Mellon Scholar Seminar Series

To showcase research by the Richard King Mellon Institute for Pediatric Research at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Mellon Scholars have an opportunity to present at the program’s monthly seminar series.

Held on the third Wednesday of the month, the seminars feature two 30-minute lectures spotlighting research by Mellon Scholars and guest speakers. Presenters are asked to focus on their hypotheses, general concepts, and technologies used. Divisional and hospital leadership are invited to attend the presentations, which are conducted at 4 p.m. and are done virtually, in the Rangos Conference Center, or both.

For physicians and health care professionals, continuing education credit is available for attending the seminars. The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, which is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, designates this educational activity for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit. Other health care professionals can receive 0.1 continuing education unit (CEU), which is equal to 1.0 contact hour.

Mellon Scholar Seminar

March 15, 2023

  • “Pediatric Scleroderma: Single-Cell RNA-Seq Skin Profiling” by Kathryn Torok, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and Director, Pediatric Scleroderma Center, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
  • “Immunogenomic Determinants of Tumor Microenvironment in Pediatric Cancers” by Riyue Bao, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and Co-Director of Cancer Bioinformatics Services and the Translational Immuno-Informatics Laboratory, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center

Mellon Scholar Seminars Archive

2023

February 15, 2023

  • “Ovarian Cancer: Targeting the Soil to Destroy the Seed” by Lan G. Coffman, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, Hematology/Oncology and Gynecologic Oncology, Hillman Cancer Center, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
  • “Novel Medium-chain Fatty Acid Therapies” by Eric S. Goetzman, PhD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

January 18, 2023

  • “Pulmonary Thrombo-Inflammation in Sickle Cell Disease” by Prithu Sundd, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine and Associate Professor of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
  • “What is a UTI?” by Catherine Forster, MD, Mellon Scholar; Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine and Nephrology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

2022

December 21, 2022

  • “Intrinsic Defenses Against Retroviral Infection” by Melissa Kane, PhD, Mellon Scholar; Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Researcher, Center for Microbial Pathogenesis, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
  • “Using Machine Learning and Network Approaches to Uncover Mechanisms Underlying Pathophysiology of Immunological Disorders” by Jishnu Das, PhD, Assistant Professor, departments of Immunology and Computational & Systems Biology, University of Pittsburgh; Director, Computational Immunogenomics Core, Center for Systems Immunology

November 16

  • “Neural Coding of Voice in Human Auditory Cortex” by Mellon Scholar Taylor J. Abel, MD, FAANS, Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery and Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Surgical Director, Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery Program, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
  • “Understanding In Vivo Hip Biomechanics Through Biplane Radiography” by Michael P. McClincy, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh

October 19

  • “Tumor Microenvironmental Signals Reshape Chromatin Landscapes to Limit the Function Potential of Exhausted T Cells” by Mellon Scholar Amanda C. Poholek, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
  • “Outdoor Air Pollution and Childhood Asthma: Clinical Intervention?” by Franziska J. Rosser, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh

September 21 

  • “Effects of Positive Allosteric Modulation of Alpha-7 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors on Sustained Attention and Cholinergic Neurotransmission After Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury,” by Corina O. Bondi, PhD, Mellon Scholar, Assistant Professor, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Neurobiology, Center for Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh, and Associate Director, Executive Function and Neuropharmacology, Safar Center for Resuscitation Research
  • “Mechanisms of T-Cell Tolerance After HLA-Mismatched Transplantation,” Paul Szabolcs, MD, Professor of Pediatrics and Immunology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and Chief, Division of Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapies, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh

July 20

  • “Inflammation and Thrombosis: The Role of HMGB1 in Purinergic Signaling” by Deirdre Nolfi-Donegan, MD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
  • “Role of NOTCH1 Mutations in Cardiomyocyte Cytoskeleton and Function in Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome,” by Anita Saraf, MD, PhD, Mellon Scholar, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

June 15

  • “Improving Accuracy in the Diagnosis and Management of Acute Otitis Media in Children,” by Alejandro Hoberman, MD, the Jack L. Paradise, MD, Endowed Professor of Pediatric Research, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
  • “Group B Streptococcus Adaptation to the Perinatal Host,” by Thomas Hooven, MD, Mellon Scholar, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

