The UAMS Graduate School held a virtual hooding ceremony which you can read more about here. The Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department graduated three students last year. Tresor Mukiza, Ph.D. is now a postdoctoral fellow in Joseph Opferman’s lab at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Tresor’s mentor at UAMS was Wayne Wahls. Eugene Nyamugenda, Ph.D. is now a postdoctoral fellow in Ravi Allada’s lab at Northwestern University in the Department of Neurobiology. Eugene’s mentor at UAMS was Giulia Baldini. Bradley Shields, M.D., Ph.D. is beginning a residence in dermatology at Intermountain Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Bradley’s mentor at UAMS was Alan Tackett.

Alan Tackett, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, was featured in a story on KARK this morning about clinical trials at UAMS.

Samuel Mackintosh, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
UAMS College of Medicine
Co-Director, Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute Proteomics Shared Resource and UAMS Proteomics Core Facility

Research Interest Statement

My research interests are focused on proteomics and mass spectrometry. As co-director of the Proteomics Shared Resource and UAMS Proteomics Core Facility, I am involved in a wide variety of basic and translational research projects and collaborations at any given time. The core facility maintains and operates five state-of-the-art mass spectrometers, two of which I secured for the facility with NIH shared instrument grants. The core lab offers cutting-edge, affordable proteomics analysis to all UAMS investigators and Cancer Institute members. Our facility is nationally recognized with users in 35 states and Puerto Rico, and our research is routinely published in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals. We work closely with other researchers to help them design proteomics experiments, apply for grants and publish papers. We offer complete sample processing services so that our collaborators can submit samples they can easily prepare in their own labs. We also work closely with the UAMS Bioinformatics Core to prepare data for our collaborators in publication-ready formats.

Dr. Mackintosh’s Cancer–related Grants

NIH/NIGMS: 1S10OD026736

Samuel Mackintosh: Project PI

Title “Q Exactive HF-X Hybrid Quadrupole Orbitrap Mass Spectrometer”

08/01/2019 to 07/31/2020

$763,961*

*project direct cost

As part of Dr. Mackintosh’s role as co-director of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute Proteomics Shared Resource and UAMS Proteomics Core Facility, he also serves as Co-I on the ACRI/UAMS COBRE grant (Center for Translational Pediatric Research, PI: Alan Tackett PhD., NIH award P20GM121293) and the UAMS INBRE grant (Partnerships for Biomedical Research in Arkansas, PI: Larry Cornett PhD., NIH award P20GM103429).

Dr. Mackintosh’s UAMS Collaborators

College of Medicine

Department of Internal Medicine

John Arthur, M.D., Ph.D.

Jawahar Mehta, M.D., Ph.D.

 

Department of Geriatrics

Srinivas Ayyadevara, Ph.D.

Richard Dennis, Ph.D.

Robert Reis, Ph.D.

 

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Giulia Baldini, Ph.D.

Marie Burdine, Ph.D.

Alicia Byrd, Ph.D.

Stephanie Byrum, Ph.D.

Tim Chambers, Ph.D.

Rick Edmondson, Ph.D.

Robert Eoff, Ph.D.

Samantha Kendrick, Ph.D.

Grover Miller, Ph.D.

Kevin Raney, Ph.D.

Aaron Storey, Ph.D.

Alan Tackett, Ph.D.

Wayne Wahls, Ph.D.

Boris Zybaylov, Ph.D.

 

Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences

Edgar Garcia-Rill, Ph.D.

Angus MacNicol, Ph.D.

 

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Renny Lan, Ph.D.

 

Department of Pathology

Mayumi Nakagawa, M.D., Ph.D.

Steven Post, Ph.D.

 

Department of Physiology and Biophysics

Roy Morello, Ph.D.

 

Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Mark Smeltzer, Ph.D.

 

College of Pharmacy

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Martin Hauer-Jensen, M.D., Ph.D.

 

College of Public Health

Department of Environmental and Occupational Health

Mitch McGill, Ph.D.

Gunnar Boysen, Ph.D.

 

Dr. Mackintosh’s External Collaborators

Randy Haun, Ph.D., Arkana Laboratories

Jeffrey Lewis, Ph.D., UA-Fayetteville

Arthur Salomon, Ph.D., Brown University

Sean Taverna, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University

Greg Wang, Ph.D., University of North Carolina

Michael Wang, M.D., MD Anderson Cancer Center

Michael Washburn, Ph.D., Stowers Institute for Medical Research

Andrew Xiao, Ph.D., Yale University

Qin Yan, Ph.D., Yale University

Daohong Zhou, M.D., University of Florida

 

Opportunities for Collaboration

The resources of the Proteomics Core are available to anyone at UAMS, and there are pilot funding opportunities available for Cancer Institute members.

Each year the editors of GSA journals select for distinction some of the year’s top scientific publications.  Congratulations to Aaron Storey, Hsin-Ping Wang, Reine Protacio, Mari Davidson and Wayne Wahls.  Their research article on Targeted Forward Genetics was featured in the GSA’s annual Spotlight:  A showcase of research and scholarship in selected articles from 2019. The work was supported by a research project grant (GM081766) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to Wayne Wahls.

