(Left to right, back row): Stacey Cifelli, PhD student in Neuroscience, UMDNJ Foundation scholar; Deborah Lazzarino PhD, Asst Dean for Research Administration; Jamila Hedhli, former research technician; Zhaoyu Sun, recently graduated PhD student in Biomedical Sciences (currently a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF); Sophia Simonishvili, research associate; Lauren Mursch, PhD student in Neuroscience, UMDNJ Foundation scholar; (left to right, front row): Lauren Rota, PhD student in Biomedical Sciences, UMDNJ Foundation scholar; Terri Wood, PhD, Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at NJMS; Jungsoo Min, Research associate.
Featured Faculty Teresa L. Wood, PhD., Professor Department of Neurology & Neurosciences
Dr. Teresa Wood is a Professor and Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Neurology and Neuroscience at the New Jersey Medical School. She holds the Rena Warshow Endowed Chair in Multiple Sclerosis. Dr. Wood is a graduate of Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. She completed her Ph.D. in Molecular Neurobiology at UCLA, and completed post-doctoral work at the State University of New York (Stony Brook), in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior and at Columbia University, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. Her academic career includes 12 years on the faculty of the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in Hershey, PA. Dr. Wood joined the New Jersey Medical School faculty in 2005. Her research has benefited from more than fifteen years of continuous funding from the NIH and, more recently, from the Department of Defense and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Part II
Dr. Wood's lab focuses on understanding mechanisms that promote normal development including proliferation, differentiation and survival of stem/progenitor and mature cells as well as how these processes are disrupted in pathological states. The two cell lineages she studies are the oligodendrocyte lineage that gives rise to myelin producing cells in the CNS and the mammary/breast epithelial cell lineage. CNS studies have elucidated signaling pathways promoting proliferation, survival and differentiation of oligodendroglia, both in normal development and after injury or in demyelinating diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis. This work includes findings published in the Journal of Neuroscience that the mTOR pathway regulates oligodendrocyte differentiation and myelination. Funding for this work from the National MS Society has allowed Dr. Wood's laboratory to further define how the mTOR pathway regulates developmental myelination as well as remyelination following a demyelinating injury. Dr. Wood also has had long-standing NIH funding to study insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) and their receptors in mammary/breast epithelial cell proliferation and differentiation. Recent studies have focused on how IGF and insulin receptors function in regulating stem/progenitor cells and lineage specification in mammary epithelium and how these receptors interact with self-renewal and oncogenic pathways in promoting breast tumors.
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Splice Now or Splice Later Cells often multi-task when synthesizing and splicing RNA. But when unconventional splicing is required, they synthesize first and splice later, according to a study led by researchers at the Public Health Research Institute of UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School and published in Cell on November 23.
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Mapping MRSA's Family Tree Check into a hospital and you run the risk of infection with a methicillin-resistant strain of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. But present day MRSA might have been worse if it had descended directly from a 1950s version of the bug, according to a study co-authored by Barry N. Kreiswirth, PhD, a professor at the Public Health Research Institute of UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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NJMS MD/PhD Student Named First Student/Trainee ARVO Trustee Anton M. Kolomeyer, a seven-year MD, PhD student at NJMS, has been appointed by the Board of Trustees of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) as its first Member-In-Training (MIT).
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New Edition of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine Open to Public According to Associate Vice President of Scholarly Information/University Librarian Judith S. Cohn, members of the university community can view the latest edition of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine by logging onto the following links: E-Books list or the Libraries' online catalog.
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NJMS Establishes Room for Breastfeeding Mothers NJMS has opened a private room for NJMS faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows and students who are breastfeeding. The new initiative is the result of a Faculty Mentoring meeting during which junior faculty members expressed a desire for a family-friendly environment at NJMS.
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NJMS Faculty and Benefactors Honored on University Day Several NJMS faculty members and benefactors were honored for their exceptional accomplishments and contributions to UMDNJ during the Sept. 13th celebration of University Day.
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NJMS Student-Run Clinic Receives Grant to Expand Services The Department of Family Medicine at NJMS received a $940,265 grant that will expand and improve NJMS' Student Family Health Care Center (SFHCC), one of the oldest student-run medical facilities in the nation. The SFHCC, located on UMDNJ's Newark campus, provides free health care to medically underserved Newark residents. The clinic is run by NJMS students under the supervision of family and internal medicine physicians and faculty advisor Robin Schroeder, MD (above, left), assistant professor and interim chair of the Department of Family Medicine. Chantal Brazeau, MD (right), NJMS associate professor of psychiatry and family medicine, serves as the principal investigator of the SFHCC improvement project. Click here for more information.
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New Jersey Blood Services and UMDNJ Host Successful Blood Drive in Commemoration of 9/11 UMDNJ and New Jersey Blood Services hosted a blood drive at NJMS to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Scores of strangers came together to lend their support and help those in need. Their selfless donations were reminiscent of those who came together the days and weeks following the wretched events of Sept. 11, 2001 to help save lives. According to Christine Schetelich of the New York Blood Center, the outpouring of support from students, faculty and staff brought in 232 donations which could save about 550 lives. We would like to congratulate everyone that came out to make a difference. To view more photos, visit our Facebook and Flickr pages.
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