May 18

  • “DNA Damage Defects and Ewing Sarcoma: New Therapeutic Opportunities,” by Kelly Bailey, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
  • “Defining Chikungunya Virus Interactions with Mammalian and Mosquito Glycans,” Laurie Silva, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

April 20

  • “Building Bridges at Chromosome Ends in Cancer Cells,” by Roddy O’Sullivan, PhD, Associate Professor, Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
  • “Lipid Nanoparticles for mRNA Delivery: Enablers of a New Wave of Genetic Medicine,” by Katie Whitehead, PhD, Associate Professor and Dean’s Career Fellow, Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

February 16

  • “T Cell Antigen Discovery for Understanding and Engineering Immunity,” by Alok Joglekar, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Immunology, Center for Systems Immunology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
  • “Adaptive Immune Landscape of Pediatric Brain Tumors,” by Gary Kohanbash, PhD, Mellon Scholar, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

January 19

  • “Studying Development Using Single-Cell Time Series Data,” presented by Ziv Bar-Joseph, PhD, FORE Systems Professor of Machine Learning and Computational Biology, Carnegie Mellon University
  • “Why Do Tumor Viruses Cause Cancer?,” presented by Patrick Moore, MD, MPH, Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, American Cancer Society Research Professor

2021

December 15

  • “Surveying the Battlefield: How We Can Combat Infections Through Biogeographical Characterization,” presented by William DePas, PhD

November 9

  • "Progranulin and Vascular Homeostasis,” presented by Thiago Bruder do Nascimento, PhD
  • “Absent in Melanoma 2 – A Novel Link Between Innate Immunity, Metabolism, and Bone Health,” presented by Radhika Muzumdar, MD

October 12

  • “PET Imaging of Hyperadhesion: A Precision Medicine Approach for Sickle Cell Disease,” presented by Enrico Novelli, MD, MS
  • “Interplay Between Metabolism and Epigenetics in Brain Tumors,” presented by Sameer Agnihotri, PhD

September 15

  • “Unraveling an FSTL1 Immunomodulatory Pathway,” presented by Brian Campfield, MD
  • “IL‐22BP: An Immune Mediator of IL‐22 Signaling Regulates Severe Asthma,” presented by Michelle Manni, PhD

August 19

  • “Development of a Tumor-specific Surgical Tracer to Guide Complete Resection of Pediatric Cancers,” presented by Marcus Malek, MD
  • “B Cells to the Forefront of Immunotherapy: What are They Good For?,” presented by Tullia Bruno, PhD

July 14

  • “Stability and Heterogeneity in the Antibacterial Antibody Repertoire of Breast Milk,” presented by Timothy Hand, PhD
  • “Interventional Genomics in Rare Neuromuscular and Neurological Disorders,” presented by Dwi Kemaladewi, PhD

June 17

  • “A Tale of Two Cytokines: Human Metapneumovirus and Interferon,” presented by John Williams, MD
  • "Crosstalk Between Macrophages and Beta-cells in Postnatal Beta-cell Growth and in Diabetes," presented by Xiangwei Xiao, MD, PhD

May 12

  • “BDNF and Neurobehavioral Recovery in TBI Across the Lifespan,” presented by Amery Treble-Barna, PhD
  • “Real World Data, Evidence, and Reality in the Development of a Learning Health System,” presented by Christopher Horvat, MD

April 13

  • “Exploring the Therapeutic Potential of Metabolic Activation,” presented by Craig Byersdorfer, MD, PhD
  • “Chitinase-3-like-1 Protein Binding Complexes Regulate Immune Suppression in Glioblastoma,” presented by Baoli Hu, PhD

March 16

  • “Bridging the Next Generation Gap: The role of Bioinformatics Core at CHP,” presented by Dhivyaa Rajasundaram, PhD
  • “Developmental Pathways in Liver Development and Repair,” presented by Paul Monga, MD

February 17

  • “Persistent DNA Damage Links Acute Kidney Injury to Chronic Kidney Disease and Tubular Cell Senescence,” presented by Rannar Airik, PhD
  • “Heart Regeneration,” presented by Bernhard Kuhn, MD

January 13

  • “Synaptic Alterations After Traumatic Brain Injury,” presented by Shaun Carlson, PhD
  • “Bacterial Colonization of the Urinary Tract in Children with Neuropathic Bladders,” presented by Katie Forster, MD