Prof. Shosei Yoshida visists U of M

My old friend and colleague, Professor Shosei Yoshida visited our Institute and gave an excellent seminar presentation "Spermatogenic stem cell system and its regulation in the mouse testicular niche" at SCI on April 27 and 28. Shosei is currently a full Professor at Division of Germ Cell Biology, National Institute for Basic Biology, National Institute of Natural Sciences. Shosei and I used to work together for MyoD and myogenesis in National Institute of Neuroscience, Tokyo, Japan. MyoD is a basi helix-loop-helix (bHLH) type master transcriptional factor for myogenesis. Shosei believed that a bHLH transcription factor also plays an essential role for spermatogenesis. After PCR-based screeing, he successfully identified a bHLH protein Neurogenin 3 which is an earlist transcription factor for spermatogenic stem cell. In this seminar, he intrduced spermatogenic stem cell system and presented a lot of amazing time laps imaging of spermatogenic stem cells using Neurogenin 3-GFP transgenic mice. Shosei is a young rising star in the spermatogenesis field and his great work lead several publications including Science and Developmental Cell. We were very grateful to Shosei for this trip and the marverous presentation.

Vanessa awarded UROP

I would like to announce that Vanessa Wankhede has been awarded a 2009 fall the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) award in University of Minnesota. Vanessa is currently a sophomore student majoring in Biomedical Engineering. Her project title is "Characterization of Muscle Stem Cell Proliferation, Differentiation and Stemness after Treatment with DNA Methylation Inhibitor". She will investigate the role of DNA demethylation for differentiation and self-renewal of muscle stem cells. Her findings will be applied for future cell-based treatment for muscular dystrophy. This is a great start for her medical scientific career as a pre-med undergraduate student. Congratulations to Vanessa!

Ronnel and Chris present at the yearly Undergraduate Symposium

Ronneil Aviles and Christopher Tastad gave terrific presentations at the yearly Undergraduate Symposium supported by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) University of Minnesota on April 8th 2009. Roneill and Chris presented their projects "Functional Studies for MASH Gene Family in Muscle Stem Cell" and "GADD45gamma is a Novel Downstream Target Gene of MyoD and Negatively Regulates Survival and Self-Renewal of Muscle Stem Cells". They discussed a lot of feedback and new ideas. We are looking forward to getting Ronneil's and Chris's projects for publication to scientific journals.

Ronneil present at Stem Cell Institute Journal Club

Ronneil Aviles presented at the Stem Cell Institute Journal club on March 27th 2009. Ronneil is currently a senior student majoring in Microbiology. He chose a paper "Control of the Reversibility of Cellular Quiescence by the Transcriptional Repressor HES1" which was published in recent Science. This paper described that the gene encoding the basic helix-loop-helix protein HES1 is required for quiescence to be reversible, because HES1 prevented both premature senescence and inappropriate differentiation in quiescent fibroblasts. In myogenesis HES1 suppresses MyoD activity and maintains quiescent status of myoblasts. Therefore, quiescent muscle stem cells (satellite cells) may be regulated by MyoD inhibitors such as HES1.