The human genome is littered with selfish genetic elements, also known as “junk DNA”—parasitic strands of genetic material that replicate and move within their host genomes. Scientists have produced mounting evidence that these selfish genetic elements cause harmful consequences, including health problems associated with aging.

With a new $16 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health, researchers from the University of Rochester, Brown University, and New York University will collaborate to further investigate how types of selfish genetic elements called retrotransposons affect age-related pathologies. Specifically, they will concentrate on the role retrotransposons play in Alzheimer’s disease and neurodegeneration.

The team—led by principal investigator John Sedivy at Brown and including Vera Gorbunova, the Doris Johns Cherry Professor of Biology at Rochester and codirector of the Rochester Aging Research Center, and Andrei Seluanov, professor of biology at Rochester—will also search for targets to inform therapeutic strategies to treat those conditions.

“This project will combine investigators with expertise in retrotransposons, aging, and neuroscience to understand the role of transposons in Alzheimer’s disease and test whether targeting transposons alleviates Alzheimer’s symptoms,” Gorbunova says. Learn more.

The University’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) is set to receive $83 million in federal funding for fiscal year 2022–a $1 million increase over fiscal year 2021 funding.

The fiscal year 2022 Omnibus Appropriations bill released by the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee on March 9, which includes this funding, is expected to be signed by President Biden into law shortly.

The bill also includes $580 million for the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) program at the National Nuclear Security Administration. The ICF program supports three major, world-leading research facilities: the OMEGA Laser Facility at the LLE, the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Z Facility at Sandia National Laboratory. About 80 percent of ICF’s experiments are conducted at the LLE.

University President Sarah Mangelsdorf issued the following statement as part of the recent funding announcement from senators Charles Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, and US congressman Joseph Morelle:

“I want to thank Senator Schumer, Senator Gillibrand, and Representative Joe Morelle for their tremendous efforts and longstanding support for the University’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics. It is thanks to their leadership that LLE remains the US Department of Energy’s largest university-based program in the nation and home to two of the largest and most capable lasers at any academic institution in the world. This funding strengthens LLE’s significant contributions to national security, scientific education and leadership, and regional innovation and growth.”

Read the full funding announcement online.

It has long been known that there is an association between food and pain. People with chronic pain often struggle with their weight. Researchers at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience may have found an explanation in a new study that suggests that circuitry in the brain responsible for motivation and pleasure is impacted when someone experiences pain.

“These findings may reveal new physiological mechanisms linking chronic pain to a change in someone’s eating behavior,” says Paul Geha, lead author on the study published in PLOS ONE. “And this change can lead to the development of obesity.”

Using a gelatin dessert and pudding, researchers altered the sugar, fat, and texture of the foods. They found that none of the patients experienced eating behavior changes with sugar, but they did with fat. Chronic lower back pain patients reported that eventually foods high in fat and carbohydrates, like ice cream and cookies, became problematic for them over time and brain scans showed disrupted satiety signals.

“It is important to note, this change in food liking did not change their caloric intake,” says Geha. “These findings suggest obesity in patients with chronic pain may not be caused by lack of movement but maybe they change how they eat.”

Brain scans of the study participants revealed that the nucleus accumbens – a small area of the brain mostly known for its role in decision-making – may offer clues to who is at risk to experience a long-term change in eating behavior. Learn more.

The lab of Kavaljit Chhabra, assistant professor of medicine/endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism, reports that loss of function of glucose transporter 2 (GLUT2) in the kidneys reverses diabetes and obesity in mice.

Although GLUT2 is a widely known glucose transporter, the contribution of renal GLUT2 in regulating glucose homeostasis and body weight is unclear. This is clinically important because patients with diabetes have higher levels of GLUT2 in the kidneys, which decreases the excretion of glucose in urine and consequently worsens the patients’ already high blood glucose levels.

To establish the function of renal GLUT2 in influencing blood glucose levels, Chhabra’s lab produced a new mouse model in which Glut2 gene selectively in the kidneys could be knocked out at a desired time. The mice — lacking Glut2 in the kidneys — were protected from both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Surprisingly, experimental obesity was also reversed within three weeks of inducing renal GLUT2 deficiency. This work was in collaboration with David McDougal at Louisiana State University and Dorien Peters at Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands. The research was published in Diabetologia.

