Gregory Crawford, dean of the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame, will be embarking on his fourth annual bicycle ride on June 27 (Thursday) to raise funds for research to find a cure or treatments for Niemann-Pick Type C (NPC) disease. He will be biking 3,476 miles from Los Angeles to Baltimore and will arrive on Aug. 2. By the end of this year’s journey, he will have biked more than 11,200 miles to raise awareness for the rare genetic disease.

NPC is a cholesterol-storage disorder that primarily affects children before or during adolescence. The disease causes cholesterol to accumulate in the body’s cells and eventually leads to neurodegenerative problems that are always fatal. Legendary Notre Dame football coach Ara Parseghian lost three of his grandchildren to the devastating disease.

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A new study by a team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame provides an important new insight into how cancer cells are able to avoid the cell death process. The findings may reveal a novel chemotherapeutic approach to prevent the spread of cancers.

Metastasis, the spread of cancer from one organ to other parts of the body, relies on cancer cells’ ability to evade a cell death process called anoikis, according to Zachary T. Schafer, Coleman Assistant Professor of Cancer Biology at Notre Dame. Metastasizing cancer cells are able to block anoikis, which normally results from detachment from the extracellular matrix. However, Schafer notes that the molecular mechanisms that cancer cells detached from the extracellular matrix use to survive have not been well understood.

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Some 75 researchers and family members from around the world attended the Michael, Marcia, and Christa Parseghian Scientific Conference for Niemann-Pick Type C on June 13-15. The event included more than 20 scientific presentations, posters, events for families, and shared receptions.

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An international team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame’s Eck Institute for Global Health and Imperial College London has recently published its work on a malaria-filaria co-transmission model, where the same mosquito transmits both diseases together. Found in large areas of sub-Saharan Africa, one mosquito genus, Anopheles, carries both the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum and the microfilarial worm Wuchereria bancrofti, which causes lymphatic filariasis, which can develop into elephantiasis.

According to lead researcher Edwin Michael, professor of biological sciences specializing in epidemiology at the University of Notre Dame, “This has major implications for the transmission of each disease in endemic settings, and, of course, for developing better control interventions that ensure that removal of one disease does not have a profound (a worse health impact) outcome for diseases caused by the other pathogen.”

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The Eck Institute for Global Health is hosting the 2013 Arthropod Genomics Symposium and VectorBase Workshop Wednesday-Saturday (June 12-15) at McKenna Hall at the University of Notre Dame.

More than 225 researchers from around the globe will gather to discuss current and future research. The researchers who are presenting are at the forefront of genomic approaches to arthropods, both model organisms and those of agricultural or health relevance. Some will share methods for developing tools for genomic analysis. The symposium will be broken into sessions including emerging genomes, epigenomics, systems biology/population genomics and ecological genomics/metagenomics. The event includes a vendor fair and two poster sessions where more than 125 posters will be presented.

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Michael Vella, a rising applied and computational mathematics and statistics major, has been selected for a highly competitive Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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Thirty-two researchers from universities and institutions around the world will present their latest research findings at the 2013 Michael, Marcia and Christa Parseghian Scientific Conference for Niemann-Pick Type C Research on June 13-15 (Thursday-Saturday) in the Jordan Hall of Science at the University of Notre Dame.

The three-day conference is split into seven sessions with international representatives from the Netherlands, Germany, France, New Zealand, Chile, Hungary and Switzerland, as well as researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, Scripps Research Institute, the National Institutes of Health and many other universities and institutes.

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Norman Dovichi, the Grace-Rupley Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has received the 2013 ANACHEM Award from the Association of Analytical Chemistry (ANACHEM) for his achievements as an analytical chemist and educator.

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Malgorzata Dobrowolska-Furdyna, the Rev. John Cardinal O’Hara, C.S.C. Professor of Physics, has been appointed to the position of associate dean for undergraduate studies in the College of Science.  In this role, she will direct the undergraduate affairs of the College of Science, serve as chair of the college undergraduate committee, and will be the liaison to the Registrar's Office and the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

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Robert V. Stahelin, adjunct assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame and associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Indiana University School of Medicine-South Bend (IUSM-SB), has been selected as one of four inaugural Showalter Scholars at IUSM.

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