Department Profile – Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Surinder K. Batra, Ph.D.

Department:      Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Chair:                 Surinder K. Batra, Ph.D.

Number of people in department (faculty/staff):

Faculty:                        25

Students:                      44          

Post-docs:                   16

Staff:                            14

Courtesy Faculty:        39

Total:                         138

New faculty joined during last 3 years:                     

Rebecca Deegan, Ph.D.

Punita Dhawan, Ph.D.

Ricia Katherine Hyde, Ph.D.

Sukhwinder Kaur, Ph.D.

Muzafar Macha, Ph.D.

Moorthy Ponnusamy, Ph.D.

Armen Petrosyan, Ph.D.

Satyanarayana Rachagani, Ph.D.

Amar Singh, Ph.D.

Melissa Teoh-Fitzgerald, Ph.D.

Kelly Trujillo, Ph.D.

New programs: 

Prostate Cancer Program (Basic and Translational)

GI Cancer Program

Clinical Validation Center (CVC) for diagnosis of pancreatic cancer

Program Project in Pancreatic Cancer (MUC16)

Significant New Research Grants (2014-15):

Surinder Batra, Ph.D., $1.57M from the NIH to study  "MIC-1 and its functional partners in prostate cancer racial disparity"

  • Surinder Batra, Ph.D. & Maneesh Jain, Ph.D., $2.18 million grant from NIH, NCI to study "Targeted Radiation Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer"
  • Surinder Batra, Ph.D. & Ram Mahato, Ph.D., $1.55M from the NIH to study "Polymeric Nanomedicines of Hedgehog Inhibitor and miRNA for Treating Pancreatic Cancer"
  • Surinder K. Batra, Ph.D., $100,000 from the NIH (Subcontract from UNL) to study "High Specificity MicroRNA Microarray Analysis without PCR for Cancer Screening and Research"
  • Surinder K. Batra, Ph.D., $162,000 from the NIH (TMEN supplement) to study "Extracellular vesicle mediated cellular cross-talk in Pancreatic Tumor Microenvironment"
  • Surinder K. Batra, Ph.D.,  $1.56M Targeting mucin and EGFR axis in pancreatic cancer
  • Surinder K. Batra, Ph.D and Chi Lin, M.D, $1.63M. Novel Targets in the radiosensitization of pancreatic cancer. NCI SPORE, Project 2
  • Rebecca Deegan, Ph.D., $1.59M from the NIH to study "MnTE-2-PyP as a radioprotector in prostate Cancer Therapy"
  • Kaustubh Datta, Ph.D., $1.5 million R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute to study neuropilin-2 and prostate cancer bone metastasis.
  • Punita Dhawan, Ph.D., VA Merit award to study the "Role of Claudin-1 in Colon Cancer"
  • Ricia Katherine Hyde, Ph.D., NIH R00 award for $936,244 to study "Analysis of Initiating Events in Inv(16) Associated Acute Myeloid Leukemia"
  • Maneesh Jain, Ph.D., NIH Cobre project for $674,979 to study "Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine – MUC4-based vaccine for pancreatic cancer"
  • Maneesh Jain, Ph.D., $100,000 from the NIH STTR program to study "Mucins in the Diagnosis and Prognosis of Pancreatic Disease" with company partner, Sanguine Diagnostics And Therapeutics, Inc.
  • Prakash Kshirsagar (Jain & Batra, Mentors), Ph.D., DoD Postdoctoral award, $124,000, to study "Nanotechnology based detection of novel microRNAs for early diagnosis of prostate cancer"
  • Ming-Fong Lin, Ph.D., $200,000 DoD "Nebraska Prostate Cancer Research Program".
  • Richard MacDonald, Ph.D., $358,000 R21 grant from NIH to study IGF-II-Based approach to therapy for pancreatic cancer
  • Justin Mott, M.D., Ph.D., NIH Cobre project with UNL for $677,250 to study "Palmitoleate Protects against Cholangiocyte Lipoapoptosis"
  • Armen Petrosyan, Ph.D., $565,000 K01 Award from the NIH to study alcohol effect on golgi morphology and function
  • Moorthy Ponnusamy, Ph.D., $383,000 from the NIH (K22) to study "hPaf1/PD2 in Pancreatic Cancer Stem Cells"
  • Amar Singh, Ph.D., NIH R01 for $653,206 to study the "Role of Claudin-2 in Inflammatory Diseases and Colon Cancer"
  • Melissa Teoh-Fitzgerald, Ph.D., NIH R01 grant for $1.5M to study "Extracellular Redox Signaling in mammary tumor-fibroblast interactions"

Significant Publications (2014-15)

