IGM faculty candidates

[Kirby Smith]

Dear IGM faculty,

The faculty recruitment committee will meet next week to determine which of the 5 applicants recently visiting the IGM should be invited back for a chalk talk and additional discussion. Could you please send me and Dave a summary of your thoughts on the qualifications of the 5 candidates listed below for joining the IGM faculty. Your preference ranking would also be useful. I have attached their applications.

Thanks,

Kirby

Hao Wu

            Seminar Title: “Seeing is believing: Molecular genetic studies of neuronal structure”

    Current Position: Postdoctoral fellow with Jeremy Nathans

      Research Interests: Centers on understanding the cellular structure and diversity of the mammalian nervous system in physiological and pathological conditions using genetically engineered mice as a model system. He developed a Cre dependent X-linked dual color reporter system to define cellular resolution map of X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) in the mammalian CNS.

 Amnon Koren

         Seminar Title: “DNA replication timing in genetic and epigenetic inheritance”

  Current Position: Postdoctoral fellow with Steve McCarroll in the Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School

   Research Interests: Will explore the role of the DNA replication timing program with respect to the cellular, genetic, and epigenetic consequences of early versus late DNA replication. Will investigate the influence of programmed replication timing on the generation and distribution of mutations across the genome and how cells organize this complex genome-scale process in space and time.

 Manuel Ascano

            Seminar Title: “The role of RNA- and DNA- binding proteins in post-transcriptional gene regulation and innate immunity”.

    Current Position: Research Associate with Thomas Tuschi at Rockefeller U.

       Research Interest: Investigate nucleic acid binding proteins in post-transcriptional gene regulation that is involved in the mediation of cellular stresses that affects the fitness of the innate immune response, a biological axis with implications on the changes associated with aging, FMR1 and partner RBPs that are associated with degenerative disorders.

 Daniel Bauer

            Seminar Title: “Editing regulatory DNA to decipher and treat blood disorders”

       Current Position:  Instructor in Pediatric Hematology, working with Stu Orkin.

        Research Interest: His research focus will be to discover and functionally evaluate trait-associated enhancers in hematopoiesis, to identify novel regulators of hemoglobin switching, as well as to realize disease-associated elements as targets for therapeutic genome editing.

Vivek Kumar      

 Seminar Title: “forward genetic approaches to reward behaviors in mice”

Current Position: Instructor in Neuroscience at UT Southwestern, working with Joe Takahashi

 Research Interest: He intends to study reward behaviors, such as addiction, using a functional genomics approach in mice that combines genetics, biochemistry, physiology, and imaging to dissect complex behavior in mammals. He has established a high-throughput phenotyping, genotyping and mapping pipeline to identify the causative mutation and successfully conducted forward genetic screens in mice for cocaine response and using open field behavior identified a novel gene (Cyfip2) and ten ENU mutants. His immediate goal is to clone the ENU mutants already identified and using sequencing technology and his forward screening approach identify novel pathways regulating cocaine response, open field behavior and other motivational reward behaviors.

 

 

[Hal Dietz]

Of all the candidates I saw, I liked Koren the best (I did not meet with Bauer, but hear great things). Wu and Ascano were both very bright and have developed great experimental systems, but seemed ambiguous regarding what to do with them. I think that I was least impressed with Kumar.

Hal

Hal Dietz, MD

Victor A. McKusick Professor of Medicine and Genetics

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Director, William S. Smilow Center for Marfan Syndrome Research

Institute of Genetic Medicine

Departments of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Molecular Biology & Genetics

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

733 N. Broadway, BRB 539

Baltimore, MD  21205

(410) 614-0701

(410) 614-2256 (fax)

hdi...@jhmi.edu

<Wu_Hao_1249.pdf><Koren_Amnon__1249.pdf>

<Ascano_Manuel_M_1249.pdf>

<Bauer_Daniel_E__1249.pdf>

<Kumar_Vivek__1249.pdf>