The Mount Sinai Postdoc Periodical Monthly newsletter, November 2015 Interview with Dr. Ana B. Gorini da Veiga, PhD: The First Brazilian to In this issue: finish the 2015 NYC Marathon and a Mount Sinai Postdoctoral Fellow Page 1: By Delaine Ceholski Interview with Dr. Ana B. Gorini Dr. Veiga is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Mount Sinai and she was the first Brazilian to cross the finish line at the 2015 Marathon. With a time of 2:59:24, she is Page 2: making headlines all over and we were lucky enough to have her share her story and Career Paths: A Scientist Embarks secrets to a speedy marathon finish with us! on a New Role in Government Where did you do your PhD and where are you doing your postdoc? Co-chair Corner I received my Master’s and Doctoral degrees through the Graduate Program in Cellular and Page 3: Molecular Biology of the Center of Biotechnology of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do “Human Chimeras”: Science Sul (UFRGS) in my hometown of Porto Alegre, Brazil. A good part of my PhD project was Fiction Becomes Reality performed in Bethesda, MD through a collaboration with the National Institutes of Health. Currently, I am a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Adolfo García-Sastre’s laboratory in the Depart- Upcoming events ment of Microbiology at Mount Sinai where I am primarily working with influenza viruses. Page 4: How long have you been running? Are you a member of any running groups or do you Science on a Shoe String: Untangling receive any coaching? Chromosome Conformation in I started running in March 1993 when I was 16 years old and had come to the USA as an Health and Disease exchange student in high school. I gained a lot of weight and running was the way to burn off those extra pounds. Since then running has become a huge part of my life – as a matter of fact, I have spent more years in my life as a runner than as a non-runner. I run by myself and don’t train with a group or a coach. My friends in Brazil who have running clubs sometimes invite me to run a race as a representative of their club, covering registration fees and other costs. Also, sometimes companies sponsor or pay me to run a particular race. For example, I have run for Nike, Olympikus (a large Brazilian sports brand), Asics, food companies, and wineries. How do you balance your work as a postdoc with training for long distance running? Running is one of the easiest sports to do: it doesn’t require a specific time of the day, a team, or any specialized equipment. You just get out there and… run! For me there are no excuses not to go running. I have always been a morning person so I usually run early in the morning. That way, I have all day to do my experiments. Besides that, I avoid running 2 days in a row so I generally run 2-3 times during the week and then on Saturday or Sunday. That doesn’t interfere with any of my other activities and, because I don’t follow any specific training, I can just run whenever I have the time to do it. What are your career goals? My situation here is a little bit different from other postdoctoral fellows. In Brazil, I am an associate professor at Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), a federal university specializing in health sciences. I teach, have many administrative roles, and supervise undergraduate and graduate students in my lab in Brazil. All the activities of a pro- fessor in Brazil are time consuming and leave me with very little time to do research, which is why I decided to take 1 year off and come to Mount Sinai to focus on my research project. My long-term goal is to maintain this collaboration or get a permanent position at Mount Sinai. What’s your favorite thing about running? How does it complement your life as a research- er and what are your future goals as a non-professional runner? Dr. Ana B. Gorini Running has made me better able to focus and organize my thoughts. It’s also come with increased self-awareness. Run- ning is about discipline, meditation, and clearing the mind. As a non-professional runner, I enjoy running some races. As mentioned earlier, in Brazil I don’t have to pay registration fess to sign up for a race because usually a sponsor will cover my costs. However, in the USA I have to pay the registration fees, which can be quite expensive. Through New York Road Runners, I ran the Fifth Avenue Mile (13th place among 451 women in my age group, 146th woman among 2881 wom- en finishers) and Grete’s Great Gallop Half Marathon (5th place among 329 in my age group, 28th woman among 2128 women finishers) in 2015. In the NYC marathon, I was 16th