2014

Ponnusamy MP and Batra SK. Insights into the role of nicotine in pancreatic stem cell activation and acinar dedifferentiation. Gastroenterology, 147(5):962-5, 2014

Teoh-Fitzgerald ML, Fitzgerald MP, Zhong W, Askeland RW, Domann FE. Epigenetic reprogramming governs EcSOD expression during human mammary epithelial cell differentiation, tumorigenesis and metastasis. Oncogene. 33(3):358-68, 2014

Petrosyan A, Holzapfel MS, Muirhead DE and Cheng P-W. Restoration of compact Golgi morphology in advanced prostate cancer enhances susceptibility to galectin 1-induced apoptosis by modifying mucin O-glycan synthesis. Molecular Cancer Research 12(12): 1704-16, 2014.

Peters S.L., Hlady R.A., Opavska J., Klinkebiel D., Pirruccello S.J., Talmon G.A., Sharp J.G., Wu L., Jaenisch R., Simpson M.A., Karpf A.R., Opavsky R. Tumor suppressor functions of Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b in the prevention of malignant mouse lymphopoiesis. Leukemia 28(5):1138-42, 2014.

Li, H., Spagnol, G., Naslavsky, N., Caplan, S., and Sorgen, P. L.  TC-PTP directly interacts with connexin43 to regulate gap junction intercellular communication. J. Cell Sci. 127:3269-79, 2014

Singh AB, Dhawan P. Claudins and cancer: Fall of the soldiers entrusted to protect the gate and keep the barrier intact. Semin Cell Dev Biol. 42:58-65, 2014

Kaur S, Sharma N, Krishn SR, Lakshmanan I, Rachagani S, Baine MJ, Smith LM, Lele SM, Sasson AR, Guha S, Mallya K, Anderson JM, Hollingsworth MA, Batra SK. MUC4-Mediated Regulation of Acute Phase Protein Lipocalin 2 through HER2/AKT/NF-κB Signaling in Pancreatic Cancer. Clinical Cancer Research, 20(3):688-700, 2014.

2015

Kumar S, Torres M, Kaur S, Rachagani S, Momi N, Baine M, Joshi S, Gilling C, Wyatt T, Jain, M, Joshi S and Batra SK. Smoking accelerates pancreatic cancer progression by promoting differentiation of MDSCs and inducing HB-EGF expression in macrophages. Oncogene 34(16):2052-60, 2015.

Reinecke JB, Katafiasz D, Naslavsky N, Caplan S. Novel functions for the endocytic regulatory proteins MICAL-L1 and EHD1 in mitosis. Traffic.  16(1):48-67, 2015.

Keck B, Wach S, Taubert H, Ott OJ, Kunath F, Hartmann A, Bertz S, Weiss C, Baretton GB, Rodel C, Sauer R, Fietkau R, Wullich B, Krause FS, Datta K, Muders MH. Neuropilin-2 and its ligand VEGF-C predict treatment response after transurethral resection and radiochemotherapy in bladder cancer patients. International Journal of Cancer. 136(2):443-51. 2015

Hyde RK, Zhao L, Alemu L, Liu PP. Runx1 is required for hematopoietic defects and leukemogenesis in Cbfb-MYH11 knock-in mice. Leukemia 29(8):1771-8, 2015

Lu Q, Insinna C, Ott C, Stauffer J, Pintado PA, Rahajeng J, Baxa U, Walia V, Cuenca A, Hwang YS, Daar IO, Lopes S, Lippincott-Schwartz J, Jackson PK, Caplan S, Westlake CJ. Early steps in primary cilium assembly require EHD1/EHD3-dependent ciliary vesicle formation. Nature Cell Biology 7(3):228-40.2015

Petrosyan A, Ali M, and Cheng P-W. Keratin 1 plays a critical role in Golgi localization of Core 2 N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase M via interaction with its cytoplasmic tail. J Biol Chem 290(10):6256-69, 2015

Bhat AA, Pope JL, Smith JJ, Ahmad R, Chen X, Washington MK, Beauchamp RD, Singh AB, Dhawan P. Claudin-7 expression induces mesenchymal to epithelial transformation (MET) to inhibit colon tumorigenesis. Oncogene 34(35):4570-80, 2015

Costa-Silva B, Aiello NM, Singh S, Zhang H, Thakur BK, Becker A, Hoshino A, Mark MT, Molina H, Xiang J, Zhang T, Theilen T-M, Garcìa-Santos G, Williams , Ararso Y, Huang Y, Rodrigues G, Shen T-L, Labori KJ, Lothe IMB, Kure EH,. Ocean AJ, Hernandez J, Doussot A, Ebbesen S, Grandgenett P, Hollingsworth M, Jain M, Mallya K, Batra SK,. Jarnagin WR, Schwartz RE, Matei I, Peinado H, Stanger B, Bromberg J, and Lyden D. Pancreatic cancer exosomes initiate pre-metastatic niche formation in the liver. Nature Cell Biology 17(6):816-26, 2015

