Welcome to the Daniele Gilkes Lab News and More!

This summer, Chioma Ekwunazu, a rising junior majoring in Public Health Science from the University of Maryland College Park, spent 10 weeks in our lab as part of the Short-Term Research Experience for Underrepresented Persons (STEP-UP) Program! Chioma spent her summer optimizing a genotyping and qPCR protocol to help with our transgenic mouse hypoxia fate-marking model. At the end of her experience, she got to present an oral presentation and poster at the NIH! Congrats Chichi! We know you'll do great things in the future!

Today, "Hypoxia and Cancer Metastasis", a textbook edited by Daniele, was a published! The informative collection of work informs the reader on a large variety of ways in which hypoxia can affect cancer and metastasis. Josh and Daniele also co-authored one of the chapters, titled "Therapeutic Strategies to Block the Hypoxic Response". Check out the textbook here.

Today the lab attended the 12th Annual Breast Cancer Research Retreat. Josh and Inês both presented, and Inês won the poster contest for the 2nd year in a row! Congrats!

Josh and Inês presented today at the 2019 Nano-Bio Symposium. Josh earned 2nd place in the Peoples' Choice Award category for his poster presentation. Congrats!

Daniele recently co-authored a Spotlight review article with collaborator Dr. Denis Wirtz for Trends in Cancer. Check it out here.

Michael Trautmann-Rodriguez, one of our undergraduates, was recently awarded a Provost Undergraduate Research Award for Summer 2019. The $4,000 award will support Michael's living expenses for the summer as he stays with us to study the role of TFF1 in ECM-induced cell motility! Congratulations!

Andrea Thurneer, one of our hardworking undergraduates, earned the opportunity for a research internship experience in Switzerland at ETH Zurich this summer! Congrats!

Daniele spoke today about the work in our lab as an invited speaker for the Physical Sciences-Oncology Network's Women in Cancer Research Series.

Photo Credit: Johns Hopkins PSOC Facebook Page.

Daniele recently published a new review with Dr. Lisha Xiang on the role of the immune system in bone metastasis. Check it out here.

Julia recently published her Master's thesis work on the role of RhoB in breast cancer. Check it out here.

Soumitra recently published on his work for his Master's thesis that was conducted in our lab. In it, we describe a MATLAB code we developed to analyze metastatic colony growth dynamics in vitro and in vivo. Check it out here.

Happy holidays! Today we were excited to attend the Breast & Ovarian Cancer Program's Annual Holiday Party!

Today, our rotating PhD student from the CMM program Laurie Kostecka presented a poster on her work she did during her time with us. Laurie investigated chronic hypoxia and the effects of reoxygenation on breast cancer cells. Great job Laurie!

Happy Halloween! This year the lab chose to dress as characters from the cartoon Arthur!

This week, Josh and Inês traveled to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland to attend and present posters at the 2018 Cancer Systems Biology Consortium / Physical Sciences Oncology Network Junior Investigators Meeting. The event brings together late-stage graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and early-stage assistant professors to discuss and learn about new advances in cancer research.

We've published a new paper in which we describe a gene signature for hypoxia using RNA sequencing analysis of 31 breast cancer cell lines! Check it out here.

This week, the lab welcomes Shyanne Salen! Shyanne is a Master's degree student in the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins University. She graduated from Bucknell University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. She will spend the next two years helping us understand the impacts of hypoxia in breast cancer.

This week, the lab welcomes Mahelet Mamo! Mahelet comes to us from the Doctoral Diversity Program within the School of Medicine. She graduated from Longwood University with a B.S. in Biology in 2018 and will spend the next two years researching novel hypoxia-regulated genes with us.

Work from a collaboration between our lab and Dr. Paul Macklin's lab at Indiana University recently appeared in the news journal for the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics! Check it out here.

Today our summer undergraduate researcher Abigail Mesfin presented a poster on the work she has completed in our lab over the last 10 weeks of her time in the Johns Hopkins Career, Academic, and Research Experiences for Students (CARES) program. While here, Abby helped to develop a method to quantify color-changing cells through PCR, and she also assisted in developing CRISPR-based knockdowns for several projects in the lab. Thank you for your time with us Abby! We are sure you have a bright future ahead of you!

Inês recently attended an event in Washington D.C. at the Portuguese Embassy where she was lucky enough to get a photo with the president of Portugal! Wow!