GENETICS SOCIETY OF AMERICA EDITORS’ NOTE  Storey et al. describe a powerful methodology for precisely-targeted, saturating mutational analyses of discrete chromosomal elements in situ.  In this method, more than 100,000 independent allele replacements, distributed over long regions of the target locus, can be generated simultaneously in each experiment.  The approach efficiently generates and identifies functionally-null and hypomorphic mutations throughout the targeted region.  This process of population-scale, targeted forward genetics over large distances allows scientists to rapidly dissect the structure and function of specific chromosomal elements and their encoded factors under native, biologically relevant conditions.

From Dean Westfall’s Accolades – May 6, 2020

As face masks have become the norm on campus and beyond, it’s important to remember the faces behind the masks – the colleagues, friends and strangers whose days and circumstances may be more difficult than we know. It turns out there is something else behind many of these masks: a story of generosity.

Dr. Kevin Raney, Professor and Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, was surprised and grateful when Dr. Tung-chin Chiang, an Assistant Professor in the College of Public Health and research collaborator with Dr. Alan Tackett, dropped off fabric masks for everyone in his department.

Dr. Raney learned that Dr. Chiang and her family have donated thousands of masks worldwide – including over 1,000 at UAMS alone. Dr. Chiang and her husband, COPH Professor Dr. Joseph Su, have put in countless hours to the project at UAMS. Dr. Chiang and her sister Jenny, with help from other sisters in Taiwan, designed their masks and coordinated production and shipment to places with limited immediate access to masks. Their efforts are dedicated to their late father, Fong-chan Chiang, and in the hope of having an impact on reducing the spread of COVID-19.

“We hope everyone can wear masks together to bring down the curve worldwide!” Dr. Chiang wrote to Dr. Raney.

Perhaps you have received one of these masks – or one of many thousands of others that have been made or contributed by generous, resourceful and creative members of Team UAMS and the community. There are countless good folks on our Mask Brigade, and we are grateful for them all.

Dr. Chiang has a great idea for anyone who wants to give thanks for those contributing masks: Make a contribution of time or money to the UAMS Stocked and Reddie Food Pantry. I applaud this idea and encourage you to consider it.

The UAMS Translational Research Institute has selected three early-career UAMS researchers to receive KL2 Mentored Research Career Development Awards.

The KL2 program provides two years of research training to junior faculty. It provides 75 percent salary support and up to $25,000 per year for research, tuition, travel and education.

The awardees are:

Britni Ayers, Ph.D., assistant professor, College of Medicine, UAMS Northwest Regional Campus; “Exploring the Feasibility of a Group Prenatal Program, Kōmmour Prenatal, to Reduce Maternal and Infant Health Disparities among Marshallese Pacific Islander Women.”

Jure Baloh, Ph.D., M.H.A., assistant professor, Health Policy and Management, College of Public Health; “Adapting a Supervision Strategy for Sustaining Fidelity to Evidence-Based Practices in Substance Use Disorder Treatment Settings.”

Kimberly Stephens, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor, Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (ACRI) Division/Center for Applied Research and Evaluation, Departments of Pediatrics and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine; “Changes in Epigenetic Mechanisms and Symptom Clusters Associated with the Resolution of Persistent Pain following Spinal Cord Stimulation.”

The awardees were selected by a UAMS study section.

TRI Names Four Entrepreneurship Scholars

The UAMS Translational Research Institute Health Sciences Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HSIE) Postdoctoral

Training Program has named four postdoctoral scholars for its class of 2022. The scholars, selected in a competitive application process, will begin two years of mentored entrepreneurship training July 1.

The HSIE Postdoctoral Scholars – all from the UAMS College of Medicine – their mentors and project plans are:

Emilie Darrigues, Ph.D., will be mentored by Analiz Rodriguez, M.D., Ph.D., in the Department of Neurosurgery. Her research project will focus on improving circulating-tumor DNA detection in glioblastoma liquid biopsies and devising therapeutic nanoparticles as a strategy to specifically target glioblastoma.

UAMS Translational Research Institute (TRI) KL2 Scholar Isabelle Racine Miousse, Ph.D., is the lead author on a publication selected as the best research paper in the March issue of the American Journal of Physiology – Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology.

The selection was announced by the American Physiological Society APSselect.

Miousse is an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the UAMS College of Medicine. The title of her paper is “Methionine dietary supplementation potentiates ionizing radiation-induced gastrointestinal syndrome.” Its co-authors are Laura E. Ewing, M.S., Charles M. Skinner, B.S., Rupak Pathak, Ph.D., Sarita Garg, Ph.D., Kristy R. Kutanzi, Ph.D., Stepan Melnyk, Ph.D., Martin Hauer-Jensen, M.D., Ph.D., and Igor Koturbash, M.D., Ph.D., senior author.

The team found that in mice, high levels of the amino acid methionine in the diet increased the amount of damage to the gut caused by radiation. It suggests that a diet high in methionine (found in meat, fish and dairy), such as a typical Western diet, may worsen gastrointestinal side effects from radiation therapy. This, in turn, may prevent cancer patients from receiving the most effective doses of radiation therapy.

The KL2 Mentored Research Career Development Award Program is supporting Miousse’s research in improving survival in patients with metastatic melanoma by exploiting cancer cells’ dependence on methionine. KL2 scholars receive two years of research support, including 75 percent salary support and $25,000 per year for research, tuition, travel and education materials in support of the scholar’s career development plan.