among non-professional runners and 53rd among all women, which is interesting since 112 professional runners ran the race and I was faster than many of them. Since coming to NYC, I haven’t been running as many races as I’d like due to the cost plus I want to focus on my project and try to get a good publication before going back to Brazil in 2016. The Mount Sinai Postdoc Periodical, November 2015 Page 1 Career Paths: A Scientist Embarks on a New Role in Government Co-Chair Corner By Andrew Koemeter-Cox After the dust settled on the results of ’s 2015 fed- Dear fellow postdocs, eral elections in mid-October, most of the news in the U.S. focused on the new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. Besides We hope you had a fun Halloween and are enjoying the fall! Trudeau, there were over 200 new members of the Canadi- The shorter days and the looming end of year may trigger an House of Commons sworn into office on the fourth of some introspection on the personal and professional fronts. November. As Canada’s politics are not wholly beholden to Perhaps this is a good time to do or update the planning that two major parties, a number of the fresh faces belong to the is key to a successful career. An individual development plan New Democratic Party, or NDP. One of these NDP members is a great way to plan out short- and long-term goals and keep is Dr. Richard Cannings, a biologist who now represents the track of your progress. You can make use of the framework South Okanagan-West Kootenay district of British Columbia provided at http://myidp.sciencecareers.org/ and use this plan (B.C.). as a starting point for discussion with your mentors. Dr. Cannings served for many years on the British Colum- In case you missed the good news, Mount Sinai has a new Di- bia Environmental Appeal Board and the Committee on the rector of Career Services, Dr. Ellie Schmelzer. She has rolled Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. More recently, he out exciting new programs to help postdocs and graduate stu- was a consulting bi- dents plan and develop their careers. This includes periodic ologist on a number workshops and seminars, as well as one-on-one appointments of projects in Can- for advice on career strategy, polishing your CV/resume, or ada and his home preparing for that job interview. Check out the postdoc list- district of B.C. Not serv emails for news on upcoming events or simply reach out a stereotypically shy to Ellie to make an appointment. You can avail of her walk-in scientist, Dr. Can- office hours if you have a quick question. nings was very ac- tive in science edu- Another career development tool at your fingertips is the Post- cation and outreach doc Secondary Mentoring Database. Have you matched to as an author, radio a secondary mentor who can guide you on the path to your host, and even tour career of choice? Have you reached out to her/him to initiate guide. He decided Dr. Richard Cannings the mentoring relationship? If so, do let a member of the Post- to run for political doc Executive Committee, Ryan, or me know how it is going office when, in his words, he “felt that science in general had and if you have any suggestions or comments. If not, you can really been ignored…or discounted by the previous govern- sign up at postdoctoralmentorship.mssm.edu and find your ment.” mentor match. While his outreach efforts prepared him somewhat for the large amount of public speaking required of a political can- Good luck as you prepare for the next step in your careers- af- didate, Dr. Cannings faces numerous challenges in his new ter all, that is what postdoctoral training is all about! career as a politician. Firstly, he must deal with the less glam- Best, orous tasks of finding an apartment in Ottawa, the Canadian capital, and setting up district offices. As a member of the Merina third-most popular party in the parliament, he may not re- ceive his ideal science or environmental related committee as- Ryan J. Cummings and Merina Varghese are your PEC signments, and may find it a little more difficult to advance co-chairs his agenda. The biologist is not completely unprepared for his Ways to keep in touch new role, as he was mentored for over a year by his predecessor • Our website: http://icahn.mssm.edu/education/post- in the office, Alex Atamanenko. doctoral-training Cannings’ biggest priorities while in office are to tackle climate • Follow our Twitter account: @MtSinaiPostdocs “Mount Sinai Postdocs” change and other pressing environmental issues, in addition • Join our Facebook page: • Follow us on LinkedIn (Mount Sinai Postdocs and to his party’s