Katoch,P., Mitra,S., Ray,A., Kelsey,L.S., Roberts,B., Wahl III JK, Johnson KR, and Mehta,P.P. The Carboxyl Tail of Connexin32 Regulates Gap Junction Assembly in Human Prostate and Pancreatic Cancer Cells. J Biol Chem 290, 4647-4662, 2015

Macha M, Rachagani S, Pai P, Gupta S, Lydiatt W, Smith R, Johansson S, Lele S, Kakar S, Lee J, Meza J, GantiA, JainM and Batra SK. MUC4 Regulates Cellular Senescence in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC) through p16/Rb Pathway. Oncogene, 34(13):1698-708, 2015

Muniyan, S., Chen, S.J., Lin, F.F., Wang, Z.Z., Mehta, P.P., Batra, S.K., Lin, M.F. ErbB-2 signaling plays a critical role in regulating androgen-sensitive and castration-resistant androgen receptor-positive prostate cancer cells. Cellular Signaling 27, 2261-2271, 2015

Rachagani S, Macha MA, Heimann N, Seshacharyulu P, Haridas D, Chugh S, Batra SK. Clinical implications of miRNAs in the pathogenesis, diagnosis and therapy of pancreatic cancer. Advances Drug Delivery Reviews 81C:16-33, 2015

Chou, Y.W., Lin, F.F., Muniyan, S., Lin, F.C., Chen, C.S., Wang, J., Huang, C.C., Lin, M.F. Cellular prostatic acid phosphatase (cPAcP) serves as a useful biomarker of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors in prostate cancer cell growth suppression. Cell & Biosciences 5:38, 2015

Lu S, Mott JL, and Harrison-Findik DD. Saturated Fatty Acids Induce Post-transcriptional Regulation of HAMP mRNA via AU-rich Element Binding Protein, HuR. J. of Biological Chemistry, 290(40):24178-89, 2015

Yang H, Matsumoto Y, Trujillo KM, Osley MA, Tomkinson AE. Role of the yeast DNA repair protein Nej1 in end processing during the repair of DNA double strand breaks by non-homologous end joining. DNA Repair, 31:1-10, 2015

Other highlights

Nebraska Prostate Cancer Research ProgramMing-Fong Lin, Ph.D. and William Chaney, Ph.D., worked on a collaborative program between UNMC and Clark Atlanta University providing summer research training opportunities to undergraduate students from a Historically Black College and University (HBCU).

Awards

FACULTY MEMBERS               AWARD/HONOR

Kaustubh Datta, Ph.D.                    2015 Distinguished Scientist Award

Melissa Teoh-Fitzgerald, Ph.D.      2015 New Investigator Award

Melissa Teoh-Fitzgerald, Ph.D.      2015 Joseph P. Gilmore Distinguished new investigator award

Laurey Steinke, Ph.D.                     2015 Spirit of Community Service award

POST-DOC                                     AWARD/HONOR

Ashley Mohr, Ph.D.                         2015 Charles Trey, MD Memorial Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award from the American Liver Foundation

Ashley Mohr, Ph.D.                         Excellence in Oral Presentation, BMB Annual Research Symposium 

Samikshan Dutta, Ph.D.                   Excellence in Presentation of a Scientific Poster, BMB Annual Research Symposium

GRADUATE STUDENTS           AWARD/HONOR

James Reinecke                                 Midwest Student Biomedical Research Forum, this recipient received an award for poster or oral presentation.

Suhasini Joshi                                 Midwest Student Biomedical Research Forum, this recipient received an award for poster or oral presentation

Kasturi Banerjee                             Midwest Student Biomedical Research Forum, this recipient received an award for poster or oral presentation

Srustidhar Das                               Outstanding Achievement in Graduate Studies, BMB Annual Research Symposium

Seema Chugh                                Outstanding Comprehensive Exam, BMB Annual Research Symposium

Saswati Karmakar                         Highest GPA – First year Student, BMB Annual Research Symposium

Priya Pai                                        Excellence in Oral Presentation, BMB Annual Research Symposium

Shuwei Xie                                    Excellence in Oral Presentation, BMB Annual Research Symposium

Hanjun Li                                      Excellence in Presentation of a Scientific Poster, BMB Annual Research Symposium

STAFF MEMBERS                  AWARD/HONOR

Kavita Mallya                             Gold 'U' Award – April 2015