October 2015

At the 2015 International Workshop on the Pheromonicin Drug Development Platform (October 19-21, Beijing, China) IALS Director, Peter H. Reinhart, led a discussion on "The Future of Pheromonicins" discussing how to establish this new field by identifying key applications for these new class of anti-infective molecules, and how to most effectively developing new products needed by the health care system. Other speakers from UMass Amherst in attendance where Rolf Kalstrom, Margaret Riley, Larry Schwartz and Alex Gerson,all from the Biology Department.

Vincent Rotello and Richard Vachet have received a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop new methods to image the stability of nanoparticles in biological tissues. Nanoparticles (NPs) are increasingly used in applications that include drug delivery, sensing, imaging and therapy. In all cases, NPs with the desired biological stability are required. Rotello and Vachet will develop new mass spectrometry-based imaging tools that can report on the site-selective stability of NPs in biological tissues.

Has received a $2.2 million grant from NIH’s National Institute on Aging to develop a common metric that can be collected and interpreted across the variety of pedometers, accelerometers and other wearable trackers now in use for personal activity level monitoring.

After studying physics and mathematics in graduate school, Ross was drawn to the array of possibilities in the field of biophysics. “I wanted to do something in a field that had lots of open questions,” she says, “and there are more open problems in biology than any other field.”

The National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences announced a five-year grant expected to total more than $3.5 million to a research consortium led by Joseph Jerry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to study breast cancer risk and environmental exposure to common chemicals found in cosmetics and household products.

He says most of the new particles he studies are made from the same ingredients as food and break down in the body in similar ways to ordinary food.

In connection with UMass Amherst's membership in the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), the campus will be hosting an October 22 visit by Prof. David Hogg, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation of the University of Leeds and current chair of WUN’s Academic Advisory Group.

Faculty may be interested in attending two activities during this visit:

Jeffrey Blaustein, psychological and brain sciences and the Neuroscience and Behavior Program, delivered a “state-of-the-art” plenary lecture entitled: “Puberty and adolescence as a time of vulnerability to stressors that alter neurobehavioral processes” at the Fourth Congress on Medical Sexology of the World Association of Medical Sexology in Miami on Oct. 10.

Peter Chien (M2M) and his research group report finding how an essential bacterial protease controls cell growth and division in the recent issue of CELL.

CBD faculty member, Margaret A. Riley in this video clip discusses that she and other scientists are seeking ways to move away from antibiotics that attack a wide spectrum of microbes in the body in favor of those that specifically target microbes that cause an infection or disease.

CPHM faculty member Patty Freedson, kinesiology, writes a story for a health supplement in the Daily Hampshire Gazette about the program Active Aging in the Valley being offered Oct. 24 from noon to 5 p.m. at the Campus Center. The School of Public Health and Health Sciences, the kinesiology department and the Gazette sponsor the program.

Qiangfei Xia and Joseph Bardin (CPHM), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, teamed up to invent and demonstrate nanoscale memristive radiofrequency switches.