focus on food security and affordable childcare. Postdoc Alumni) Already a seemingly practiced politician, he pledges to make the concerns of his district’s constituents one of his top priori- The Mount Sinai Postdoc Periodical ties. While Dr. Cannings will face many challenges in his new Chief editor: Delaine Ceholski Editors: Przemek Gorski, career as a member of parliament, he hopes to be the “voice of Alaa Abdine, Octavia Bane, Mar Gacias-Monserrat, Nata- science in Parliament,” and bring “science back to governing.” sha Eliyahu-Shtraizent, Olivia Engmann, Andrew Koeme- It will be interesting to see how he applies his scientific train- ter-Cox, Laura Lecce, Chiara Mariottini, Ifeanyi Obiorah, ing and experience in this new arena. Salvador Sierra The Mount Sinai Postdoc Periodical, November 2015 Page 2 “Human Chimeras”: Science fiction becomes reality By Laura Lecce A chimera is a single organism composed of genetically dis- their biological mother. The court ordered a witness to be tinct cells. Blood chimeras are people with more than one present at the birth of her third child, which was immediately blood type and can occur when non-identical twins share a DNA tested. The results showed that she was not the biolog- blood supply in utero or in a person with blood cells from ical mother of the child, but her mother’s DNA matched all a twin that died early in gestation. Interestingly, about 8% three children as their grandmother. After acquiring her DNA of non-identical twin pairs are chimeras. Tetragametic chime- from a cervical smear, which had different DNA to her hair rism occurs with the fertilization of two separate ova by two and skin, it was finally proven she was the biological mother sperm, followed by aggregation of the two at the blastocyst and a chimera possessing two different sets of DNA (ref 2). or zygote stages. As the organism develops, it can come to A similar case unfolding at the same time involved a woman possess organs with different sets of chromosomes. To date, named Karen Keegan who was suffering from renal failure. the identification of human chimeras is very rare with only 30 DNA testing was performed to determine if her immediate documented cases worldwide. However, with increased use of family could donate. It was discovered that her DNA did not ultrasounds, the incidence of the loss of a twin during preg- match two of her three children. Multiple tissues were then nancy is thought to occur in 20-30% of multiple pregnancies. collected for testing but none matched the DNA of her sons. Thus, human chimeras are likely to be far more common than After testing a thyroid nodule which Keegan had removed we currently know. many years prior, the DNA finally matched her children (ref 3). The most recent example of a chimera, which is currently in the news, is of a father who failed a paternity test. After a ge- netic ancestry test was performed, it showed that the man was actually his son’s uncle. It is thought that the man absorbed his dead twin in utero and the father of the boy is actually the man’s unborn twin (ref 4). It is estimated that approximately one in eight single childbirths start out as a multiple pregnan- cies and, in some instances, cells from the miscarried siblings are absorbed by the surviving twin. Increased genetic testing www.medicanalife.com and in vitro fertilization using multiple embryos will likely In 1953, “Mrs. McK” was the first identified human chimera. contribute to an increase in the incidence and identification Discovered through routine screening of blood donation, it of human chimeras in the future. was found that she had a mixture of both A and O cells. It turned out that Mrs. McK’s twin brother had died 25 years Ref 1 http://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/2/4827/81.full.pdf prior at the age of 3 months. Mrs. McK became the first ever Ref 2 http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/shes-twin/story?id=2315693 human identified as having two sets of blood groups as the re- Ref 3 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa013452 sult of vascular communication with her twin in utero (ref 1). Ref 4 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-chime- In 2002, Lydia Fairchild was finally identified as a chimera ra-man-fails-paternity-test-because-genes-in-his-saliva-are-different-to- after a convoluted set of events. Fairchild had two children those-in-sperm-a6707466.html and was pregnant with the third when she applied for child support. Requiring evidence proving the biological father of her children, the result surprisingly showed that she was not

