2024 CVR Holiday party was unmatched, as always, although I was only there in spirit….check out additional photos here.
Our group has grown so large in the past 1-2 years! We love the UC7 techs joining us
November 1st
I got to do a fun thing. I was nominated for an Ascending Star award through the Senior Vice Chancellor’s office. I gave my lecture on November 1st.
This allowed (nay, forced) me to look back at everything the lab has done over the past 10+ years. It was really fun to put together - all of the people who have come through the lab are who made this happen. I am forever thankful for them. And for the support of my family, without it none of this would happen. My family was able to attend, which was very special for me.
Dr. Shekhar
Hello, christmas card photo ;-)
Paul, Dr. Shekhar, and Suresh
My family, parents, and in-laws
Preprints (x2): Oropouche virus
Oropouche orthobunyavirus (OROV) - a little-known oft-ignored peribunyavirus - has stepped up on stage to make itself known over the past year. https://www.science.org/content/article/why-did-obscure-virus-explode-latin-america-new-study-offers-clues
We have 2 pre-prints up on BioRXIV related to OROV.
The first one was posted last month. Kaleigh, Zach, and Maris have been working with OROV on the neuro angle for a while now. Since our publication of Lrp1 as a receptor for OROV, we’ve been studying its role in neuronal infection. Twitter thread on this paper is here.
Connors, K.A., M.R. Pedlow, Z.D. Frey, J.J. McGaughey, G.K. Amarasinghe, W.P. Duprex, L. D’Aiuto, Z.P. Wills, and A.L. Hartman. Characterization of neural infection by Oropouche orthobunyavirus. Posted 10/12/24. bioRxiv https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.11.617875v1. (Preprint)
Since then, we migrated to BlueSky. Find us at: @roguerifter.bsky.social
Cindy now has a preprint that just went live! This is placental work related to her K01. Great collab with Crissy Megli! More to come, including a bluesky thread!! Can’t stop my excitement!!!!!
Megli, C, R.K. Zack, J. McGaughey, R.M. Hoehl, T. Snisky, A.L. Hartman, and C.M. McMillen. Oropouche virus infects human placenta explants and trophoblast organoids. Posted 11/17/24. bioRxiv. 2024.11.16.623866 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.16.623866v1.
Thankful!
We have a lot of talented folks in the lab. For “Boss’s Day”, I received the Pittsburgh-famous burnt almond torte AND homemade edible BL/6 and CD1 mice! So thankful to work with this great crew :-)
New job postings
Kaleigh's second paper is published!
The 2nd Connors et al. paper of 2024 is now out!!
JCI Insight - possibly the most painful journal to work with to date in my career - but it is out in “print” officially!
Kaleigh wrote a great tweet-orial about it here.
This was and is a fun collaboration. The whole goal of developing the models over the years is to use them for testing countermeasures. This is the second study working with Jim Crowe’s group at Vanderbilt to evaluate neutralizing anti-RVFV mAbs in one of our disease models. The first was in the pregnant rat model.
This latest paper is the first to evaluate mAbs in the context of aerosol exposure and neurological disease - a very high bar for protection. This is just the beginning because we have additional studies planned.
Hartman Lab is looking to hire!
Within the next few months:
Lab Manager (bachelor’s or MS degree + experience)
and/or
Science Project Manager (PhD degree)
Until the jobs are officially posted on the Pitt website, find my informal description of the positions here.
Please reach out to me directly if you are interested! We are always looking for fun, dynamic folks to join our group. Sense of humor is a requirement!
2024 Summer Lab outing
Really fun summer outing this to Picklesburgh and the Pirate Game!
**Caroline was the honorary Hartman Lab mascot for the evening
***We even have our very own lab shirts this year***
Sheep vs human placenta
We have a new paper out this week - a study led by Cindy McMillen. The goal of the study was two-fold. First, do sheep and human placenta differ in their overall permissivity to RVFV infection (and could this explain the seeming discrepancy between the frequency of fetal infections in the two species)? Secondly, are live-attenuated strains (some of which are the basis for human/veterinary vaccines) still able to infect placenta from either species (and could this provide an indicator of potential safety)?
Direct comparisons between human and sheep placenta have not really been done before, at least in a systematic fashion. So Cindy set out to collect placenta from local farms and the local women’s hospital.
These twins with their mama are part of this study
Devin with placenta collection cooler
Sheep placenta prior to dissection
Nobody really wants to come into our lab due to this type of stuff
Dissected and plated villi
Here’s the papa
Dyanmic placenta duo
This is actually a cow placenta (not featured in the current manuscript)
twinsies
Sheep villi before dissection
Find the full paper here: Vaccine strains of Rift Valley fever virus exhibit attenuation at the maternal-fetal placental interface
I have a twitter thread on this here where I discuss our findings. Check out the whole paper. We also have some fantastic science art done by Hayley Nordstrom.
ASV 2024 Columbus / THE Ohio State University
ASV was in Columbus OH this year. That meant CVR Party Bus. No photos of the CVR Party Bus exist but we may have had CVR-colored solo cups on board.
Our lab was represented by Kaleigh and Cade on night 1 with flash talks & posters (double-duty). On the last day, I pinch-hit for Cindy and then Austin knocked it out of the park after me.
We enjoyed having former lab member Devin Boyles joining us for the week!!!
Fantastic week of networking - I forgot how much fun ASV meetings can be!
