July 2019
Sheri Grill defends her thesis in style! First MCDB PhD graduate from the lab. What a wonderful job, Sheri. We are all proud of you and look forward to all the great achievements that lie ahead of you in the future.
June 2019
Shilpa and Ritvija prevail over prelims Checkpoint 2! Congratulations to both of them.
June 2019
Sheri’s paper is (finally) out in Cell Reports!
Its the long and short of TPP1 protein that you need to know about…
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124719307028?via%3Dihub
March 2019
Devon Pendlebury, 4th year Chemical Biology PhD student was awarded a Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship. Congratulations, Devon!
October 2018
MSTP student Jackie Graniel is now funded by the Biology of Aging Training Program (NIH T32).
Congratulations, Jackie!
August 2018.
Eric Smith defended his PhD thesis successfully. Congratulations, Eric!
December 2017
Our work uncovering a second telomerase-interacting surface within TPP1 was accepted for publication in Cell Reports.
Congratulations to Sheri and Valerie!
October 2017
Our work describing how telomeres attach to the inner-nuclear membrane during meiosis came out online in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
Congratulations to Devon, Valerie, and Eric!
https://www.nature.com/articles/nsmb.3493
May 2017
Our paper on the development of an inducible Cas9 system for editing of genes in cultured human cells is now out in Analytical Biochemistry. Congratulations to Kamlesh, Sheri, and Jackie!
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003269717301902
April 2017
Honors student Jonathan Williams was awarded the Marshall Nirenberg Life Sciences award (Goldstein Honors Prize) that is given to the top life sciences honors graduating student by the Literature Science and Arts College of UM.
April 2017
We have been awarded a Research Scholar Grant by the American Cancer Society
November 2016
Congratulations to Devon Pendlebury for passing her Ph. D. candidacy examination!
Link to our PNAS paper on a DC mutation in the telomere protein TPP1
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/46/13021.long
Congratulations to second year Program in Chemical Biology graduate student Devon Pendlebury for been awarded the Rackham International Student Fellowship Award!
October 2016
Congratulations to second year Program in Chemical Biology graduate student Devon Pendlebury for been awarded the Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant.
September 2016
Another paper from the lab accepted this month, this time in PNAS! This is ALL US… More details soon.
September 2016
Congratulations to Eric! He was awarded a Biology of Aging Training Grant Fellowship for his structural studies on the telomeric protein TPP1.
September 2016
A paper to which our lab contributed to has been accepted for publication in Oncogene. More details soon.
August 2016
Congratulations to the lab! We were awarded an R01 by the NIH (NIGMS) for understanding the function and regulation of the TPP1 protein in human cells.
May 2016
A review written by our collaborators (Labs of Ivan Maillard and Katy Keegan @ UM) and us was published in Journal of Clinical Investigation. It details the role of shelterin in preventing DNA damage signaling at telomeres, telomerase function, and hematopoiesis.
April 2016
Congratulations to Jonathan Williams (undergraduate researcher in the lab) for winning the Otto Graf Scholarship, and also for receiving an Honorable Mention in the nationwide Barry Goldwater Scholarship competition.
October 2014
The first paper from the lab was published in the October 1st issue of Genes & Development. Here we showed that a single amino acid deletion in the TEL patch of TPP1 results in reduced recruitment of telomerase to telomeres, reduced telomerase processivity, and ultimately to a severe case of the telomere-dysfunction disease dyskeratosis congenita. The TPP1 mutation in the proband was identified via whole exome sequencing by a team of scientists at the NCI of NIH, led by Dr. Sharon Savage. Our previous studies have highlighted the role of the TEL patch of TPP1 in telomerase function with regards to cancer cell proliferation. The current study confirms that the TEL patch is also critical for the self-renewal of stem cells, an aspect that is compromised in patients with dyskeratosis congenita. The link to the table of contents on this G&D issue is:
http://genesdev.cshlp.org/content/current
September 2014
Congratulations to Sheri for being awarded a Genetics Training Program fellowship for two years!