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Xiao-Jing Wang, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Department of Pathology and Antonio Jimeno, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Department of Medicine/Medical Oncology
The midbody is a protein-rich structure that is formed during cell division. It is required for the final separation step of cell division, called mitosis, where two new daughter cells are generated. After mitosis, the midbody is mostly inherited by one of the daughter cells and often viewed as junky cell debris. Until recently, the midbody was thought to be degraded after cell division. In this study, the authors discovered that a protein is responsible for regulating the recycling of midbodies after cell division by generating a limiting membrane that surrounds the midbody (Dionne et al., Journal of Cell Science, 2017). They further showed that cancer stem cells have more accumulated post-mitotic midbodies than non-cancer stem cells. Interestingly, depleting the protein responsible for midbody degradation causes an increase in midbody accumulation in cancer stem cells and the ability of these cancer stem cells to grow and invade surrounding cells. Collectively, this study presents the first evidence that cancer invasiveness is a feature that can be modulated by the accumulation of midbodies in cancer stem cells.
HONORS
Kristen Boyle, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, was invited and accepted as a member of the Perinatal Research Society.
Valeria Canto-Soler, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, had her research featured in a special interview published in the third edition of the Review of Ophthalmology in Spanish in July 2017, and in an August 2017 article in CU Anschutz Today.
Jeffrey Jacot, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Bioengineering, and his team at Children’s Hospital Colorado were highlighted in an October 2, 2017 video and article published in the National Science Foundation’s online Science Nation, posted on the NSF YouTube site, the NSF Science360 News Service, as well as NSF social media platforms. Jacot and team’s pioneering new techniques in regenerative medicine focus on creating a heart patch made of an infant’s own tissue that would repair the defect and then grow right along with the baby. This research is supported by NSF’s Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) funding mechanism.
Antonio Jimeno, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Department of Medicine/Medical Oncology, was one of three members of the University of Colorado School of Medicine elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) in 2017. Founded in 1908, ASCI is one of the nation’s oldest and most respected medical honor societies for physician-scientists. About 40 members of the School of Medicine faculty have been elected to the Society for their outstanding scholarly achievements in biomedical research.
24 Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine