleca J, McClish D, Bodurtha J. Spiritual Coping, Family History, and Perceived Risk for Breast Cancer – Can We Make Sense of It? J Genet Couns 2006; in press.
Quillin J, Ramakrishnan V, Borzelleca J, Bodurtha J, Bowen D, Wilson DB. Paternal Relatives and Family History of Breast Cancer. Am J Prev Med 2006; in press.
Shows, K.H., Ward, C., Summers, L., Li, L., Ziegler, G.R., Hendrickx A.G., Shiang, R. (2006). Mutation Analysis of TCOF1 in a rhesus macaque with Treacher Collins syndrome. Mammalian Genome17:2:168-77, Epub 2006 Feb 7.
Rees, M.I., Harvey, K., Pearce, B.R., Chung, S.K., Duguid, I.C., Thomas, P., Beatty, S., Graham, G.E., Armstrong, L., Shiang, R., Abbott, K.J., Zuberi, S.M., Stephenson, J.B., Owen, M.J., Tijssen, M.A., van den Maagdenberg, A.M., Smart, T.G., Supplisson, S., Harvey, R.J. (2006). Mutations in the gene encoding GlyT2 (SLC6A5) define a presynaptic component of human startle disease. Nat Genet38:7:801-806, Epub 2006 June 4.
Kurihara, N., Zhou, H., Reddy, S.V., Palacios, V.G., Subler, M.A., Dempster, D.W., Windle, J.J., Roodman, G.D. Expression of measles virus nucleocapsid protein in osteoclasts iInduces Paget’s disease-like bone lesions in mice. J. Bone Min. Res. 21:446-455, 2006.
Rao, H., Lu, G., Kajiya, H., Garcia-Palacios, V., Kurihara, N., Anderson, J., Patrene, K., Shappard, K., Blair, H.C., Windle, J.J., Choi, S.J., Roodman, G.D. Alpha 9, a novel osteoclast integrin that regulates osteoclast formation and function. J. Bone Min. Res., in press.
