20th IVBM
Helsinki, Finland
June 3-7, 2018
Registration and Abstract Submission now open!
Vasculata 2018
St. Louis, MO
July 23 - 26, 2018
Vascular Biology
Newport, RI
October 14-18, 2018
|
Shop at Amazon?
Help Support NAVBO
|
|
|
Join us for our First Webinar 
On March 8, 2018 we will launch the new
NAVBO Webinar Series. We plan to offer a new webinar each month and will archive these webinars for later viewing. The attendance at the live webinars will be limited to 100.
Our first three presenters will give a longer and more in-depth versions of their presentations at Vascular Biology 2017. The presentations will be 45 minutes in duration with a fifteen minute question and answer period. Webinars will be free to current NAVBO members; non-members will pay only $25 per webinar.
Here is our current line up:
March 8
|
|
 |
Ondine Cleaver, UT Southwestern Medical Center
GTPase regulation of actomyosin during blood vessel tubulogenesis.
|
April 5
|
|
 |
Jessica Wagenseil, Washington University in St. Louis
Elastic fibers and the mechanics of developing arteries.
|
May 3
|
|
 |
Christopher Hughes, University of California, Irvine
A perfused Blood-Brain Barrier on a chip.
|
|
 |
Dr. Henar Cuervo of the University of Illinois at Chicago Shares Her Insights
I started my lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) about a year and a half ago. I am still finding my way through and know that there are many challenges ahead, but I am happy to share some of my lessons learned. Some of you may find it helpful; some of you may enjoy the trip down memory lane.
Get plenty of advice, and then trust that you are making the best decision you can. As scientists, we do a thorough background research before we start an experiment, we search what has been published, what techniques have been used, and then once we have all the information, we design and execute our experiment. So, I felt that I needed to do the same when making important decisions about managing/setting up my new lab. I read several books (I strongly recommend "At the Helm: Leading your laboratory" by Kathy Barker, and "Making the Right Moves" published by the HHMI), and took advantage of the great faculty mentorship at UIC. However, more frequently than not, I would hear opposing advice from similarly successful senior professors; for example: Professor A would suggest using your Start-up funds aggressively to get the best preliminary data you could to secure grant funding, while Professor B would recommend to be cautious with spending and save some of the Start-up funds for a rainy day. As it usually happens in life, nothing is black and white, and everyone has had a different story and has different circumstances, ultimately the decision has to work for you and how you like to manage your lab.
Learn to say no. This is one of the big clichés, I know, but after a year and a half I am still struggling with it. It is much easier said that done. As you start your lab you will be invited to give talks, to review papers, to review grants, to serve in multiple committees, to teach...etc. I actually find most of these activities to be exciting; they make me feel proud to be contributing to my Department/University, and to the overall scientific community-plus it is a good way to learn the lay of the land. I found that being part of the "Graduate Education Committee" in my Department allowed me, for example, to get familiar with the graduate student selection, and the thesis (and qualifying exam) rules and requirements. This experience turned out to be particularly useful when I was part of a qualifying exam committee, or when recruiting graduate students to my lab. Similarly, being a grant reviewer for the Department of Defense and seeing how that process worked was a fantastic learning experience towards crafting my own grants. However, while all this service work can be edifying and rewarding, it takes a substantial amount of time and focus, and it is easy to neglect your own research group. It is therefore critical to keep a good balance between your own research and the service to the academic/scientific community. As I mentioned, I still have not found the perfect formula (I am not even sure it exists), but I try to select talks, reviews, and other tasks that I feel I can either learn from, or that can help in the development of my career.
Be patient. The first year while setting up the lab is usually not as productive as you would like it to be. You have to spend time negotiating prices with sales representatives, preparing IRB and IACUC protocols, training students...etc. The experiments that you thought were so easy and just took you a couple of hours to get done when you were working at the end of your postdoc might take much more for your newly trained student(s). I remember feeling frustrated with how slow things were moving in the first months: I knew it would take some time to get the lab up and running, but I also wanted to be productive and get good results as soon as possible. I had to be patient, and focus on building my lab and training my students thoroughly. It took more time than I wanted, sure, but now when I see my students' data and presentations I know it was worth it.
|
The Lab of Dr. Henar Cuervo
|
|
The role of liberal arts in STEM education
"Liberal studies in higher education suffer from lack of esteem," writes Simon Marginson in a recent issue of
University World News, "but they embody crucial insights into how society works. And suddenly, they have acquired crucial new responsibility." Marginson posits that the social media-based public spaces created by STEM-educated leaders of the tech sector have, ironically, been become dominated by a populist brand of politics that "...radically undermines the values of higher education, jettisons validated and creative knowledge, and deepens the divide between universities and the public interest." As a countermeasure, he argues that a foundation in the liberal arts and sciences can broaden and deepen a STEM student's scientific literacy, as well as promote their healthy social connectedness and awareness of global conditions.
|
Cancer Therapy Induced Cardio Vascular Toxicity
Guest Editors
Andreas M. Beyer, Marcelo Bonini, and Javid Moslehi, along with the editorial team of AJP-Heart and Circulatory Physiology, invite submission of original research and short reviews on the emerging area of cardio-oncology, which explores adverse cardiovascular side effects of cancer chemotherapy.
