The Linardic Lab

In January, we welcomed the newest member of our lab – Aanandi Munshi – in the position of Research Technician III. She is a recent graduate of NC State, having earned her Master’s in Biochemistry in December. She has a background in single stranded DNA plant viruses and plans to expand her scope of knowledge on cancer mechanisms through her work here. She plans to attend medical school in the future. Read more about her in our Lab Members section.

In February we said goodbye to our previous research technician – Brian Masters. Brian learned a great deal about long noncoding RNAs and anti-sense oligonucleotides. He is moving on to a job in the robust pharmaceutical and research industry around RTP. He will cultivate his skills in research there in preparation for grad school in the future.

In March we celebrated Vithi Patel as she accepted an internal medicine residency position in California. As an international medical graduate, Vithi came to Duke with the hopes of learning the science while also getting acquainted with the vastly different clinical environment in the U.S. Vithi spent her time in lab mastering her cell culture skills and exploring the world of p53. She also helped us get a head start on CRISPRi! We are thrilled for her journey and glad to have a friend in California.

 

The Linardic lab is ecstatic to currently support three talented undergraduate scientists, all of whom provide critical assistance in our research efforts.

Sam Weitzel is a rising sophomore at Duke who joined us in September 2021. She recently received an ALSF POST award and is studying new ways to use CRISPRi in RMS.

Aretha Gao is also a rising sophomore at Duke. She joined us in January 2022 and is learning new molecular biology techniques such as DNA isolation and reading and constructing plasmid maps.

Charlotte Pollack is a rising senior at the University of South Carolina, visiting this summer from an AMGEN fellowship. Charlotte is investigating pharmacologic methods to inhibit long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs).

Our team is now “firing on all cylinders” and working hard to assist and mentor these young scientists and provide them with the most enriching research experience possible!

We are excited to share news of two grants supporting Alex Kovach’s work on the Role of the macro lncRNA KCNQIOT1 in Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma Tumorigenesis: An Innovation award from Alex’s Lemonade Stand and an award from The Kate Amato Foundation. We are grateful for the support of these foundations to pursue this exciting project!

In addition we continue to work with collaborators from here at Duke (Counter lab; Wood Lab), MIT, the Broad Institute, and also Mass General on an NIH-funded U54 Center for the Fusion Oncoproteins in Childhood Cancer Consortium (FusOnC2). You can read more about the projects here.

Stay tuned for more information and updates as we begin to work on these projects.

 

We are excited to share that our lab has had a productive academic year! Join us in celebrating these accomplishments.

The following grants have been awarded to our research group:

From The V Foundation-“Targeting the Hippo pathway in RAS-driven rhabdomyosarcoma (rERMS)”

From the Schiffman Foundation-“Use of 3D sphere cultures to investigate stemness properties of rhabdomyosarcoma”

From St. Baldrick’s Foundation (Research Award)- “Identification and validation of the PAX3-FOXO1 protein interactome”

From the Kate Amato Foundation-“Evaluation of the lncRNA KCNQ1OT1 and its binding proteins as pre-clinical therapeutic targets in embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma”

From Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals (Derfner Foundation Research Award, to Alex Kovach PhD)- “Preclinical evaluation of HES1 inhibition in the childhood cancer rhabdomyosarcoma”

The following papers have been accepted for publication:

RASSF4 is required for skeletal muscle differentiation. Lin YT, Deel MD, Linardic CM. Cell Biol Int. 2019 Sep 11. doi: 10.1002/cbin.11238.

Soft Tissue Sarcoma Cancer Stem Cells: An Overview. Genadry KC, Pietrobono S, Rota R, Linardic CM. Front Oncol. 2018 Oct 26;8:475. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2018.00475. eCollection 2018. Review.

Cheers to forward progress!

Congratulations to Corinne who received the Gordon G. Hammes Faculty Teaching Award at the Spring Faculty Meeting on May 8th! Read more about this well-deserved honor here. 

Special thanks to Dr. Lars Wagner, Division Chief, Pedatrics- Hematology/Oncology for accepting this award on Corinne’s behalf while she was speaking at the 2019 AACR Hippo Pathway conference.

Congratulations to Dr. Michael D. Deel who received an award from the V Foundation for Cancer Research in the amount of $200,000 for a study entitled “Investigating co-activator TAZ as a regulator of PAX3-FOXO1, cancer cell stemness, and chemoresistance in fusion-positive rhabdomyosarcoma.” Good work, Michael!

The Linardic Lab is grateful for the support of the Duke and Durham communities, and thrilled to announce that as a result of this support during our September 2018 Alex’s Million Mile campaign we have received a grant of $15, 021.00 from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation! Thank you for continuing to believe in this research mission, and a special thanks to VWR, Tobacco Road Sports Cafe, and The Adam Dickinson Group at 501 Realty for their continued sponsorship.

Welcome to our shiny new laboratory website! Please “pardon our dust” as we begin to populate the site with new information about our lab. Thanks for visiting, and we look forward to hearing from you!