UCSF Students Among Those Taking Part in First Grad Student Research Day

Synapse Staff Report

On May 27, all ten UC Graduate Deans will host for the California legislature the first annual Graduate Student Research Day.

Students from each campus, including two from UCSF, will attend. The UCSF students are Kate Hammond and Cindy Kosinksi.

From 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., students and graduate deans will be in various one-on-one meetings with legislators, and share information on individual UC campuses. From 3 – 5 p.m. a poster describing the research of each student will be on display

“I am excited to have the opportunity to meet local legislators and I hope Graduate Student Research Day helps foster a relationship between the scientific community, including graduate students who represent the future of science and the government,” Kosinski said. “It often goes unrecognized that scientific dilemmas are often the same dilemmas the community faces as a whole (climate change, infectious diseases, stem cell applications, alternative energy sources, etc.). If there is greater communication between scientists and legislators, I believe legislators are more likely to realize the economical and social impact of scientific advancements. I think by initiating Graduate Student Research Day local legislators will be more likely to call upon UCSF students, faculty and staff when they have questions regarding graduate education or health and science related issues.
The concept of Research Day was spearheaded by UCSF Graduate Dean Patricia Calarco, along with Dr. Kim Barrett, the UC San Diego Graduate Dean, who see it as an educational opportunity for researchers to communicate with legislators and to provide information on how important UC research efforts are to the state of California.

“I hope to encourage cross-talk between legislators and academic scientists,” UCSF student Hammond says. ”Although many of our most pressing policy issues – infectious disease, regenerative medicine, climate change – have significant scientific or technical element, scientists rarely engage in the political process. I hope this ‘first’ Graduate Student Research Day will be the “first annual” day and will encourage the flow of graduate students and legislators to and from Sacramento and the UC campuses.”

The research topics have been chosen to be those of particular relevance to the State, and the attendees are all California residents and broadly reflective of our diversity.

Kosinski’s project “focuses on the microenvironment or the immediate neighboring cells surrounding the intestinal stem cell known as the stem cell niche,” she said. “Intestinal stem cells are continuously dividing in order to make new tissue every day. The cells that form the intestinal stem cell niche provide critical signals that regulate intestinal stem cell behavior. My work provides evidence that the formation of the niche cells in the intestine is controlled by growth factors known as Hedgehog signals. Deletion of Indian hedgehog in the mouse intestine, a gene that initiates Hedgehog signaling, results in the disappearance of these niche cells during GI development.

Without these niche cells to direct the stem cells, the mice have proliferating cells where differentiated mature cells normally reside and an expansion of part of the intestine called crypts where dividing cells are typically found. If the condition is prolonged, cells will continue to be added to the crypt and a tumor will form. This works presents a new understanding of the stem cell niche in which the niche acts to curb abnormal stimulation of stem/progenitor cells that may otherwise continue to divide and cause cancer.”

Hammond describes her research this way:
“I will be presenting studies on Alzheimer’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), brain tumors and traumatic brain injury conducted on our high-field MRI scanner at Mission Bay. Many people are probably familiar with MRI, the loud beeping-banging donut-shaped machine you lie in to get pictures of your brain, knee, spine or other body part. Compared to a conventional 1.5 or 3 Tesla MRI, our 7 Tesla MRI offers improved resolution and contrast. It allows us to detect brain changes we could previously only study in cadaver tissue.

“During my PhD I have developed an imaging technique sensitive to iron (Hammond et al, NeuroImage 2008). Post-mortem cadaver studies have shown iron to be present in many neurological diseases, but it’s not known whether it causes disease or results from disease. We are exploring iron’s role in multiple sclerosis lesion (Hammond et al, Annals of Neurology 2009), microhemorrhages following trauma or radiation therapy and neurodegeneration.

“With California’s aging population, health care for elderly patients with neurodegenerative diseases is a subject with obvious policy implications.”