Accelerating Exploration

Grad school award recognizes trio for research advances

In recognition of their research on topics from bacteria to brains, three of this year’s doctoral recipients took home awards named for an early director of the UMMC graduate program.

Iqbal Massodi received the 2009 first-place Charles C. Randall Award at a May 7 honors ceremony for students in the School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences. Kim Gannon and Pratik Shah were each named award finalists.

Speaking from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston where he’s in a post-doctoral fellowship, Massodi, a Ph.D. recipient in biochemistry from Kashmir, India, said he’s grateful for the Randall Award and recognition from the School of Graduate Studies.

“It’s a great feeling that you’ve done something that’s appreciated by people. And it gives you confidence that what you’re doing is important,” he said.

Massodi genetically engineered an elastin-like polypeptide called ELP for the delivery of cancer drugs. Think of the polypeptide molecules as UPS trucks, able to carry whatever cargo of drugs or DNA needed.

Once the target cells of, say, a cancerous tumor are heated to 42 C, Massodi’s polypeptide molecules crowd in, penetrate the cells and deliver their cargo.

“The long-term goal is that if we can set up a delivery system where we can inject an ELP-based polypeptide molecule, we can localize the treatment in combination with hyperthermia and reduce the cytotoxic side effects of chemotherapy,” he said.

At the Dana Farber Cancer Institute where Massodi’s worked since October, he’s using another peptide to attack ovarian cancer cells with the ultimate goal of moving from lab tests under glass to live application in women.

Gannon, who recently completed her Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics, studied ion channels in vascular smooth muscle lining the brain’s middle cerebral artery.

When blood pressure changes, the channels act like sensors, telling blood vessels to constrict or relax to maintain proper blood flow.

If the system doesn’t work, stroke, cerebral edema or hypertensive encephalopathy may result, she said.

Gannon said she was proud to be a Randall Award finalist.

“It was really nice of them to recognize all the effort and work that we put in,” she said of the School of Graduate Studies faculty and administrators.

Though she’s finished her dissertation, Gannon, who grew up in Jackson and earned a B.S. in biology at Millsaps College, isn’t taking it easy. She’s preparing for her third year of medical school.

“Eventually I want to do neurology and be involved in basic science research or clinical research. I enjoy the patient interaction,” she said.

From a family full of doctors in Mumbai, India, Shah got an early exposure to science.

“Disease and bacterial infections were always topics of conversations in my family,” he said. “It always fascinated me. These are organisms you can’t see with the naked eye and they can end up killing you.”

In his dissertation for his Ph.D. in microbiology, Shah looked at the relationship between Streptococcus pneumoniae, bacteria that cause pneumonia, bacterial meningitis and many other infections, and its nutrients called polyamines. Like cutting food supply lines to an invading army, Shah sought to stop polyamine production and transport, which in turn would starve the bacteria.

He found bacteria deficient in polyamines became avirulent and unable to cause disease in mice.

“It makes sense because they have to concentrate on staying alive inside a host while they cause disease. And polyamines are critical for both functions,” he said.

In his post-doctoral pursuits, Shah wants to continue looking at bacterial pathogenesis with respect to what nutrients the bacteria needs during infection.

Shah said he was pleased to be selected for a Randall award, a recognition that capped his experience at the Medical Center.

“It was an absolute pleasure being a part of the Microbiology Department at UMMC. It contributed greatly to my professional experience,” he said.

Randall joined the Medical Center faculty in 1957 and served as professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology until his retirement in 1978. As one of the early leaders in scientific research at UMMC, he served as chair of graduate studies. His research with pox and herpes viruses earned him the respect of colleagues throughout the country. He served as professor emeritus at UMMC until his death in 2007.

-Matt Westerfield

2009-05-26 00:00:00 18924