By Marty Trieschmann

Feb. 17, 2023 | The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ (UAMS) Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute welcomed proteomics directors and staff from across the country Feb. 8 and 9 for a continuing education symposium.

Sponsored by the IDeA National Resource for Quantitative Proteomics located within the Cancer Institute, the symposium facilitated two days of collaboration and best practice sharing among proteomics experts from 11 different states.

Proteomics is the high throughput study of the abundance and activity of proteins. Most diseases, including cancer, are manifested at the level of protein activity.

The IDeA National Resource for Quantitative Proteomics at UAMS is the only one of its kind to be designated as a national resource by the National Institutes of Health. Alan Tackett, Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, serves as director.

“We were thrilled to convene proteomics experts from across the country at our Cancer Institute, as our group serves as an NIH hub for disseminating training and education in this discipline of biomedical research,” said Tackett, who also serves as deputy director of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute and is the Scharlau Family Endowed Chair in Cancer Research at UAMS.

The symposium included poster sessions and a keynote address by John Koomen, Ph.D., scientific director of the Proteomics and Metabolomics Core at Moffitt Cancer Center. His talk was titled “Evolving a Proteomics and Metabolomics Core to Support Cancer Research.”

Breakout sessions covered topics such as quality control, sample preparation and workflows, bioinformatics and administration.

“Prior to this symposium, very little was known about other proteomic cores in IDeA states, including staff and capabilities,” said David Quilici, Ph,D., director of the Nevada Proteomics Center who has been attending the symposium for seven years.

The IDeA program works to build research capacity in states with historically lower levels of NIH funding. The program is open to 23 states, including Arkansas, and Puerto Rico.

“The UAMS staff and attending proteomic directors have provided insights which have allowed our core to enhance our services to our researchers,” said Quilici. “I have established relationships and contacts across the country ensuring that researchers are able to achieve their desired proteomic goals, whether it be by our current enhanced services or by directing them to a core that can address their needs.”

Directors from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, LSU Health, Tulane, the University of Rhode Island and Puerto Rico attended the event.

Proteomics has identified proteins that offer promise as diagnostic or prognostic markers, or as therapeutic targets in a range of illnesses, including cancer. The IDeA National Resource for Quantitative Proteomics at the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute provides these resources to not only investigators at UAMS, but also has enabled research for hundreds of investigators covering every state in the United States.

Congratulations to these Biochemistry trainees for their excellent performance at UAMS Student Research Day.

• Jessica Kelliher is a 3^rd year graduate student in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology track mentored by Dr. Brian Koss and Dr. Justin Leung. She won 1^st Place for Bhuvan Award for Excellence in Biochemistry Research for a poster entitled “H2AX Linker Region Mediates 53BP1 Recruitment to Chromatin”.
• Matthew Thompson is a 3^rd year graduate student in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology track mentored by Dr. Alicia Byrd. He won 3^rd place for Bhuvan Award for Excellence in Biochemistry Research and was a Runner-up for Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute Award for Outstanding Cancer Research in the graduate student division for his poster entitled “DNA Helicase B (HELB) safeguards genomic integrity in response to DNA replication stress”.
• Mason McCrury Thompson is a 2^nd year graduate student in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology track mentored by Dr. Samantha Kendrick. He was a Runner-up for Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute Award for Outstanding Cancer Research in the graduate student division for his poster entitled “Activation Induced cytidine Deaminase as a Mutagen on G-quadruplex DNA in Lymphoma”.
• Kirk West is a Postdoctoral Fellow mentored by Dr. Kevin Raney and Dr. Justin Leung. He was the winner of Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute Award for Outstanding Cancer Research in postdoc/resident division.

Congratulations to the winners of the Bhuvan Award for Excellence in Biochemistry Research at Student Research Day 2023.

1^st place – Jessica Kelliher – Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

2^nd place – Farhana Sumya – Department of Physiology and Cell Biology

3^rd place – Matthew Thompson – Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

The Bhuvan Award for Excellence in Biochemistry Graduate Research was established by colleagues in the Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy in memory of Dr. Bhuvaneswaran who was a member of the faculty in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Dr. Bhuvan, as students and colleagues alike affectionately knew him, was a superb experimentalist and the laboratory provided the stimulation for continued learning throughout his life. Because his culture revered the teacher/mentor most of all, his highest aspiration was to gain respect as a teacher. In addition to his formal contributions to graduate and medical student education, fostering an interest and love of science in young scientists was an important aspect of Dr. Bhuvan’s life.  All graduate students that use some aspect of Biochemistry in their research are eligible for the award. 

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Dr. Zhiqiang Qin, Associate Professor of Pathology, and Dr. Lu Dai, Assistant Professor of Pathology, recently published a paper in PLOS Pathogens that discusses the development of new HDACs/BRD4 dual inhibitors targeting virus-associated lymphomas. Research staff members Dr. Jungang Chen and Dr. Zhengyu Wang made major contributions to both studies. Additional UAMS collaborators included the Dr. Hong-Yu Li, a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the College of Pharmacy, Dr. Steven Post, Professor of Pathology, and Dr. Samantha Kendrick, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

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By Marty Trieschmann

LITTLE ROCK — Samantha Kendrick, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), has received a $760,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to study a fast-growing type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma common among veterans and military personnel.

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is an aggressive blood cancer that affects B-lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that makes antibodies to fight infections and are an important part of the lymphatic system. Second only to melanoma, DLBCL is the fastest growing cancer in the world and accounts for 30% of cancer cases worldwide. More than 18,000 people are diagnosed with DLBCL each year.

Funded by the Defense Department’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program, Kendrick’s three-year study entitled, “Targeting Unique DNA Structures to Repress Oncogenic Signaling in Lymphoma,” will use sophisticated technology called proteomics to identify proteins that interact with a unique DNA structure called the G-quadruplex (G4) that forms within a regulatory region of a key B-cell receptor gene.

“This grant will allow us to understand the underlying biology of one of the most common B-cell cancers and what is really driving some of the aggressive tumors that are unresponsive to current therapy,” added Kendrick, a cancer researcher at the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute whose husband is a veteran and lymphoma survivor.

Lymphoma is among one of many cancers that can be connected to a veteran’s military service. Nearly 13,000 veterans with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma received VA disability compensation in 2021. Lymphoma is often linked to exposure to toxic substances, which is the case for many military service members. Risk for lymphoma is 50% higher for Vietnam veterans.

“Lymphomas are not single diseases but consist of multiple subsets that will require personalized medicine for some patients to survive,” said Kendrick. “It’s very exciting to be part of this foundational research to better understand how these tumors develop.”

“Dr. Kendrick is one of our rising research stars in the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute,” said Alan Tackett, Ph.D., deputy director of the Cancer Institute. “Her research will shed light on the underlying principles of DLBCL biology that will enable the development of the next generation of therapies to treat this aggressive disease.”

Kendrick has been studying lymphoma for more than a decade, beginning as a doctoral student at the University of Arizona. Originally from Canada, she completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at McMaster University in Ontario.  She is the recipient of a 2013 Lymphoma Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship and is a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Woman of the Year nominee. She joined UAMS in 2017.

On December 5, 2022, Binyam Belachew successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Biophysical and biochemical methods to determine the ability of hepatitis C virus non-structural protein 3 to unfold viral G-quadruplex RNA structures.” Dr. Belachew was mentored by Dr. Kevin Raney. He has accepted a position as a Specialist for the Biology Instructional Office at the University of Texas at Austin.

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