New News!

October 2009
Biochemistry at Dartmouth Medical School receives award to support new faculty recruitment. To enhance research resources, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences granted Dartmouth a P30 award for Biochemistry's proposal entitled "Developing Faculty Leaders in the Biomedical Sciences." These ARRA edition P30 awards are intended to "provide funding to hire, provide appropriate start-up packages, and develop pilot research projects for newly independent investigators with the goal of augmenting and expanding the institution's community of multidisciplinary researchers." With this award Biochemistry will initiate a search for a new assistant professor in November.

September 2009
Biochemistry professor Duane Compton has been appointed Associate Director for Basic Sciences at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center. In that role he will oversee cancer research in the basic sciences and the coordination of collaborative activities. He will also co-chair the Cancer Research Committee. For more information see here.

August 2009
Biochemistry alumnus Neil Ganem is in the news. Ganem, who trained with Duane Compton at Dartmouth, is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In a recent Nature Letter, Ganem and colleagues linked extra centrosomes to a phenotype of chromosomal instability in tumor cells. This advance is particularly relevant for understanding human cancer and was highlighted in a piece on Ganem and Compton in Nature.

June 2009
Twelve Biochemistry graduate students received Ph.D. degrees at Dartmouth's June commencement. Our congratulations to Samuel F. Bakhoum, Peter A. Belenky, Gudrun Bjornsdottir, Catherine A. Bue, Justin J. Gaudet, Avinash Gill, Amanda B. Birdsey-Benson, Jessica S. Blackburn, Sarah Mason Eck, Charles R. Midgett, Susan Nicholson-Dykstra and Joshua D. Wilson.

Special recognition to Samuel Bakhoum who was selected to deliver the Dartmouth Medical School Class Day graduate student speech and Peter Belenky for receiving the John W. Strohbehn Award for excellence in biochemical research.

April 2009
Dr. Jay Dunlap, professor and chair of genetics and professor of biochemistry at Dartmouth Medical School, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, considered the country's premier scientific society. He is internationally recognized as a pioneer in cracking apart the field of clock biology, opening a window on the rhythms of life.

In groundbreaking work, Dunlap has advanced understanding of the genetic basis of the circadian clock, the biological chronometer controlling the 24-hour cycle that governs when we sleep or awake and influences diverse behavioral and metabolic disturbances, including jet lag and depression.

The full article detailing Jay's achievement can be seen here.

February 2009
Peter Belenky has been selected for a Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award in recognition of his outstanding achievement in graduate studies. As an awardee, he will participate in the May 1, 2009, tenth annual Weintraub Award Symposium at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center's lakeside Robert W. Day Campus in Seattle, WA.

Peter is the first Dartmouth student to be honored with this award. A fifth-year student in Charles Brenner's lab at NCCC and currently a trainee on the Molecular & Cellular Biology at Dartmouth training grant, Peter plans to graduate in spring 2009.

A list of 2000-2008 recipients of the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award may be seen here.

January 2009
We are pleased to recognize MD/PhD student Michael Miller who has received the National Research Service Award (F30) for his project titled "Role of PrPc Polybasic Domains in Prion Conversion." This predoctoral fellowship program is funded through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and provides tuition, stipend support, and an institutional allowance. Miller is conducting his thesis research in Dr. Surachai Supattapone's laboratory.

November 2008
A research team led by Biochemistry Professor TY Chang has devised a cell free assay that reconstitutes intracellular cholesterol transport. The Chang lab study published in the October 28 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences follows the movement of internalized LDL-bound cholesterol through the trans-Golgi network to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The report is the first to document vesicular transport as a major route by which internalized cholesterol is delivered to the ER.

September, 2008
September Appointments and Moves

It's been announced in the September newsletter of the American Society for Cell Biology that Biochemistry graduate student Samuel F. Bakhoum has been selected to receive the eighth annual ASCB Norton B. Gilula Memorial Award. This award is made possible by the Rockefeller University Press and recognizes an outstanding graduate or undergraduate student who has excelled in research.