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Research News

December 2024 

Mireya Wessolossky, MDMireya Wessolossky, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, has been named a Physician of the Year as part of Worcester Business Journal’s 2024 Champions of Health Care. Read the story in Department of Medicine news

Other recent news

November 2024 - In a recent Q&A with UMass Chan News, Sandeep Jubbal, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology and medical director of the COVID Treatment Center at UMass Memorial Medical Center, discussed a variety of topics ranging from long COVID to at-home testing, antivirals, and vaccines. Read the full story

October 2024 

  • Pukkila-Worley lab publishes companion papers examining immune response in C. elegans. Read the story on UMass Chan news. 
  • Neal Silverman, PhD, in collaboration with Drs. Soojin Lee and Fen-Biao Gao of the UMass Chan RNA Therapeutics Institute, explore the relationship between antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and sleep regulation, memory formation, as well as traumatic brain injury in neurodegenerative diseases in their recent review in Trends in NeurosciencesRead the review.

August 2024 - In their newly funded project, Egil Lien, PhD, and Kate Fitzgerald, PhD, will investigate how splicing factors Raver1 and Ptbp1 contribute to the regulation of innate immunity, inflammation, cell death and host resistance to pathogens. Read the story on DoM news.  

June 2024 -  Megan Orzalli, PhD, along with members of her lab including graduate student Pooja Parameswaran, investigated the interactions between herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), a common human pathogen that initially replicates in keratinocytes and the NLRP1 inflammasome pathway. Read the paper in the Journal of Experimental Medicine 

June 2024 - Ann Moormann, PhD, received the Chancellor's Award in Excellence in Mentoring, Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, received the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Faculty Contributions to Graduate Education, and Megan Orzalli, PhD, received the Faculty Award for Outstanding Research Mentoring and Commitment to Student Professional Advancement. Congratulations to all! Read the full story.  

April 2024 

    • Lee Quinton, PhD, is featured in the April Department of Medicine's Researcher Spotlight. Learn about Dr. Quinton's work
    • Egil Lien, PhD, receives R21 funding to study fundamental mechanisms related to cell death in new project, "Regulation of Ninj1Oligomerization and Cell Membrane Ruptures During Cell Death.” Read the full article

December 2023 - Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, has been elected as a 2024 member of The American Society of Clinical Investigation. Dr. Pukkila-Worley is one of 100 Active and International Members to receive this honor. He will be officially inducted into the Society at the ASCI Dinner and New Member Induction Ceremony on April 5, 2024, as part of the AAP/ASCI/APSA Joint Meeting in Chicago, Illinois.

November 2023 - Read Pukkila-Worley, MD,  along with MD/PhD students and lab members, Mohamad Nasrallah and Nick Peterson, recently had a manuscript published in PLOS Pathogens titled, “Transcriptional suppression of sphingolipid catabolism controls pathogen resistance in C. elegans.” Read the full article.

September 2023 - Egil Lien, PhD, is featured in the September Department of Medicine's Researcher Spotlight. Learn more about Dr. Lien's work

July 2023 

    • Zaida Ramirez-Ortiz, PhD, is featured in the July Department of Medicine's Researcher Spotlight. Learn about Dr. Ramirez-Ortiz's work.
    • Lee Quinton, PhD, was recently awarded new R01 funding from the NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to study lectin-like oxidized low-density lipoprotein receptor-1 (LOX-1) as a protective countermeasure in response to lung infection. Learn more about the work in Dr. Quinton's lab

June 2023 - Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, is featured in the June Department of Medicine's Researcher Spotlight. Learn about Dr. Pukkila-Worley's work.

May 2023 - Laura Gibson, MD, explains leading infectious cause of birth defects. Cytomegalovirus lies dormant in most US adults, but few have heard of it. In a story recently published in The Conversation, Laura Gibson, MD, explains this leading infectious cause of birth defects. Read more.

March 2023 - Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, and MD/PhD students Nicholas D. Peterson and Samantha Y. Tse describes a new manner of detecting microbial infection that intercepts pathogen-derived signals of growth to assess the relative threat of virulent bacteria in a study published in Immunity. Read more.

February 2023

    • Sanjay Ram, MD, and Peter Rice, MD, explain risk of spread in novel gonorrhea strain. Read more.
    • Laura Gibson, MD, discusses risks of cytomegalovirus, a common prenatal infection, in new podcast. Listen.

January 2023 - Douglas Golenbock, MD, the Neil and Margery Blacklow Chair in Infectious Diseases and Immunology, professor of medicine, division chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, and co-director of the Program in Innate Immunity featured in the Department of Medicine's Researcher Spotlight. Read more

December 2022 - Ann Moormann, PhD, MPH, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology was recently been elected as a Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (ASTMH). Congratulations, Dr. Moormann!

November 2022 - New review from the Orzalli lab describes the role of effector-triggered immunity in antiviral defense. Read more. 

October 2022 - Scientists in the Silverman lab publish new findings on the role of transporter SLC46A2 on psoriatic skin inflammation. Read more.

July 2022 - Stuart Levitz, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology has been awarded R01 funding for his project, “A subunit Cryptococcus vaccine”. Learn more about Dr. Levitz's work