Academic Minute from 5.30 – 6.3
Monday, May 30
Allison Webel – Case Western Reserve University
Living with HIV
Dr. Allison Webel, PhD, RN, is an assistant professor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. Her research focuses on HIV self-management and the social and behavioral determinants of co-morbid chronic disease in people living with HIV. The long-term goal of Dr. Webel’s research is to improve the health and wellness of all people living with HIV with chronic co-existing conditions.
Tuesday, May 31
Daniel Klessig – Cornell University
How Does Aspirin Work?
Dr. Klessig’s early research career, which started as a graduate student with Nobel
Laureate James Watson, focused on the molecular biology of human adenovirus. His studies of
this DNA tumor virus resulted in a molecular explanation for the failure of pharmaceutical
companies to produce adenovirus vaccines in monkey cells in the 1950s. This work also
provided some of the first evidence for split genes and led him to propose in 1977 that mRNAs
in animals are produced by a process of RNA splicing (intra-molecular ligation). While
continuing to study adenoviruses until 1996, he initiated a research program in plant molecular
biology in the early 1980’s.
The goal of his ongoing research is to understand how plants protect themselves against
microbial pathogens. Over the past decades he and his research team identified components in
pathways, which enable plants to recognize that they are being attacked in order for them to
rapidly mount defenses against the invader. Their efforts resulted in the identification of two
critical defense-signaling molecules in plants – salicylic acid (SA) and nitric oxide (NO).
Interestingly, both SA and NO also play roles in human health. NO is a potent endogenous
signaling molecule in human, where it plays critical roles in inflammatory and immune
responses, in neural transmission, and in muscle physiology. Dr Klessig’s work demonstrated
that several critical players of animal NO signaling are also operative in plants during their
response to pathogen assault. In 1990s Klessig and coworkers also discovered the importance
of SA in plants by demonstrating that it is a hormone produced by plants to activate their
immune systems.
Their subsequent studies identified a long-sought mobile signal for development of a state of heightened defense, which is activated throughout a plant after an initial infection, called systemic acquired resistance. This signal is methyl salicylate, a modified and inactive form of SA. Their research also revealed that, in contrast to most hormones in plants and animals, SA acts through many different protein targets to mediate its many effects on immunity and other plant processes.
Interestingly, derivatives of SA, including aspirin (acetyl SA), have been used by humans for thousands of years to treat a variety of maladies. The prevailing view in the biomedical community has been that aspirin, the most widely use drug worldwide for over a century, works primarily, if not exclusively, by irreversibly inhibiting the enzymatic activities of cyclooxygenases 1 and 2 (COX1 and COX2), However, aspirin is rapidly converted in the body to SA, which has similar pharmacological effects as aspirin, despite its poor ability to inhibit the cyclooxygenases. Klessig’s recent studies are addressing this conundrum by revealing several novel targets through which SA mediates its many pharmacological effects.
These targets include High Mobility Group Box1 (HMGB1) and Glyceraldehyde 3-Dehydrogenase (GAPDH). HMGB1, when released outside of cells following tissue injury or secretion by certain immune or cancer cells, has potent pro-inflammatory activities associated with rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, lupus, sepsis, and inflammation-associated cancers such as colorectal and mesothelioma cancers. GAPDH facilitates infection by the hepatitis viruses and is a major suspect in the neurodegenerative diseases Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s. SA binds to both, thereby inhibiting their disease-associated activities.
Wednesday, June 1
Jeff Iliff – Oregon Health & Science University
The Brain’s Janitor
Dr. Jeffrey Iliff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. He also holds a joint appointment as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Dr. Iliff’s research follows two main paths. This first is the exploration of how the brain’s support cells, called glia, contribute to maintaining the proper environment for neuronal function and how their failure in conditions like vascular dementia, stroke and traumatic brain injury leads to neurodegeneration. The second seeks to define the basic cellular mechanisms by which brain blood flow is coordinated up and down the vascular tree.
In 2015, the Paul G. Allen Foundation awarded Dr. Iliff an Allen Distinguished Investigator grant for Alzheimer’s Disease Research.
His research has been featured on NPR, the BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program “The Nature of Things.”
Dr. Iliff grew up in Sequim, Washington and completed his doctoral training in 2009 in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at OHSU. He then completed two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, NY, where he was promoted to a research faculty position in 2012. Dr. Iliff joined the department in 2013.
When not doing research, Dr. Iliff enjoys hiking, reading, and being with his family.
Thursday, June 2
Jaime Palter – University of Rhode Island
The Great Ocean Conveyor and Europe’s Winter
Palter joined the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography in September, 2015. She studies large-scale ocean circulation and its interactions with climate and the living ocean using both observational and modeling techniques. In collaboration with her students and colleagues, Palter has addressed issues such as the influence of the ocean circulation on the supply of nutrients to marine phytoplankton, the variability of North Atlantic currents at a kilometer beneath the ocean’s surface, and the response of deep ocean convection to global warming. She is a Massachusetts native who got her doctorate at Duke University.
Friday, June 3
Martin Krieger – University of Southern California
What Do Academics Do?
Martin H. Krieger is professor of planning at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. He is trained as a physicist, and has taught in urban planning and policy at Berkeley, Minnesota, MIT, Michigan, and USC. His nine books are about mathematical modeling, environmental policy, and about theories of planning and design. He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and at the National Humanities Center. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
