B-BRITE and STEM-Prep Interns joining us this summer

This is the 10^th anniversary of the Cell, Developmental and Cancer Biology Summer Research Internship,  now known as the Biomedical & Bioinformatics Research Internship and Training Experience, or B-BRITE, to better reflect the breadth of experiences available to college students at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute.  Founded by Lisa Coussens and Melissa Wong, Chair and Co-Chair of the Department of Cell, Developmental & Cancer Biology, this summer internship has provided hands-on research experiences to 187 college undergraduates since it launched in 2014.  The program is welcoming 27 interns this summer and 14 CDCB faculty are hosting B-BRITE interns in their research groups.

CDCB faculty are also hosting interns from other programs, such as the Ted R. Lilley CURE Program which offers hands-on research experiences to Portland-area high school students.

Overall, B-BRITE, STEM-Prep and CURE are hosting 47 high school and undergraduate interns in Knight labs this summer. 

Two CDCB faculty have received grants from the Concern Foundation Conquer Cancer Now Award:

1. Dr. Katelyn Byrne, "Reprogramming suppressive regulatory T cells in the tumor microenvironment"
2. Dr. Megan Ruhland, "Antigen sorting by dendritic cells impacts anti-tumor immunity"

Congratulations to Kasidy Brown, graduate student in the Ruhland lab, who was selected as a trainee on the PBMS T32 training grant.

Drs. Hatun Duran Cete (postdoc in the Schedin lab) and Abby Liberty (WRHR Scholar working with the Schedin lab) both presented at the 2024 Gordon Research Conference in Mammary Gland Biology earlier this month held in Barga, Italy:

• Dr. Cete gave two oral and one poster presentation titled "Effects of Childbirth on Clinical Findings of Breast Cancer Metastasis"
• Dr. Liberty presented a poster titled "A protocol to prospectively study the effect of androgenic progestins on mammary tissue in people assigned female at birth: sampling, histologic and molecular strategies".

Congratulations to Michelle Ozaki, graduate student in the Schedin lab, who has received the GSO Student Engagement Award for her exceptional engagement in furthering the welfare of graduate students at OHSU. Michelle has served as a GSO vice president and president two times. Alongside her sidekick Ben, Michelle reinvigorated GSO to be a thriving program as students were dispersed through the pandemic. She is a leader who has built community, engaged students in rectifying union contracts, recruited students to OHSU both virtually and in-person, she has built trust with administration, and is never afraid of tackling the hard stuff.

Congratulations to two of graduate students who won Best Poster awards at the OHSU Student Research Week: Ashley Anderson (Wong lab) and Kaelan Byrd (Moran lab).

Ashley Anderson (Wong lab) and Amara Pang (Maxson lab) will be attending the Physician Scientist Trainee Diversity Summit in June. The summit was created to discuss the important topic of diversity in the physician scientist community, as well as enable individuals from diverse backgrounds to support one another across various stages of training.

Dr. Ranish Patel, surgical resident in the Wong lab, won the Department of Surgery Fletcher Award which was created to fund the presentation of cancer research at international conferences.

Dr. Sanjay Malhotra co-organized the 2024 Stanford Drug Discovery Symposium, an annual event that Dr. Malhotra co-founded in 2016. Notable attendees were a Nobel laureate, the FDA commissioner and leaders of large pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Dr. Naoki Oshimori has recently received an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Grant for his project titled, "Large oncosome-mediated immune interaction in the cancer stem cell niche".

Congratulations to Dr. Joshua Moreau for receiving the Melanoma Research Alliance Young Investigator Award for his work titled, "Harnessing tissue-resident lymphocytes as a melanoma biomarker".

Congratulations to John McClatchy, graduate student in the Agarwal lab, for two achievements:

1. The OHSU Graduate Studies Awards committee has selected John's paper, “Clonal hematopoiesis related TET2 loss-of-function impedes IL1β-mediated epigenetic reprogramming in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells”, published in Nature Communications, for the Outstanding Journal Article Award. The award comes with a certificate and 500$ prize.
2. John successfully defended his thesis, “IL1β driven transcriptomic and epigenetic mechanisms regulating lineage bias and myeloid expansion of hematopoietic cells with TET2 loss-of-function” this past Friday, May 17th. Congratulations, Dr. McClatchy!

The Malhotra lab has two publications to announce:

1. "Inhibition of protein translational machinery in triple-negative breast cancer as a promising therapeutic strategy" in Cell Reports Medicine.
2. "Guanylate-binding protein 1 modulates proteasomal machinery in ovarian cancer" in iScience.

The Thomas lab has published, "Single-cell transcriptomic analyses reveal distinct immune cell contributions to epithelial barrier dysfunction in checkpoint inhibitor colitis" in Nature Medicine.

The Schedin lab in collaboration with Dr. Zhenzhen Zhang has published "Postpartum Breast Cancer and Survival in Women With Germline BRCA Pathogenic Variants" in JAMA Network Open.

The Grossberg lab has several publications to announce:

• "Hepatic Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription-3 signaling drives early stage pancreatic cancer cachexia via suppressed ketogenesis" in Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle.
  • Dr. Paige Arneson-Wissink was first author on the paper which was completed in collaboration with Drs. Robert Eil and Alex Bartlett (Postdoc, Eil lab)
• "The Pancreatic Cancer Early Detection (PRECEDE) Study is a Global Effort to Drive Early Detection: Baseline Imaging Findings in High-Risk Individuals" in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
• "Grb7 ablation in mice improved glycemic control, enhanced insulin signaling and increased abdominal fat mass in females" in Endocrinology.
• "Quantifying the severity of sarcopenia in patients with cancer of the head and neck" in Clinical Nutrition.

View all CDCB news and recognitions.