This call for papers focuses on three major components: a) increased understanding of clinical and physiological challenges surrounding adverse cardiovascular events induced by cancer therapy that include radiation treatment as well as chemotherapy b) improved definition of the basic mechanisms that underlie radiation/chemotherapy induced cardiovascular toxicity, and c) establishing relevant interventions to prevent or counteract the negative cardiovascular outcomes of anti-cancer therapy.
|
Join the #RaisetheCaps Campaign for Science: January 10 - 17, 2018
As Congress negotiates a federal spending bill for fiscal year 2018, Research!America and partners have launched another week-long print and digital ad and social media
campaign to urge lawmakers to lift spending caps to help increase investments in federal science agencies. Use the hashtag
#RaisetheCaps on social media and other digital platforms in messages to Congress.
The austerity level budget caps established under the 2011 Budget Control Act are once again in force after a temporary reprieve. Unless Congress negotiates another agreement to lift these caps, the FY18 budget for non-defense agencies and programs will be constrained to a level even lower than in FY17.
Print and online ads are running in major publications January 10 - 17, including
POLITICO, CQ Roll Call, Daily Caller and Washington Examiner
.
Join us in reminding Congress that scientific breakthroughs depend on federal investments.
There are several easy ways to get involved:
Click #RaisetheCaps to visit the Research!America web page for resources and to learn more about the joint ad campaign.
|
Welcome to our Newest Member:
Ken Matsumoto, VIB, University of Leuven
|
|
Recent Publications by NAVBO Members
|
| Characterization of purine-rich element binding protein B as a novel biomarker in acute myelogenous leukemia prognostication
Journal of Cell Biochemistry
Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) is an aggressive hematologic cancer characterized by infiltration of proliferative, clonal, abnormally differentiated cells of myeloid lineage in the bone marrow and blood. Read more NOTCH1 is a mechanosensor in adult arteries
Nature Communications
Endothelial cells transduce mechanical forces from blood flow into intracellular signals required for vascular homeostasis. Here the authors show that endothelial NOTCH1 is responsive to shear stress, and is necessary for the maintenance of junctional integrity, cell elongation, and suppression of proliferation, phenotypes induced by laminar shear stress. Read more Expandable Arterial Endothelial Precursors from Human CD34+ Cells Differ in Their Proclivity to Undergo an Endothelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition
Stem Cell Reports
Arterial diseases continue to pose a major health concern but in vitro studies are limited because explanted cells can exhibit poor proliferative capacity and a loss of specificity. Read more |
Vascular pioneer Florence Sabin honored
The US National Academy of Sciences has celebrated the first Memoir Monday of 2018 by highlighting the life and work of Florence Sabin, the first woman elected to the NAS, the first to be a full professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the first woman president of the American Association of Anatomists. Dr. Sabin's research overturned prevailing ideas about lymphatic development, by demonstrating that the lymphatic plexus grows outward from the veins.
Interventional cardiology: What will 2018 bring?
MedPage Today reports a list of clinical trials in interventional cardiology expected to yield results in the year just begun. Two trials, GLOBAL Leaders and TWILIGHT, may reveal whether anti-thrombotic therapy following Percutaneous Coronary Intervention can be simplified by omitting aspirin. These results should inform future loading strategies for drug-eluting stents. Other studies nearing completion are comparing medical therapy with percutaneous mitral repair for functional mitral regurgitation.
MicroRNAs in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia
Placenta
Ji et al. (2018) have examined the potential role of miR-136, a microRNA species overexpressed in preeclamptic decidua-derived mesenchymal stem cells compared with those from healthy donors, in MSC properties associated with development of preeclampsia. MiR-136 transfection into isolated MSCs significantly suppressed their proliferation, increased rates of apoptosis, and inhibited in vitro activities that mimic capillary tube formation and trophoblast cell invasion. The authors conclude that increased miR-136 in decidua-derived MSCs may participate in this cell type's contribution to preeclampsia.
|
|
|
This month we are highlighting the lab of Dr. Henar Cuervo, who is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Find out more about Dr. Cuervo and her lab at 
