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Two New Faculty Members Join PHRI
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Véronique Dartois
 Dr. Véronique Dartois is a new member of PHRI, with an academic appointment in the Department of Medicine at the New Jersey Medical School-UMDNJ. Initially trained as a molecular biologist, Dr Dartois comes with 7 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, acquired through her previous position as Pharmacology Unit Head at the Novartis Institute of Tropical Diseases in Singapore. Her current research interests include the pharmacokinetics and imaging of anti-tuberculosis drugs in pulmonary lesions, the molecular mechanisms driving intracellular accumulation of TB drugs in Mycobacterium and in macrophages, and the optimization of predictive animal models and in vitro assays to study these questions. The technology that Dr. Dartois is using and developing can be expanded to a large variety of drug molecules active against an array of diseases, and holds great promise for the molecular imaging of the biochemical and pathological changes caused to the host by any disease of interest.
Eliseo Eugenin
 Dr. Eliseo Eugenin, formerly a Professor of Pathology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, has just joined the PHRI center faculty and is also a member of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the New Jersey Medical School-UMDNJ. Dr. Eugenin is studying the neurological dysfunction that occurs during infection of the central nervous system (CNS) by certain viruses, such as HIV, dengue, Japanese encephalitis, SARS and others. He has shown that blood brain barrier (BBB) disruption, microglia / macrophage activation, secretion of inflammatory factors, and poorer glial and neuronal survival/function occur during HIV infection of the CNS. He is now extending this research to other neurotropic viruses. In addition to this research, Dr. Eugenin is studying the role of drugs of abuse in CNS communication and susceptibility to infections. His data indicates that these drugs have profound effects on CNS communication, gap junctions and synaptic receptors, altering signaling coordination and neuronal/glial communication. In addition, drugs of abuse disrupt key CNS structures such as the BBB, allowing pathogens to invade the brain more easily. Dr. Eugenin’s research has profound implication and significance for our understanding of NeuroAIDS and drug abuse and how to treat these conditions.
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Paper Highlight - Batish M. et al, PNAS 2012. Neuronal mRNAs travel singly into dendrites
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 In a study, just published in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, Sanjay Tyagi and colleagues show that neuronal mRNAs travel into dendrites as the solitary cargo of RNA transport granules. Their single-molecule imaging shows that two molecules of the same or different mRNA species do not assemble in common structures. This model of mRNA transport affords a finer control of mRNA content within a synapse for synaptic plasticity then previous models did.
The study (Batish et al 2012, PNAS, doi:10.1073 / pnas.1111226109) can be accessed at www.pnas.org.
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 Employment Opportunities
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03.06.12 |
Postdoctoral position available at the PHRI Center to study mechanisms of iron acquisition and regulation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. click here for details |
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News & Noteworthy |
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05.07.12 |
A review of Drs. Sanjay Tyagi and Fred Russell Kramer on the application of molecular beacons in clinical diagnostic assays appeared in the May 2012 issue of the Faculty 1000 Medicine Reports. Please follow this link to read the article.
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04.05.12 |
In the Winter/Spring 2012 issue of the Pulse Magazine, a New Jersey Medical School publication, two articles appeared discussing work by PHRI researchers. One article features the work of Dr. Issar Smith, and a PDF copy can be downloaded via this link. The other article discusses PHRI and its infectious diseases program and please click here to download a PDF copy.
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01.10.12 |
Last fall, Dr. Carmela Irene, a researcher at the Public Health Research Institute, participated as a volunteer for the New York Academy of Sciences, which collaborated with the Infosys USA Foundation, on an after school program for the Citizen Schools in New Jersey. An article on this successful program was posted on the Citizen Schools' web site ( www.citizenschools.org).
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Follow this link to view previous News & Noteworthy postings
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Upcoming Seminar Series |
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05.01.12 |
Michael W. Young, The Rockefeller University
The genetics of sleep and circadian rhythms in Drosophila
click here for more information
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05.08.12 |
Sean Murray, California State University Northridge
Caulobacter crescentus SpoT is essentialfor preventing the over-initiation of DNA replication during fatty acid starvation
click here for more information
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05.15.12 |
Oliver Hobert, Columbia University Medical Center
Gene regulatory mechanisms that build nervous systems
click here for more information
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05.22.12 |
Clifford V. Harding, Case Western Reserve University
Mycobacterium tuberculosis lipoprotein LprG: bacterial functions and host responses
click here for more information
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