MIRC alum and Assistant Dean of McMaster’s Bachelor of Health Sciences Program: Dr. Stacey Ritz brings us on her journey through many realms of academia.
From MIRC to Bay Street: Dr. Alicja Puchta tells us about her time at MIRC and how it prepared her for her career in law.
Read more: November Alumni of the Month: Dr. Stacey Ritz & Dr. Alicja Puchta
Jordana group featured by the Allergen Network
A recent publication in the Journal of Clinical Immunology (“The IgE memory reservoir in food allergy”) led by Dr. Rodrigo Jiménez-Saiz in the Jordana lab has garnered great attention and was featured by the Allergen Network. As mentioned in the article, although previous research has shown that “upon re-encountering a food allergen, memory IgE cells become activated and replenish the cells that produce IgE antibodies…no one has been able to decipher how the IgE memory works”. However, in their recent work, the Jordana lab has provided insight into this matter and their findings suggest that “IgG1 memory B cell subsets are the true reservoir of allergen-specific memory, which represents a considerable shift from previous thinking”.
Read the full feature here: http://allergen-nce.ca/immune-system-remembers-food-allergens/
Dr. Scott Walsh, a post-doctoral fellow working with Dr. Yonghong Wan, recently earned commendations for his senior-level poster presentation at the Summit4 Cancer Immunotherapy conference held by in Banff at the end of October. The summit was held by BiocanRx, a Canadian government funded nationwide network of scientists, industry and patients focused on accelerating the transition of cancer therapeutics from bench to bedside. Scott presented data from a recently completed study highlighting the powerful anticancer potential of a novel therapy platform developed in the Wan lab at McMaster.
Below is a link to the conferences instagram post of the award winners.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpkZtoDAuod/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
This is new work published by Sophie as first author and Ali as senior author, with collaborators from Hamilton Health Sciences, on the potential of NK cell immunotherapy in ovarian cancer.
Once again, McMaster University was recognized for it’s excellence in research and was named Canada’s most research-intensive university. The work being conducted at MIRC contributes to McMaster’s growing success as a world-renowned research institute. Read more here, as MIRC’s own Dr. Karen Mossman, Acting Vice-President, Research, shares her perspective on this achievement:
Jonathan Bramson is giving white blood cells a new mission: to seek out and destroy tumours.
A study published in Cell today unravels the novel ability of innate immune cells in the lung to remember past experiences.
The research, led by McMaster University professor and immunologist Dr. Zhou Xing, revealed that these cells - known as innate immune cells - were capable of forming immunological memories following viral lung infections. It also shed new lights on how such innate immune memory formed. Specifically, the study found that induction of memory macrophages in the lung was intimately linked to the works of adaptive T cells during the early effector phase of host responses.
Please see the links for exciting new developments in breast cancer research by MIRC's own Dr. Ali Ashkar.
https://fhs.mcmaster.ca/main/news/news_2018/high_intensity_interval_tr