Karsan's Lab

Anita Fang, Project Manager for Dr. Aly Karsan

Dr. Aly Karsan was recently awarded three new grants.

1. Canadian Institutes of Health Research
"Vascular differentiation" $910,350 for 5 years PI: Aly Karsan
2. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada
"Bypassing resistance to Lenalidomide in del(5q) MDS" $200,000 For 2 years PI: Aly Karsan
3. Canadian Institutes of Health Research
"Hematopoietic stem cell aging" $914,175 for 5 years PI: Aly Karsan

Patrick Coulombe (Ph.D. Graduate Student of Dr. Aly Karsan) – a new article was published in cell reports.

Paper:
Coulombe P, Paliouras GN, Clayton A, Hussainkhel A, Fuller M, Jovanovic V, Dauphinee S, Umlandt P, Xiang P, Kyle AH, Minchinton AI, Humphries RK, Hoodless PA, Parker JDK, Wright JL, Karsan A. Epithelial tumour suppressor ELF3 required for lung maturation through nitric oxide signaling. Cell Rep. 2019 May 7;27(6):1769-1780.e4. PMID: 31067462
Brief summary:
Lung immaturity is a major cause of respiratory distress and mortality in premature newborns. In this publication, we identified a role for the protein Sash1 in driving perinatal lung maturation in mice via nitric oxide signaling. Our findings suggest that nitric oxide release by endothelial cells, upon the interaction of SASH1 with β-arrestin1, is an important step in preterm alveolar maturation to allow proper lung inflation at birth.

Vijay Akhade is one of the 2019 Research Trainee Award Recipients, project title: "Investigating noncoding RNA networks in hematopoiesis"

Dr. Vijay Suresh Akhade, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Prof. Aly Karsan’s lab, is the recipient of MSFHR Research Trainee Award 2019. The MSFHR Research Trainee Program was initiated in 2001 with more than 1200 Research Trainee awards granted till date. This award is aimed to provide salary support for health researchers in the training phase of their research career to enable career development and the advancement of world-class health research in BC. MSFHR has announced 38 exceptional BC health researchers as 2019 Research Trainee award recipients in areas ranging from stroke rehabilitation to improving sepsis outcomes.

Vijay completed his doctoral studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) followed by a three years post-doctoral research at the University of Gothenburg. Vijay joined Prof Karsan’s lab in August 2018. Vijay’s research is focused on investigating non-coding RNA regulatory networks in hematopoiesis: complex biochemical interactions between microRNAs, long non-coding RNAs and mRNAs. Exploring the non coding RNA networks would help uncover the functional and mechanistic details of a novel post transcriptional gene regulatory mechanism in normal as well as malignant hematopoiesis leading to identification of new non coding RNAs for prognosis and therapy in future.