Craziness
03 June 2009
The last few months have been incredibly busy. In
addition to the challenges inherent in tracking my
9 month old son, the lab has experienced a surge of
productivity that has kept everyone on their toes.
Two manuscripts describing our forays into next-gen DNA sequencing have been accepted for publication in really good journals. Justin Greene is preparing another manuscript for submission, hopefully in the next few weeks. And Julie Karl just published a review article in the journal Methods.
It has also been a busy time for grants. We submitted a renewal of our R24 grant that characterizes MHC genetics in different populations of macaques. We also submitted two grants to the Gates Foundation, one in collaboration with our friend Rodney Phillips, to study HIV evolution by deep sequencing. NIH has awarded us a supplement to support the salaries of five summer undergraduate students and we are awaiting word on several other supplements. Until a week ago, I felt like the grant madness would never cease!
Our nascent international HIV research program is starting to gain traction. We are working with our friends in Sao Paulo to sequence HIV from their patients. We are also working with Dr. Frank Graziano here at the University of Wisconsin to investigate HIV sequence diversity in Ugandan and Wisconsin HIV+ patients. Dawn Dudley will be representing the lab at the 5th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment, and Prevention in Cape Town, South Africa in July. She will also be visiting prospective collaborators in Uganda during her time in Africa.
Lastly, it is the time of year when familiar faces leave us and new ones join the team. We will be saying goodbye to Kevin Campbell (med school), Ann Detmer (grad school), and Claire O’Leary in the coming weeks...but we will be saying ‘hi!’ to Ericka Becker (who will be replacing Ann). Hannah Creager and Benji Sudolcan are joining our undergraduate ranks.
Two manuscripts describing our forays into next-gen DNA sequencing have been accepted for publication in really good journals. Justin Greene is preparing another manuscript for submission, hopefully in the next few weeks. And Julie Karl just published a review article in the journal Methods.
It has also been a busy time for grants. We submitted a renewal of our R24 grant that characterizes MHC genetics in different populations of macaques. We also submitted two grants to the Gates Foundation, one in collaboration with our friend Rodney Phillips, to study HIV evolution by deep sequencing. NIH has awarded us a supplement to support the salaries of five summer undergraduate students and we are awaiting word on several other supplements. Until a week ago, I felt like the grant madness would never cease!
Our nascent international HIV research program is starting to gain traction. We are working with our friends in Sao Paulo to sequence HIV from their patients. We are also working with Dr. Frank Graziano here at the University of Wisconsin to investigate HIV sequence diversity in Ugandan and Wisconsin HIV+ patients. Dawn Dudley will be representing the lab at the 5th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment, and Prevention in Cape Town, South Africa in July. She will also be visiting prospective collaborators in Uganda during her time in Africa.
Lastly, it is the time of year when familiar faces leave us and new ones join the team. We will be saying goodbye to Kevin Campbell (med school), Ann Detmer (grad school), and Claire O’Leary in the coming weeks...but we will be saying ‘hi!’ to Ericka Becker (who will be replacing Ann). Hannah Creager and Benji Sudolcan are joining our undergraduate ranks.
Springtime!
30 March 2009
In the two months since the last update of this
webpage, we’ve been very busy. I spent a week
in Washington DC in February, talking about our
latest research at NCI and NIAID. I got back to
Madison late on Friday night and then turned right
around and flew down to Brazil on Monday. Shelby
and I taught in a class for Brazilian scientists
and clinicians before taking a week of vacation on
the Sao Paulo coast. Dawn Dudley accompanied us to
Brazil and spent time in research labs expanding
the scope of our collaborations with our Brazilian
counterparts. We are now eagerly awaiting a return
visit from one of their senior scientists in May.
Other individuals in the lab have also been very busy. Ben Burwitz had a manuscript accepted for publication in the Journal of Virology. Congratulations, Ben!!
Also, I refreshed the pictures in the Lab Pictures page.
Other individuals in the lab have also been very busy. Ben Burwitz had a manuscript accepted for publication in the Journal of Virology. Congratulations, Ben!!
Also, I refreshed the pictures in the Lab Pictures page.
Phew!
22 January 2009
The last two months have been incredibly hectic in
the O’Connor Lab. As Shelby and I adjust to
having four-month old Eli in our lives, the lab
continues to forge ahead.
