CVR Trainee Day

I have been (rightfully) called out by my folks for not updating the website in FOREVER and now so many cool things have happend that I am embarrassed. This is called the PI walk of shame. We have had a ton of great things going on. We’ve also been barreling down towards a facility shutdown, so….that’s my excuse. Here’s my attempt at catchup!

In June, we had CVR Trainee Day. Organized by our trainees to highlight their work. They put the whole thing together - schedule, speakers, food, games (bingo) prizes. It literally brought tears to my eyes with how good of a job they did. Dang, we have some great trainees! They love being in CVR and it is evident.

Kaleigh and Rachael were part of the organizing committee. Rachael, Maris, Cade, and Neal all gave presentations.

The Organizers from 3 CVR labs

Rachael gave the first talk of the day!

Cade talking LACV!

Maris’s first time presenting her work :-)

And Neal, who just finished his freshman year at Pitt, also gave his first talk!

Also Neal was given a special award from Paul Duprex, CVR Director!

Congrats Neal!!!

Hartman Lab group photo

All CVR Photo

More photos in the Gallery

Connors et al. #1

Kaleigh has several fantastic studies that are in the publication process. So we are going to call 2024 the “Year of Connors et al”. She has worked really hard over the past couple of years to develop several novel experimental systems for use in our lab. The first one is the rat brain slice culture system that she validated and adapted for our use to study neurotropic bunyaviruses.

Journal of General Virology: Acute Rift Valley fever virus infection induces inflammatory cytokines and cell death in ex vivo rat brain slice culture

I posted about it on Twitter (X) which you can read about here.

What continues to amaze me about this is the fact that these slices are viable for at least 14 days, and Kaleigh did a lot of validation to understand what is happening in the cultures over time. In fact, we use the slices for infection studies after they have been in culture for 10 days because this give the tissue time to calm down from the trauma of slicing. The brains are from 6 day old rat pups, which is why they are able to stay viable for a long time. Similar slices from adult animals would likely not stay viable.

We plan to use these to test therapeutics in brain slices prior to in vivo testing. We hope this gives us a model that is intermediate between immortalized cell lines and cumbersome in vivo BSL-3 studies.

Kaleigh also produces the most beautiful fluorescent images of anyone in the lab (**Zach can certainly rival her for primary neuron images!). Look at these images from cleared slices. Nuclear filaments with active caspase 3 are always striking.

Using the vibratome to slice the brains is pretty cool. Here are some photos of a brain stabilized in agar and then mounted on a cork (See, the PI’s wine consumption comes in handy!). Also, a photo of Zach learning how to slice the brains.

Hartman Lab in the wild

We are traveling! Cindy is currently in Vancouver at the Society for Reproductive Investigations (SRI) meeting talking about her work with human and livestock placenta.

Rachael is also on the West Coast (Seattle) for the National Postdoctoral Association conference. In her ‘spare time’, Rachael is Madame President of Pitt’s Post-doc Association!

 
 

The next conference we will be attending will be ASV2024 at Ohio State in June. Lots of us are going!! See you there!

Congrats to Cade!

This is the smile of someone who just passed his comprehensive exam with flying colors!!

Celebration @ Industry Tap House

Both Austin and Cade are now through their comprehensive exams and are ready to get back to the lab full time!

Introducing 2 new team members....

Maris Pelow (below, left) is a 1st year master’s student in the IDM MS program. She is from Mechanicsburg, PA and completed her undergrad degree here at Pitt. She plays the clarinet and likes reading non-fiction.

Maris parallel TC-ing with Austin?!

We also welcome Neal Gupta (below), a freshman undergrad at Pitt who will be working with Cindy McMillen on reverse genetics and placental projects. Neal comes to us from Montville, NJ (he clarifies that this is just outside NYC). He likes working out / lifting weights, reading, and music. He is on the student government board here at Pitt.

Neal w/ attenuated RVFV

Congrats, Austin!

When a student in your lab passes their comprehensive exam, its always a proud moment as a PI. The student writes the proposal on their own and defends it, but the genesis of the project comes from our lab’s historical work. So to see a brand new student come in and, in less than 1 year, learn a whole new field - better than all of us put together - that’s a fantastic moment as a mentor. And Cindy’s mentorship of Austin as part of the Horns working group has also been invaluable for all of us.

Looking forward to where his project will take him (and us) next!!

Here’s the look of a guy who just passed his comps! Welcome to PhD candidacy, Austin! He got shit done!

SOTL

For about the past 6 years, I’ve done a State-of-the-Lab presentation with my lab group every January. This is not my original idea, but one I stole from my former colleague Carolyn Coyne. Its a fantastic way to summarize the year that just ended and plan for the next. I’m able to pull up last year’s presentation and see - did we accomplish what we set out to last year? If not, why or why not? Now that I’ve been in my career for 15 years now, I can reflect on a yearly basis. I alway know what I want to accomplish in the upcoming year, but in some years, goals get changed in ways that are out of my control (the SOTL that I gave in January 2020 quickly got thrown out the window lol!). I make a point to communicate to my lab that there are goals that I have for all of us (i.e. progress/grants/papers on certain projects) but that there are also goals that I have for MYSELF so that they can understand the process that I go through and how we are all learning/changing all the time (even the PI). Some goals are small and some are big. Its important to have a range. What I’ve realized is that some years are focused more on grants and others are focused more on publications (its very hard to focus on BOTH at the same time - that’s just reality). We’ve collectively worked on a lot of papers the past 6-8 months. While most of them are not quite ready to submit, they are all getting close, so 2024 should be a banner publication year! Feedback from my lab folks over the years is that they really like the SOTL. So I better get working on it :-)

January 17 is our SOTL date for this year!

The Path Forward

“We are concerned that the proposed NSABB oversight rules are not compatible with the realities of implementation, will not achieve the stated goals of increased safety or security, and will ultimately slow research progress to the overall detriment of pandemic preparedness.”

Virology - The Path Forward

NSABB has proposed changes to virology research that, if enacted, will hinder the research that labs like ours are able to do. Having worked in academic research with emerging viruses for 20+ years now, I am intimately familiar with the local and national regulations that are in place to ensure safety of the lab workers and the public. Safety underlies everything we do. Following rules and regulations is, quite literally, what I do for a living. I fully support the safe conduct of research and believe that it can be done safely and effectively. Its critical that we continue to discover new viruses and understand how they work so that we are not completely unprepared for the next hurdle that nature throws at us. Regulation for regulation sake, however, is not effective and will hinder progress. A rational approach to lab safety is paramount. I’ve worked with biosafety professionals for my entire career, and close collaboration between the scientists and the safety professionals is paramount to maintaining effective oversight of virology research.

CVR Holiday Party 2023

An epic time was had by all (as usual, Paul does a great job!)