News & Events
Graduate Student Published in The American Journal of Human Genetics
Taylor Mighell, neuroscience graduate student in the O'Roak lab, has recently been published in The American Journal of Human Genetics with his paper titled, "A Saturation Mutagenesis Approach to Understanding PTEN Lipid Phosphatase Activity and Genotype-Phenotype Relationships". Also listed as authors on the paper are Sara Evans-Dutson and Dr. Brian O'Roak. See the full article here.
Published in Nature
Dr. Andrew Adey, Dr. Brian O'Roak and their lab members: Ryan Mulqueen, Kristof Torkenczy, and Andrew Fields have been published in Nature Biotechnology with their paper, "Highly scalable generation of DNA methylation profiles in single cells". See the full article here.
Dr. Paul Spellman Appointed Interim Director of Computational Biology
Dr. Paul Spellman has been appointed to the position of interim director for the School of Medicine's Computational Biology program. He is taking over for Dr. Adam Margolin who is departing for a position in the Icahn School of Medicine. Dr. Spellman brings to the program experience as co-leader of the Quantitative Oncology Program and co-director of the Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research Center, both in the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute. The appointment is effective February 15th, 2018.
2018 Technology Transfer and Business Development Award Winners
Congratulations to MMG faculty and a graduate student who were recognized for contributing to innovation, entrepreneurship, industry partnership, patenting, and technology commercialization: Andrew Adey, Ph.D., Markus Grompe, M.D., Cary Harding, M.D., Susan Hayflick, M.D., Stephen Lloyd, Ph.D., Amanda McCullough, Ph.D., Ryan Mulqueen, Hiroyuki Nakai, M.D., Ph.D, Paul Spellman, Ph.D., Mitchell Turker, Ph.D., J.D., Richard Weleber, M.D. Great work!
Top Doctors of 2018
Congratulations to Dr. Jone Sampson, and Dr. Dana Kostiner Simpson for being selected as part of Portland's Top Doctors of 2018! Portland's top doctors are chosen each year by their peers by posing the question, "to whom would they trust the care of their own loved ones?" Thank you to these doctors and to all of our MMG clincians for the excellent quality of care that they provide for our patients.
Dr. Brian O'Roak Receives 2017 NIMH BRAINS Award
The National Institutes of Mental Health has awarded a highly competitive research grant to Brian J. O'Roak, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular and medical genetics in the OHSU School of Medicine. The grant, $2.5 million over five years, is part of the NIMH Biobehavioral Research Awards for Innovative New Scientists, or BRAINS, program and recognizes O'Roak as an autism research innovator who has the potential to transform the field. Full Article
2017-18 Research Leadership Scholars selected
Two graduate student scholars have been selected from a competitive pool of applicants. Help us congratulate Kristóf Törkenczy and Eileen Ruth S. Torres. Read More
OHSU Study in Nature Methods Could Improve Cancer Treatment
"A tumor is constantly evolving and constantly changing," said senior author Andrew Adey, Ph.D., an assistant professor of molecular and medical genetics in the OHSU School of Medicine. "If we're able to break down the distinct cellular components of a tumor, we can target the cancer much more precisely." Full Article
CEDAR Co-Director
Dr. Paul Spellman has been appointed as co-director for the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute's Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research Center (CEDAR). In his new position, Dr. Spellman will be mentoring young scientists, providing strategic guidance for the center, reviewing scientific proposals, and helping to align the center's scientific direction.
Published in Nature
Recently Awarded Grants
June 2016-Present
- David Farrell- National Science Foundation Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant titled, "Rapid Hemostatic Dressing for Hemorrhage Control", for his company, Gamma Therapeutics, to develop a new traumabandage.
- Cary Harding –NIH SBIR Subcontract award with Recombinetics titled "Development and Characterization of a Swine Model of Phenylketonuria"
- Cary Harding –NIH R01 Renewal award titled "Novel therapy for monoamine neurotransmitter deficiency in PKU"
- Susan Hayflick –NIH R13 & International Parkinson & Movement Disorder Society awards to support the International Scientific Conference on NBIA Disorders
- Penny Hogarth –Oregon Clinical &Translational Research Biomedical Innovation Program award titled "Fast-track CoACT: A novel approach to a rare disease management strategy"
- Paul Spellman –NIH U24 award titled "OHSU Center for Specialized Data Analysis as part of the GDAN"
- Paul Spellman –NIH U01 subcontract award with UCSF titled "Integrative approach to heterogeneity in breast cancer metastasis"
May 2016
Brian J. O'Roak, PhD, received a Simons Foundation Undergraduate Summer Research Program award. The goal is to provide a rigorous summer research program for a talented and motivated undergraduate student with a strong interest in pursuing a career in autism spectrum disorder research.
March 2016
Cary Harding, PhD,received a National PKU Alliance award for his project titled "CRISPR-Cas9-mediatedgene correction in a PKU mouse model." The goal of this project is to evaluate the efficacy of CRISPR-Cas9 genecorrection in the treatment of a mouse model of human phenylketonuria (PKU).
January 2016
Susan J. Hayflick, MD, received a Sponsored Research Agreement award from Clene Nanomedicine, Inc.,for her project titled "The effect of CNM-Au8 on mitochondrial function and viability". The goal of this project is to test the efficacy of the company's drug on recovering mitochondrial viability.
Brian J. O'Roak, PhD, received a Multi-PI Simons Foundation award with Eric Fombonne, MD, titled "Oregon SPARK: National Autism Cohort 50k". The goal of this project is to recruit 50,000 subjects with autism in the US whowill provide saliva samples, will be invited to participate to future research projects, and will provide yearly data updates on their clinical status.
December 2015
Rosalie Sears, PhD, received an OHSU/OSU Cancer Prevention and Control Initiative Research Pilot Award for her project titled "Bcl-2 functional converters for cancer prevention". The goal of this project is to test the efficacy of two BFCs in preventing primary and metastatic mammary and pancreatic tumors in pre-clinical models.
October 2015
Penny Hogarth, MD, received a Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research Clinical Study award titled "Systemic Synuclein Sampling Study (S4)". The primary objective in this study is to characterize the distribution of alpha-synuclein pathology in multiple tissues and body fluids in individuals with PD as compared to HC and to evaluate the alpha-synuclein markers as potential surrogate markers for patient selection/enrichment that would be useful in future clinical trials.
September 2015
Hiroyuki Nakai, MD, PhD, received a Sponsored Research Agreement award from Takara Bio, Inc. for his project titled "Development of novel parvovirus-based vectors". The goal of this project is to develop novel classes of parvovirus-based vectors with biological properties much more desirable than the currently available AAV vectors.
David Koeller, MD, received a NIH U01 award with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory titled "Pacific Northwest Metabolomics Core for the Undiagnosed Diseases Network". His roles in this project will include providing clinical expertise in the interpretation of the metabolomic data generated by the scientists at PNNL.
August 2015
Cary Harding, MD, received a Sponsored Research Agreement award from Cydan Development, Inc. for his project titled "Enteral phenylalanine dehydrogenase treatment in murine PKU". Dr. Harding's laboratory will conduct a series of pharmacology studies in the mouse model of phenylketonuria.
July 2015
Brian J. O'Roak, PhD, received an award from the Ester A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund, Inc., for his project titled "Genomic approaches to uncovering somatic mosaicism in neurodevelopmental disorders". The goal of this project is to perform a systematic evaluation of the role of somatic mosaicism in human development and risk for developing ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders.