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Versiti Blood Research Institute graduate students awarded prestigious Chateaubriand Fellowship

August 02, 2024

Emily Boyd and Mindy Kim will conduct research at institutions in France that partner with laboratories at VBRI.

In summer 2024, two Versiti Blood Research Institute (VBRI) doctoral students, Emily Boyd, MS, and Mindy Kim, were awarded prestigious Chateaubriand Fellowships that will take them to France to study with research teams connected to laboratories at VBRI.

Offered by the Embassy of France’s Office for Science & Technology, the Chateaubriand Fellowship is a grant program for outstanding U.S. doctoral students pursuing education in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. As a partner with the U.S. National Science Foundation’s GROW program, it aims to strengthen projects between French and American research teams.

 

Emily Boyd

A fourth-year graduate student at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), Emily Boyd, MS, studies platelet and megakaryocyte biology in the laboratory of VBRI Investigator Hervé Falet, PhD. Megakaryocytes are large, rare cells found in the bone marrow that produce platelets and contribute to hemostasis. Dr. Falet’s lab also studies PACSIN2, a plasma membrane-bending protein that has many functions in the human body, among them endocytosis, or the process by which cells take in substances, including nutrients to support them and pathogens that harm them. PACSIN2 has been shown to be involved in megakaryocyte maturation and platelet production, making it a target of international research.

Dr. Falet connected with Anita Eckly, PhD, a researcher at the Université de Strasbourg who is an expert in megakaryocyte imaging in the bone marrow and whose research coincides with Boyd’s. “We proposed a grant in which I can learn techniques, such as whole bone marrow extraction and advanced microscopy, to elucidate the role of PACSIN2 in megakaryocyte function and biology,” Boyd said.

In October, Boyd will travel to Strasbourg, France, to work in Dr. Eckly’s laboratory. During her fellowship, she will study whether or not megakaryocytes act differently and how platelet production is affected by the loss of PACSIN2. “The next step is to bring all the skills I learn over there and apply them to my project here and finish my dissertation, as well as maintain a partnership with Dr. Eckly and her cohort,” Boyd said.

In addition to studying PACSIN2 and megakaryocytes, Boyd is interested in neuroscience and seeks to fuse what she learns about blood biology with brain diseases like Alzheimer’s. “It’s been shown that platelets do play a role in Alzheimer’s disease,” she said. Several studies have suggested that platelets are neuroprotective against neuroinflammation and neuronal injury, in which they can secrete stored neurogenerative factors such as serotonin and histamine. Yet conversely, platelets have been shown to promote the development of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, as they store and secrete precursors for amyloid-β plaques.

Boyd is confident that her work at VBRI and her fellowship in France will help her pursue her goals. “Once I complete my doctoral degree at MCW, I look to bridging my interests in hematology with my background in neuroscience,” she said. “My goal is to attend the University of Caen in Normandy, France, as a post-doctoral researcher, where I will have the immense opportunity to get training on multimodal neuroimaging and utilizing blood biomarkers to study neurological disorders.”

 

Mindy Kim

Mindy Kim is part of the MD/PhD program at MCW; she has completed two years of medical school and is in her first year of graduate school. In 2023, she joined the lab of VBRI Associate Investigator Ze Zheng, MBBS, PhD, an expert in tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA), an enzyme in the body that helps dissolve blood clots through a process called fibrinolysis. In fact, recombinant tPA revolutionized clinical therapies for myocardial infarctions as well as ischemic strokes. Fascinatingly, the Zheng lab recently discovered that tPA can also be derived in the liver and that it also plays a distinct role in lipoprotein assembly.

Given the intertwining relationship between lipoprotein and bile acid metabolism, Kim sought to further understand if bile acids influence tPA biology in the liver. Indeed, bile acids are well known for their function in fat emulsification, but in recent years, there has been a growing appreciation for their role as signaling molecules. Additionally, researchers found that bile acids have the capacity to interrupt the binding between tPA and its inhibitor, plasminogen activator inhibitor -1 (PAI-1). “My project in the Zheng lab involves looking at if bile acids interrupt this interaction and examining the downstream effects on lipoprotein assembly and fibrinolysis,” Kim said.

Kim counts herself lucky to work with Dr. Zheng, an expert in tPA in the liver. As part of the fellowship, Kim will travel to Normandy, France, where she will work alongside Denis Vivien, PhD, an expert in tPA in the brain, at the Blood and Brain Institute @ Caen Normandy (BB@C). “My project will look at the potential protective role of bile acids in atherosclerosis and thrombosis, or blood clot formation,” Kim said. “Through combining expertise in both the liver and the brain, I seek to unravel the role of bile acids in the context of atherosclerosis and the mechanisms that may be involved with strokes.”

During the fellowship, Kim will continue to closely communicate with the Zheng lab at VBRI. “Some of the work that I will perform in the lab will be presented in lab meetings at VBRI, which will stimulate a stronger connection and collaboration between the two labs,” she said.

Upon completion of the fellowship, Kim will return to VBRI and MCW, where she will complete her PhD and MD programs. “Being exposed to a different research environment, especially in a different country, will help inform and hopefully positively shape how I think scientifically as well as clinically in the future,” she said.

“The general goal for most students in MD/PhD programs is to become a principal investigator and to have their own lab. But, at the same time, I also really love interacting with people and patients,” she said. “It’s hard to find that happy medium, but I really want to be able to both work with patients while also having my own lab and conducting translational research to extend research from the bench to the bedside.”

“Even if it’s a long road, I’m passionate about becoming a physician scientist because you equip yourself with the tools to be directly involved with making advancements in medicine,” she added. “It’s a way of having the best of both worlds with the common goal of advancing science.”

 
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