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Category Archives: Biochemistry

3 area students advance to international science fair

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Three area high school students earned top spots in the Delaware Valley Science Fairs.

Lijia Xie, 17, of Lansdale, a senior at North Penn High School, was a silver medalist for his biochemistry project. He developed a urine test to detect liver cancer.

Devin Cody, 18, of Doylestown, a senior at Germantown Academy, won the bronze medal. His chemistry project, called Capturing the Spectrum, increased the efficiencies of dye-sensitized solar cells.

Kerri Diamond, 14, a freshman at Souderton Area High School, was a gold medalist for her computer project exploring which insects food-finding methods are most effective.

The students were among more than 1,000 competing in the regional science fair. Because they are among the top three winners from ninth to 12th grades, they will compete next month in the 64th annual Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix.

The students get an all-expense-paid trip, worth about $1,500 per person, to the international science fair.

Several other high school students from the region placed in the Delaware Valley Science Fairs, though they will not be advancing to the international competition.

Mounika Kanneganti, a senior at Central Bucks West, earned first place in biochemistry.

Ryan Shaprio, a senior at Central Bucks West, earned an honorable mention in chemistry.

Matthew Kolosick, a senior at Central Bucks East, earned third place in computer science.

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3 area students advance to international science fair

News briefs for April 11

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Area resident receives alumni award

BLACKSBURG, Va., January Haile, of Danville, has been awarded the Outstanding Recent Alumni Award for the Department of Biochemistry in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech.

Haile is an assistant professor of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology at Centre College. Haile earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 2009.

Every year, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences honors one alumnus from each department who has graduated more than 10 years ago for his or her achievements since graduation.

Book discussion to focus on race in the criminal justice system

Kentucky Public Advocate Ed Monahan will be among the guests at a discussion of the book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness at 3 p.m. Sunday.

Danville Police Chief Tony Gray, Commonwealth Attorney Richard Bottoms, Assistant Public Defender Stacy Coontz and Judge Bruce Petrie also will be part of the discussion at the Boyle County Public Library.

In the book, Michelle Alexander, an associate professor of law at Ohio State University, argues the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a system of racial control. The book raises the following questions: Is the War on Drugs racially biased? Is the U.S. prison system a contemporary form of slavery that creates profit at the expense of the poor and people of color? Are we living in a color-blind society or is racism alive in the U.S.?

Copies of the book were made available to interested community members to read before the discussion, but everyone is invited to join this community conversation sponsored by Citizens Concerned for Human Relations of Danville.

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News briefs for April 11

LSUHSC research discovers new drug target for metastatic breast cancer

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Public release date: 11-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Leslie Capo lcapo@lsuhsc.edu 504-568-4806 Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center

New Orleans, LA Research led by Dr. Suresh Alahari, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, is the first to report that two specific tumor suppressor genes work in concert to inhibit the growth and spread of breast tumor cells to the lungs. The research is published this week online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Working in a mouse model, the LSUHSC research team studied LKB1, an enzyme that functions as a tumor suppressor in the small intestine, and Nischarin, a novel protein that regulates breast cancer cell migration and movement discovered by Dr. Alahari in 2000. Thirty percent of lung adenocarcinomas have an LKB1 gene mutation, and high levels of the LKB1 protein in breast cancer cells have been shown to significantly inhibit tumor growth. The LKB1-interacting protein is also structurally similar to Nischarin. The researchers suspected that the two suppressors might relate to each other, and they did in fact discover a functional and biochemical link between them.

The researchers demonstrated that Nischarin and LKB1 regulate breast cancer cell migration, anchorage-independent growth, tumor growth, and metastasis. They also identified a new pathway by which LKB1 suppresses tumor cell movement.

Metastasis, a complex process involving cell growth, tumor cell migration, and invasion is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Therefore, it is important to identify the molecular targets that can prevent cancer metastasis.

"The molecular mechanisms of tumor suppressor genes are not clearly understood, and each discovery moves us another step closer to a treatment advance or cure," notes Dr. Alahari.

Excluding skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women in the United States. The American Cancer Society estimates 232,340 new cases of invasive breast cancer among American women this year, and 2,240 among men in the US, with 39,620 deaths in women and 410 deaths in men.

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The LSUHSC team also included Prachi Jain, Somesh Baranwal, Shengli Dong, Amanda Struckhoff, and Rebecca Worthylake from the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Oral Biology.

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LSUHSC research discovers new drug target for metastatic breast cancer

FAMILY DAY: Connecting kids, science

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What: Art and Science Family Day

When: 10 a.m. Saturday

Where: San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, 1 Love St.

Cost: Free

Contact: 325-653-3333

SAN ANGELO, Texas Senior biochemistry major Alexis Mobley likes to think she has good chemistry with children.

