PROGRAM ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Brittany Truong was selected as a 2022 Science Communication Intern!

Brittany Truong, graduate student in the Artinger lab, has been selected as one of three inaugural Society for Developmental Biology Science Communication Interns!

GRANTS AND AWARDS

HMGGP faculty Dr. Claw and Dr. Hendricks earn 2020 Genomic Innovator Award. 

For the second year, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health, has selected the top tier of early career researchers with its 2020 Genomic Innovator Awards.

This year, the award went to 12 researchers around the U.S., with two from the University of Colorado Denver. Audrey Hendricks, PhD, and  Katrina Claw, PhD, received over $1.5 million respectively over the next five years to pursue their research. Unlike traditional grants, the Genomic Innovator Awards invests in the researchers themselves, instead of a particular research project. 

Read more.

Dr. David Schwartz has received the following NIH grants! Congrats!

• NIH-NHLBI: UG3/UH3-HL151865, 08/01/20-07/31/26 | Preclinical Pulmonary Fibrosis, an opportune rare disease cohort | Principal Investigator: Schwartz
• NIH-NHLBI: R01-HL149836, 07/01/20-06/30/24 | Genes and Transcripts that Interact with MUC5B in Pulmonary Fibrosis | Principal Investigators: Schwartz (contact), Clouthier, Yang
• NIH-NHLBI: T32-HL007085, 07/01/75-06/30/25 | Multidisciplinary Research Training in Respiratory Disease | Principal Investigators: Schwartz (contact), Henson, Petrache
• NIH-NHLBI: R38-HL143511, 03/01/20-02/28/24 | Colorado StARR Program in Medicine and Pediatrics | Principal Investigators: Schwartz (contact), Abmann, Buttrick

Dr. Paul Norman’s lab received three grants in the last few months!

• U01 AI090905 | Insights into immune-related disease born from population genomics 
  We will be coordinating this multi-center project to analyze MHC region diversity in asthma and develop reference sequence database for the MHC genomic region.
• R56 AI151549 | Evolution and Function of Immunogenetic Diversity Across the Eastern Hemisphere
  We will characterize the genomic diversity and co-evolution of KIR and HLA across Asia and the Pacific.
• Fastgrants.org | Immunogenetics of Severe COVID
  We will compare the HLA and KIR genotypes of severe and mild cases; a grant to study 2,000 patients.
  

The Norman Lab received a fellowship from the Brazilian government.

• This fellowship will fund postdoc (Ticiana Della Justina Farias) for one year to study the genetics of TB.

Dr. Chris Gignoux and CCPM has some exciting COVID stuff in the works. See a few of their new grants below (more to come in a month or two, fingers crossed):

• R01 HG010297 Matise, Gignoux (PIs), Role: MPI, 06/15/19 - 06/14/23 | PAGE III: Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology
  We propose to develop and share in the PAGE III Network both, innovative, novel approaches and high-quality phenotype-genotype data for 105,000 ancestrally diverse individuals accessible through the PAGE Study, while integrating multiple -omics data in diverse populations. No overlap with current proposal.
• U01 HG009080-05S1 Kenny, Burchard, Gonzalez (PIs), Role: Site-PI, Co-I, 08/15/19 – 03/31/20 | Optimizing imputation for diverse populations in a distributed framework
  The goal of our project is to accelerate the discovery of DNA variation relevant to health and disease by analyzing data from over 225,000 ethnically and racially diverse patients that will undergo genome sequencing.
• R01 HL146824-01A1 Rosenberg (PI), Role: Co-I, 02/01/20-01/31/25 | Development of End-to-End Clinical Decision Support Tools to Prevent Cardiotoxic Drug Response
  Development of clinical decision support tools to prevent drug-induced QT prolongation based on machine learning and genetics.
• R01 CA244588 Peters (PI), Role: Site-PI, CO-I, 07/01/20-06/30/25 | Advancing equity in colorectal cancer genetic risk prediction through expansion of racial/ethnic minority representation
  The goal is to develop the framework for accurate prediction of genetic and environmental risk of colorectal cancer relevant for highly diverse multi-ethnic populations of the Americas

PUBLICATIONS

December, 2020 | Brittany Truong, graduate student in Dr. Kristin Artinger's lab, recently published a review in The Journal of Genetics and Development. Check out the paper!

July, 2020 | Dr. David Pollock et al (and current HMGGP student Kristen Wade) published a paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution, responding to an earlier paper about possible animal hosts of COVID19. Check out the paper!

December, 2019 | Dr. Jim Sikela’s paper ‘Paired involvement of human-specific Olduvai domains and NOTCH2NL genes in human brain evolution’ was highlighted by Human Genetics as one of their top-10 downloaded and most impactful papers of 2019! Check out the paper.

December, 2019 | Paper from Sikela lab by Heft, et al, was highlighted by the journal Genetics. Check out the paper!

IN THE MEDIA

January, 2020 | Mentioned in Message from Dean Reilly: James Sikela, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics, is an expert who was consulted by Discover magazine in its annual round-up of top science stories in 2019. The article describes work by researchers in China who injected 11 rhesus macaque embryos with a virus carrying the human version of a gene that is linked to brain size. The researchers said they wanted to determine how the gene might contribute to evolution of the brain. Jim and other scientists have raised concern about this research. “There’s some risky elements to going down this road,” he said. “One needs to think about the consequences of where this is leading and what’s the best way to study these kinds of questions.”

December, 2019 | Interviewed and quoted in Discover magazine regarding ethical concerns of inserting human brain genes into monkeys https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/scientists-put-a-human-intelligence-gene-into-a-monkey-other-scientists-are 

October, 2019 | Paper from Sikela lab by Fiddes, et al was featured in Anthropogeny Tracks, a monthly newsletter from CARTA. Check out the paper.

April, 2019 | Dr. James Sikela was interviewed and quoted in a MIT Technology Review article about ethical concerns of putting human brain genes into monkeys. The story was picked up by numerous media outlets.

February, 2019 | Paper by Dr. James Sikela and Veronica Searles-Quick (former HMGGP student) was highlighted as a "Featured Article" by Temple Grandin, a world-famous professor and inspiration for individuals with autism . She also mentions the paper in her seminars/talks throughout the U.S.

February, 2019 | Paper from Sikela lab published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on the genetics of autism (Davis, et al, 2019) was featured in multiple media outlets. Check out the paper.