In December, we wrapped up our teaching for the fall semester. We were very happy with Pathology 210, our 100 student undergraduate course on HIV/AIDS, whose curriculum we completely revamped this year. The day after the final exam, Shelby and I left for the nonhuman primate models for AIDS conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The week passed in a blur. I gave a presentation at an NIH NIAID-sponsored satellite meeting on Systems Biology in NHP Research, co-chaired the conference session on Genetics, and watched as two years of planning culminated in a meeting that was well received by nearly all the 250 participants. We’re happy that the meeting we planned went so well, though we’re even more happy that we won’t have to plan another one for several more years!
After we returned from the meeting, we hosted two special visitors in the lab. Susan Gold, a pediatric nurse who does educational outreach in Kenya, met with the lab and toured our facilities. She visited with a colleague, Nicholas Makau, who manages the Nyumbani Villiage, a village for HIV/AIDS orphans. During our discussion, we learned that they have their own laboratory facilities. To see if our work can help their important work in any way, we are sending Simon and Jen from the lab to visit for several weeks in February. This month we were visited by Bob Bowers who told us about living with HIV since 1983. We are definitely lucky to have so many wonderful speakers interested in sharing their experiences with us.
We also had the good fortune of presenting our research to others. Ben Bimber and Julie Karl gave platform talks at the NHP AIDS meeting, while Shelby, Roger, Justin, Dawn, and Ben Burwitz presented posters on their research. Justin, Shelby, and I presented our work to the new UW-Madison Chancellor in late December. Shelby is giving a talk at the UW-Madison Global Health Symposium on our collaborative projects with researchers in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Next month I am going to Frederick, MD and Bethesda, MD to share our most recent research with scientists from NCI and NIAID. Lastly, in early March Shelby and I will be going to Sao Paulo, Brazil to teach in an HIV/AIDS course and spend time with our collaborator Esper Kallas.
In addition, we have been busy with papers and grants. Tom Friedrich and I submitted a grant to study cellular immune responses against HIV. Shelby and Dawn are preparing grants for the Early Career Investigator Scholar Award. Ben Burwitz is preparing a manuscript on his research that will hopefully be submitted next week, while a manuscript describing our MHC typing of macaques using next-generation DNA sequencing will hopefully be submitted tomorrow.
So it has been a busy time around here, but it certainly isn’t dull!
In December, we wrapped up our teaching for the fall semester. We were very happy with Pathology 210, our 100 student undergraduate course on HIV/AIDS, whose curriculum we completely revamped this year. The day after the final exam, Shelby and I left for the nonhuman primate models for AIDS conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The week passed in a blur. I gave a presentation at an NIH NIAID-sponsored satellite meeting on Systems Biology in NHP Research, co-chaired the conference session on Genetics, and watched as two years of planning culminated in a meeting that was well received by nearly all the 250 participants. We’re happy that the meeting we planned went so well, though we’re even more happy that we won’t have to plan another one for several more years!
After we returned from the meeting, we hosted two special visitors in the lab. Susan Gold, a pediatric nurse who does educational outreach in Kenya, met with the lab and toured our facilities. She visited with a colleague, Nicholas Makau, who manages the Nyumbani Villiage, a village for HIV/AIDS orphans. During our discussion, we learned that they have their own laboratory facilities. To see if our work can help their important work in any way, we are sending Simon and Jen from the lab to visit for several weeks in February. This month we were visited by Bob Bowers who told us about living with HIV since 1983. We are definitely lucky to have so many wonderful speakers interested in sharing their experiences with us.
We also had the good fortune of presenting our research to others. Ben Bimber and Julie Karl gave platform talks at the NHP AIDS meeting, while Shelby, Roger, Justin, Dawn, and Ben Burwitz presented posters on their research. Justin, Shelby, and I presented our work to the new UW-Madison Chancellor in late December. Shelby is giving a talk at the UW-Madison Global Health Symposium on our collaborative projects with researchers in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Next month I am going to Frederick, MD and Bethesda, MD to share our most recent research with scientists from NCI and NIAID. Lastly, in early March Shelby and I will be going to Sao Paulo, Brazil to teach in an HIV/AIDS course and spend time with our collaborator Esper Kallas.
In addition, we have been busy with papers and grants. Tom Friedrich and I submitted a grant to study cellular immune responses against HIV. Shelby and Dawn are preparing grants for the Early Career Investigator Scholar Award. Ben Burwitz is preparing a manuscript on his research that will hopefully be submitted next week, while a manuscript describing our MHC typing of macaques using next-generation DNA sequencing will hopefully be submitted tomorrow.
So it has been a busy time around here, but it certainly isn’t dull!