On Saturday, Mobley and her Angelo State University American Chemistry Society counterparts will get a chance to test that theory as they help a slew of kids with science experiments.

The chemistry students are combining art with science at this months San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts Family Day.

A demonstration in the museum meeting room will show how to detect art forgery using different dyes and fluorescent lighting. Another table is focused on the chemicals in ceramics and how to fire clay.

This Family Day we are fusing something important to the curriculum to combine new experiments with chemistry and art, said Bekah Coleman, assistant museum educator.

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FAMILY DAY: Connecting kids, science

Reagent aids scientists in mitochondrial dysfunction analysis.

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XF PMP was developed in partnership with the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute (PVLSI), a joint venture of Baystate Medical Center and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with the dual missions of biomedical research and economic development. The technology was exclusively licensed to Seahorse Bioscience by UMass Amherst and Baystate Health, the parent organization of Baystate Medical Center.

XF PMP can be used with the Seahorse XF(e) Extracellular Flux Analyzer, an instrument for measuring cell metabolism, in real-time, in a microplate. The reagent was developed for XF technology in part by Dr. Nagendra Yadava, the John Adams Investigator at PVLSI; and Dr. Alejandro Heuck, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UMass Amherst.

"In the development of this potent new tool in biomedical analysis, we see the tremendous potential of collaborations between clinical and academic researchers and ingenuitive companies like Seahorse," said Richard Friedberg, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Pathology and chair of the Intellectual Property Committee at Baystate Health, who represented Baystate in working with Seahorse and UMass to establish the licensing agreement.

XF PMP creates pores in the cell plasma membrane, and delivers a degree of precision and ease-of-use that has not been available to scientists researching cell metabolism. A key element of XF PMP is the ability to assess mitochondrial function in adherent monolayers of permeabilized cells without damaging the mitochondrial membrane. By doing so, XF PMP enables metabolic substrates, compounds, and small proteins that otherwise would not cross the plasma membrane to reach the mitochondria.

"Seahorse's new XF Plasma Membrane Permeabilizer [PMP] enabled us to demonstrate that clinically-relevant concentrations of thiazolidinediones, a class of insulin sensitizers that includes Actos, specifically inhibited the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier, a protein at the hub of cellular metabolism. The simplicity and reliability of XF PMP made it easy to interrogate the mitochondrial function of small clinical samples and genetically modified cells without mitochondrial isolation, experiments that are traditionally difficult or impossible. Our work is providing a new understanding of the mechanism of action of an important class of drugs, and opens a new avenue for the development of drugs to treat diseases including type 2 diabetes, neurodegenerative disease, and heart failure," stated Anne N. Murphy, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Pharmacology at University of California, San Diego.

About Seahorse Bioscience Seahorse Bioscience provides industry-leading analytical instruments, cell-based assay kits, and consumable labware products for biological research and drug discovery. Scientists worldwide use these tools to advance their research in understanding the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in cancer, neuroscience, immunology, obesity, diabetes, ageing, cardiovascular function, and safety toxicity. Seahorse is headquartered in Billerica, Massachusetts; has its manufacturing facilities in Chicopee, Massachusetts; and regional headquarters in Copenhagen and Shanghai. For more information visit: http://www.seahorsebio.com.

About Baystate Medical Center Baystate Medical Center is an academic, research and teaching hospital that serves as the western campus of Tufts University School of Medicine. It is the major referral care center and only Level 1 trauma center for western Massachusetts, and is home to one of New England's busiest emergency rooms. One of Thomson Reuters/Truven Health Analytics' top 50 U.S. hospitals for cardiovascular care and top 100 U.S. hospitals, Baystate Medical Center is also designated a Leapfrog Top Hospital for quality and safety, is a Magnet hospital for nursing excellence, and is a six-time winner of the Beacon Award for Critical Care Excellence. http://www.baystatehealth.org/bmc

About the University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst, the flagship campus of the UMass system, is one of the nation's top public research universities with 28,000 students studying in the scenic Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. Celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2013, UMass Amherst offers 108 undergraduate degree programs (including six associate degrees) as well as 76 masters and 50 doctoral programs. For more information visit: http://www.umass.edu.

About the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute PVLSI was created in 2002 as a joint venture of Baystate Medical Center and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with the dual missions of biomedical research and economic development. Drawing on each of the founders as well as its own researchers, the Institute brings together physicians, scientists, and engineers to create interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams focused on the molecular mechanisms of disease and the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic tools. For more information visit: http://www.pvlsi.org.

Contact: Naomi Goumillout, 1-978-671-1619, ngoumillout@seahorsebio.com

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Reagent aids scientists in mitochondrial dysfunction analysis.


  1. Biochemistry