Distinguished biochemist Edward W. Westhead, emeritus professor of the biochemistry and molecular biology department at UMass Amherst, succumbed to cancer on June 1, 2021 at the age of 90. Edward Westhead formed the UMass Amherst biochemistry department and also was the first director of the molecular and cellular biology Ph.D. program. 

Westhead had a passion for learning and broad interests. After receiving his B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry from Haverford College, and his Ph.D. in polymer science from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, he continued on to do postdoctoral research in protein biochemistry and enzyme catalysis at the University of Uppsala and University of Minnesota, respectively. He then established his own laboratory at Dartmouth Medical School in 1960.

UMass Amherst recruited Westhead in 1966 to form a new department of biochemistry. He later became the first director of the UMass Amherst molecular and cellular biology PhD program in 1988. Over the decades, he also held visiting professorship positions at various institutions, including California Institute of Technology, Oxford University, University of Innsbruck and the University of Milan. Read more

Thursday, August 19, 2021
10:00 AM
Morrill 2, Room 222/Zoom hybrid
Zoom link:  Please contact mcb@mcb.umass.edu to be included on the email list for this announcement
Dissertation Title:  Synthesis and targeting of the bacterial cell wall
Advisor:  Sloan Siegrist

A scientific team has shown that the release of neurotransmitters in the brain is impaired in patients with schizophrenia who have a rare, single-gene mutation known to predispose people to a range of neurodevelopmental disorders.

Significantly, the results from the research with human-derived neurons validated previous and new experiments that found the same major decrease in neurotransmitter release and synaptic signaling in genetically engineered human neurons with the same genetic variant – the deletion of neurexin 1 (NRXN1). NRXN1 is a protein-coding gene at the synapse, a cellular junction that connects two nerve cells to communicate efficiently.

Both the research with human-derived and engineered human neurons also found an increase in the levels of CASK, an NRXN1-binding protein, which were associated with changes in gene expression.

“Losing one copy of this neurexin 1 gene somehow contributes to the etiology or the disease mechanism in these schizophrenia patients,” says molecular neuroscientist ChangHui Pak, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and lead author of the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “It causes a deficit in neural communication.” Read more

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently unveiled their discovery of a new process for making RNA. The resulting RNA is purer, more copious and likely to be more cost-effective than any previous process could manage. This new technique removes the largest stumbling block on the path to next-generation RNA therapeutic drugs.

If DNA is the blueprint that tells the cells in our bodies what proteins to make and for what purposes, RNA is the messenger that carries DNA’s instruction to the actual protein-making machinery within each cell. Most of the time this process works flawlessly, but when it doesn’t, when the body can’t make a protein it needs, as in the case of a disease like cystic fibrosis, serious illness can result.

One method for treating such protein deficiencies is with therapeutics that replace the missing proteins. But researchers have long known that it’s more effective when the body can make the protein it needs itself. This is the goal of an emerging field of medicine—RNA therapeutics. The problem is, the current methods of producing lab-made RNA can’t deliver RNA that is pure enough, in enough quantities in a way that’s cost-effective. “We need lots of RNA,” says Elvan Cavaç, lead author of the paper that was recently published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, MBA student at UMass Amherst, and a recent Ph.D. graduate in chemistry, also from UMass. “We’ve developed a novel process for producing pure RNA, and since the process can reuse its ingredients, yielding anywhere between three and ten times more RNA than the conventional methods, it also saves time and cost.”

The problem with impure RNA is that it can trigger reactions, like swelling, that can be harmful, and even life-threatening. For example, impure RNA can cause inflammation in the lungs of a patient with cystic fibrosis. Conventionally manufactured RNA has to undergo a lengthy and expensive process of purification. “Rather than having to purify RNA,” says Craig Martin, the paper’s senior author and professor of chemistry at UMass, “we’ve figured out how to make clean RNA right from the start.” Read more