UPCOMING EVENTS

-Dr. John Steele is conducting a scientific teaching workshop entitled “Using Inclusivity and Alignment to Maximize Student Learning” on January, 21, 2016 from 2:30-4:30pm (location TBD). Please RSVP here (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/P5NDPBV). -The Office of Career Services and Strategy Winter sessions are in full gear! Check out “Interviewing: Tips and Insights” on November 18th from 4-5 pm in Anbg 19-79 and “‘NEW JOB’ Negotiations (Presentation/Discussion)” on December 16th from 4-5 pm in CSM 5-101 (bring questions!). Please email [email protected] if you have any questions about these seminars or if you would like to schedule a meeting to discuss your future career plans! -Writing seminar: The next seminar is January 12 at 4pm. Stay tuned! -The Postdoc Writing Group meets the 3rd Friday of each month at noon in Hess Center room 10-122 (10th floor). The next meeting is November 20. If you have writing to work on, bring a few copies of it (1-2 pages, ideally an abstract or introduction and no results or methods sections). The group will also read CVs and cover letters. Follow the ISMMS Postdoc Writing group on twitter @PostdocWriting. To join the mailing list visit: http://mailman.mssm.edu/mailman/listinfo/postdoc-writing -Next Postdoc Social is Friday, November 20 at 5pm in the Icahn MC Alcove. Come for food and drinks!

The Mount Sinai Postdoc Periodical, November 2015 Page 3 Science on a shoe string: Untangling chromosome conformation in health and disease By Olivia Engmann DNA is a two meter-long thread comparable to a thin rope or boot string. As anyone leaving their earphones out knows, fila- mentous objects tend to spontaneously assume complex conformations that are hard to conceive or untangle.

More than a century ago, Ramon y Cajal was the first person to describe subnuclear structures. In 1928, Emil Heitz observed eu- and hetero-chromatin in moss nuclei, which later turned out to reflect different stages of transcriptional activity. Since then, we have learned that DNA is wrapped around histones, which are neatly stacked in tight three-dimensional assemblies, shortening the length of DNA to 1/200,000 and allowing it to fit into a mammalian nucleus. However, on the transcriptional level, two-dimensional thinking prevailed: once the DNA is uncoiled, RNA polymerase slides along the DNA in order to transcribe mRNA from a gene.

In the last decade, however, the idea emerged that uncoiled DNA can also assume three-dimensional conformations, called loops. These lasso-like structures assemble active chromatin in distinct domains that share regulatory machinery. Chromatin marks on distal enhancers or genes can impact DNA regions that are kilobases away but these distal chromatin-marks were hard to interpret on a two-dimensional level. Understanding DNA-looping has led epigeneticists into a new dimension of understanding the genome.

The development of chromosome conformation-capture (3C) techniques (launched by Job Dekker and colleagues in 2002), reaches from the targeted 3C to whole genome High-C approaches. It has provided science with a new understanding of dis- tinct three-dimensional regulatory domains including enhancers, genes and a plethora of binding factors, such as the insulator protein CTCF and long non-coding RNAs. Publications on new factors are emerging almost every month, mostly conducted on simple cellular models such as yeast or uniform liver cells.

Once 3C techniques became more widely recognized, laboratories doing research in disease-related fields such as cancer and metabolomics were able to show that DNA-loops are plastic and can be altered in response to internal and external stimuli. Hence it was only a question of time until the technique was extended to psychiatric conditions. Despite additional challeng- es such as the variety of cell types in brain tissue and large quantities of DNA required, groups such as the team of Sharam Akbarian at Mount Sinai Hospital have succeeded in showing that DNA-looping plays a crucial role in disorders of the brain such as schizophrenia. In addition to ChIP-seq or RNA-seq, we may see this technique become a staple in epigenetics labs and perhaps help untangle some of the riddles surrounding DNA.

Traditional and recent ideas of gene function Left: DNA unwinds from nucleosomes to bind the molecular machinery for gene transcription. Right: A given gene or intergenic region can bind molecules that regulate the transcription of a distal gene

The Mount Sinai Postdoc Periodical, November 2015 Page 4