Jannick Rolland, John Markman, and Taryn Ely.

Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering, who has been elected as an inaugural member of the Virtual Reality Academy created this year by IEEE’s Visualization and Graphics Technical Community. The VGTC provides technical leadership and organization in visualization, computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality, and interaction. The academy was created to recognize the accomplishments of leaders in these areas.

A recent example of her work in this area was a metaform, created by her lab in collaboration with Nick Vamivakas, professor of quantum optics and quantum physics, and researchers at the University of Michigan. The metaform can be combined with freeform optics to create the next generation of AR/VR glasses, headsets, and eye wear.

John Markman, professor of neurosurgery and neurology, director of the Translational Pain Research Program, and chief of the Division of Pain Medicine, who has is recipient of the 2022 Mitchell Max Scientific Award for his contributions to pain research by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).

The Academy cited the randomized controlled studies led by Markman in furthering the scientific understanding of the efficacy and safety of treatments for chronic low back pain and for chronic pain resulting from nerve injury. Markman has led more than 50 clinical trials that examined new methods and treatments for chronic pain. His team has devised standardized ways of assessing chronic pain that emphasize tolerability over intensity. Learn more.

Taryn Ely, a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Program in Visual and Cultural Studies, has been awarded a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies to support work on her dissertation, “A Medium of Madness: Neurodiversity in American Experimental Cinema.” Ely is one of seven winners of the prestigious 2022 Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowships in American Art.

“Each of the chapters is centered around films whose aesthetic and social histories engage with questions of madness or cognitive difference,” Ely writes in her abstract. The films, spanning the 20th century, are considered in historical context, shedding light on their relationship to contemporaneous theories in psychology, psychiatry, and related social science disciplines.

Participant recruitment for research is a persistent bottleneck that can be improved by leveraging electronic health records (EHRs).

A collaboration webinar from noon to 1 p.m., April 4, hosted by the Trial Innovation Network, will include an overview of an EHR-driven recruitment decision framework that has been developed to determine which EHR-based recruitment methodologies or tools would be most appropriate based on study- and site-specific details.

Learn more.

NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, has issued a global call for engineers, scientists, and developers–including university faculty, researchers, and students– to participate in a five-week-long RTEM (Real Time Energy Management) Hackathon.

Participants will have access to time-series data gathered from approximately 200 commercial and multi-family buildings statewide, including building automation systems, connected devices, utility meters, and IoT sensors. Participants will then be asked to prepare submissions that positively impact or accelerate the electrification and decarbonization of New York State commercial and multi-family buildings. Access to data will be available by April 22. Participants will then have until May 30 to submit their proposals. Prizes are $35,000 first place, $15,000 second place; $5,000 third place.

Interested? Sign up by April 15 at https://www.rtemhackathon.com/

The Role of Arts & Innovation in Revitalizing Downtown will be the topic of a panel discussion at this year’s University Technology Showcase, which will be held in person from 1-5 p.m., April 21, at the Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Avenue.

Registration is now open.

The showcase, sponsored by the Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences and the Center of Excellence in Data Science, will also include a poster session featuring technology presentations and exhibitor displays from diverse area universities, organizations, and researchers.

New this year will be a Western New York Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) Mini-conference starting at 2 p.m.

If you would like to present your research with a poster, send a summary abstract about your work to ceisweb@ur.rochester.edu.

Learn more.

The Environmental Health Sciences Center Elemental Analysis Facility was established to meet the growing need for high-sensitivity, quantitative analysis of trace elements within biological, chemical, and environmental samples. Learn more and email Matthew Rand or Tom Scrimale with questions.

The Rochester Early-Stage Investigator Network at the University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (UR CTSI) has curated over 40 documents from successful K01, K08, K23, KL2, and K99 award applications that University of Rochester faculty and staff can use as they prepare their own K grant applications.

This growing resource, which requires NetID login, includes full grant submissions as well as individual research plans, career development plans, specific aims, and summary statements. Learn more.