“Tangled string is a nuisance when knitting, but did you know that tangled string can also cause cancer?” asked Atreya Dey, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at UC San Francisco’s Postdoc Slam competition on Sept. 17.
Speaking to a live and virtual audience of nearly 600 at UCSF’s Genentech Auditorium at the Mission Bay campus, Dey recalled mischievously unraveling his grandmother’s knitting yarn as a child — then paralleled the anecdote to the six-foot strand of DNA that exists in every cell. A tangled strand during cell division can cause conditions like cancer and Down Syndrome, he said.
Dey’s presentation about the tangled DNA earned him first prize among the 10 postdoctoral finalists competing for the top prize of $4,000. Finalists were limited to three-minute presentations of their research, TED Talk-style, to spectators and a panel of judges. Each year, Postdoc Slam is the featured event in UCSF’s celebration of National Postdoc Appreciation Week, which celebrates and recognizes the contributions of postdoctoral scholars to research and discovery at institutions worldwide.
“Our rockstar postdocs are the silent engines of our community, bringing their best talents to labs and workspaces every day to push the boundaries of innovation,” said Nicquet Blake, PhD, vice provost and dean, Division of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs.
Watch the winning talk: Atreya Dey, PhD, won first place at this year’s Postdoc Slam. Watch his award-winning talk, “Theory of 100,000 Grandmas.”
“Grandmas in my cells”
Dey’s presentation, “Theory of 100,000 Grandmas,” explained the natural folding of the DNA strand in each cell of the body during cell division. This folding can cause tangles but is usually controlled by a protein called “condensin,” which keeps the DNA in check during the complex cell division process. He likened condensin to his grandmother, patiently untangling the knots in his messy bundle of yarn.
Dey’s lab, led by faculty advisors Andrej Sali, PhD, and Ignacia Echeverria Riesco, PhD, built a computational model to study how condensin rapidly folds the meters-long human genome into micrometer-sized chromosomes. Their experiments revealed that there are 100,000 condensin proteins present in a single cell and showed what the condensin should look like when correctly packaged in the cell before division. This research is creating a framework for understanding and verifying the chromosome folding process, which could lead to improved treatments for diseases, like cancer and Down Syndrome, which are caused by misfolding chromosomes.
Dey lightheartedly concluded his presentation by expressing his gratitude to the “100,000 grandmas in my cells, protecting me from cancer.”
What happens when the brain’s clean-up crew doesn’t get the message?
Second place winner, Jarin Tusnim, PhD, received a $2,000 prize for her presentation, “Breaking the Silence: How Astrocytic GPR56 Can Protect the Alzheimer’s Brain.”
Tusim described how GPR56 — a G-protein receptor on brain cells called astrocytes that keep the brain functioning smoothly — communicate with the brain’s cleanup crew, microglia, to help protect the brain from Alzheimer’s disease. Tusim’s research, led by her faculty advisor, Xianhua Piao, MD, PhD, is decoding the cellular conversation between astrocytes and microglia to identify new drugs to target for a cure for Alzheimer’s.
Preventing pneumonia by re-learning to swallow
Rabab Rangwala, PhD, CCC-SLP, was the third-place winner, receiving $1,000, and stole the audience’s hearts as the People’s Choice Award winner, which came with an additional $750.
Rangwala’s presentation, “Where There’s a Swallow, There’s a Synchrony,” described the sometimes-deadly impact of Parkinson’s disease on patients’ abilities to swallow food or water. She explained that the process of exhaling, pausing, swallowing, and exhaling again, is taken for granted in healthy patients. However, for patients with Parkinson’s Disease, the breathing rhythm falters, the swallowing reflex gets out of sync with the patient’s breath, and food and liquids go down the wrong way into the lungs. This can cause a dangerous form of pneumonia, which is a leading cause of death in patients with Parkinson’s disease.
“By understanding how Parkinson’s changes the rhythm between breathing and swallowing, I hope to help improve care and lower risks like choking or aspiration to inform more effective treatments,” Rangwala said. Her faculty advisor is Srikantan Nagarajan, PhD.