Author: Aanandi Munshi

In the new year, our lab members have experienced many changes personally and professionally. We banded to support Elizabeth as she dealt with the loss of her mother to cancer and cheered her on as she finished the Duke Scholars in Molecular Medicine program while gaining a competitive internship at Eli Lily in the summer.

George presented his project at the Duke Divisions of Hematology, Medical Oncology, & Cellular Therapy 36th Annual Research Retreat in January.

In the spring, Assil and Leen represented our lab at AACR where they presented their posters on their respective RMS research topics.

We had an early dinner to celebrate our “plasmid banking” day.

In the summer we hosted two undergraduates, Sameeha Gazi of UT Dallas from the AMGEN program and Lauren Ho of Northwestern from the SURPH program.

 

 

We held a successful virtual FusOnc 2024 Retreat with our collaborators around the country for the Cancer MoonShot Initiative.

We said goodbye our neighbors, the Deel Lab, and wish them all the best in the next phase of their careers.

Last but not least, we held a summer soiree to say goodbye to our expert mouse studies technician – Diyana Granum. She will be conducting cell biology-related mouse work at Duke.

Finally, Dr. Linardic attended the 2024 Institute of Cancer Research London, INSTRuCT Mini-Meeting with Prof. Anna Kelsey, Prof. Janet Shipley, Prof. Simone Hettmer, and Ms. Suzi Birz (left to right).

In the latter part of the summer we will host another undergraduate, Chloe Patz, as she explores the world of cancer research. We look forward to attending the annual Pharmacology & Cancer Biology Research Retreat in Wrightsville, NC where many of our members will present their research. Assil will attend the ALSF Childhood Cancer Data Lab’s Bulk RNA-Sequencing and Reproducible Research Practices Workshop at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis to close out the summer.

Our summer was filled with many new experiences for everyone.

To start off, we attended the celebration of Aanandi’s nuptials.

We were excited to host a summer undergraduate research student from the University of Evansville, Indiana. Audrey Chambers was supported by an NSF fellowship and worked under the mentorship of Elizabeth Mendes on cell state in fusion-positive RMS, where she learned experimental design with shRNA knockdowns and small molecule inhibitors. She also learned to do qPCR, Western blots, and cell culture. Audrey celebrated the 4^th of July with us at Dorothea Dix Park in Raleigh, and enjoyed a host of ethnic foods from around the Triangle area at the Raleigh International Food Festival. Audrey will go on to her senior year at her university and plans on applying to PhD programs to cultivate her future as a scientist.

We said goodbye to a freshly graduated medical fellow – Dr. Brian Guedes – who specialized in Pediatric Hematology-Oncology. He is enjoying time with his family and settling into the role of a physician specialist at the All Children’s Hospital in Florida. While at Duke he was the chief fellow in his program and worked on novel kinase targets in fusion-positive RMS. We wish him the best!

Joining our lab is Dr. George Turco, a second-year medical fellow in the Duke Pediatric Hematology-Oncology program. George will work with Aanandi, our research tech testing new pharmacologic agents in fusion-negative RMS and fusion-positive RMS. He is currently working on honing his cell culture skills and learning new wet lab techniques such as Western blots and cloning. To celebrate George’s new role and to say goodbye to Audrey after an eventful summer, we held a bowling outing which George won, leaving everyone far, far behind!!

We have also loved having Dr. Leen Barbar, an MD from Syria, in our lab as a research scholar.

Lastly, we are grateful to Sam Weitzel for her efforts in our lab. Sam is now a junior and looks forward to exploring other scientific projects at Duke to expand her repertoire of molecular assays.

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.