Early results from a larger, ongoing study led by environmental health scientist Richard Pilsner suggest that phthalate levels in expectant fathers have an effect on couples’ reproductive success via epigenetic modifications of sperm DNA. Details appear in the current issue of Human Reproduction, a monthly journal of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology published by Oxford Journals. Read more

Ashish Kulkarni, who is joining the chemical engineering department this fall as an assistant professor, is one of the “Talented 12,” an international team of rising all-stars in chemistry, chosen by Chemical & Engineering News. Kulkarni, who is nicknamed the “Cancer Crusher” by the magazine, focuses his research on the development of pioneering, structure-activity, relationship-inspired nanomedicine for cancer therapy. Read more

Molecular biologists led by Leonid Pobezinsky and his wife and research collaborator Elena Pobezinskaya have published results that for the first time show how a microRNA molecule known as Lethal-7 (let-7) serves as a molecular control hub to direct the function of cytotoxic T lymphocytes by putting the brakes on their cell-killing activities. The research group led by the Pobezinskys includes his Ph.D. student and first author Alexandria Wells, UMass Amherst molecular biologist Michele Markstein, who provided the computational analysis to identify let-7 targets and how let-7 regulates the genome, and UMass Medical School immunologist Raymond Welsh, a specialist in cytotoxic CD8 T cells who provided a viral model for testing differentiation in the presence of virus. More

Richard Vachet, chemistry, received a four-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue his group’s study of the aggregation by βeta-2-microglobulin (β2m), the protein that forms amyloid fibril deposits in the joints of patients with kidney disease who are undergoing dialysis. Read more