Josh and Inês presented their work at Fellows Research Day 2018 at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Inês earned 1st place in the Basic Research category, marking her third poster session win in 2 months! Congrats!

Daniele Gilkes was one of 32 early-career Johns Hopkins faculty members awarded a $75,000 2018 Catalyst Award to support our research. Read more here.

Daniele Gilkes recently co-authored a review in the Annual Review of Biophysics with collaborators Dr. Denis Wirtz and Dr. Pei-Hsun Wu. Check it out here.

The Gilkes Lab welcomes Abigail Mesfin to the lab this week. Abigail is a rising junior from Perdue University who will be doing a 10-week research internship in the Gilkes Lab as part of the Johns Hopkins Career, Academic, and Research Experiences for Students (CARES) program.

The Gilkes Lab says goodbye and congratulations to three of our members today! Soumitra graduated with his Master's degree in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, and Jisu and Grace graduated with their Bachelor of Science degrees in Molecular & Cellular Biology. Congrats, and best of luck with everything!

Josh, Inês, and Soumitra attended and presented their work at the 11th Annual Breast Cancer Research Retreat, and Inês won 1st place with hers in the Basic Science category! Two poster awards in one week... congrats Inês!

Josh, Inês, and Soumitra attended and presented their work at the 2018 INBT Nano-Bio Symposium today, and Inês won 1st place with hers in the Graduate Research category! The theme of this year's symposium was Advanced Biomanufacturing.

Two of our undergraduates, Grace & Jisu, who have both received Provost Undergraduate Research Awards for undergraduate research proposals, presented their work in the lab over the past year at the DREAMS undergraduate research poster session! We are very proud of their hard work!

Soumitra successfully defended his Master's thesis "A MATLAB tool to quantify colony size distributions in vitro and in vivo." Soumitra will be spending the next year as a hiking guide in the mountains of India before pursuing his PhD!

Josh was selected as an honorable mention for the 2018 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program! Congrats! Check it out here.

Julia and Daniele are co-authors of a new paper on how hemoglobin regulates oxygenation in breast cancer solid tumors with our collaborators at the Palmer lab! Check it out here.

We published another new review paper from Josh and Daniele on hypoxia as an enhancer of inflammation-mediated metastasis. Check it out here.

We started our new year strong with an excellent review paper from Julia Ju and Daniele Gilkes on the effects of the protein RhoB across multiple types of cancers. Check it out here.

Happy holidays from our lab to you! This year we celebrated with a Secret Santa gift exchange and lab lunch. Best wishes for 2018!

This month we welcome Andrea Thurnheer and Michael Trautmann Rodriguez to the lab as our newest undergraduate research assistants. Check out our members page to learn more about them!

Jisu Shin is the 4th Undergraduate Student to win a prestigious Provost Undergraduate Research Award!

We are very proud of our hardworking undergraduates.

The lab decided on a 101 Dalmations theme this year, and took 2nd place in the costume contest at the Annual ChemBE Department Halloween Party!

Photo credits to the ChemBE Department and Rachel Ye!

Inês recently earned a bursary to participate in the 2017 Seed and Soil Conference in Berlin! Congrats!

Daniele spoke on WBAL-TV 11 News about the research our lab does and the importance of supporting breast cancer research by participating in or sponsoring the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Check it out here.

This interdepartmental graduate program offers cellular and molecular research for PhD candidates with training at the interface between medicine and the traditional basic science disciplines.

Check out a new paper on which Daniele collaborated that investigates the biophysical and biomolecular determination of cellular age: here.

Josh, Julia, and Inês were seleced to present their research at this year's CSBC/PS-ON JI Conference at the National Institutes of Health!

Photo credits to Julia Ju!

Inês was recently published in her undergraduate university's news publication for her previous win of the Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo Award. Check it out here. She was also recently interviewed for a Portugal national newspaper for her inspirational win! Read it here.

Photo credits to Julia Ju!

Check out our new paper on the hypoxic upregulation of ITGA5 and how it relates to breast cancer metastasis: here.

Check out a new paper, on which Daniele is one of the senior authors, that investigates the roles of IL-6 and IL-8 in promoting cancer metastasis: here.

The Gilkes Lab attended the 10th Annual Breast Cancer Research Retreat, which Daniele helped organize this year! Josh and Ines presented their research to the experts in the field. At the Homewood Campus, Julia, Rachel, and Danny presented their PURA posters at DREAMS (A Day of Undergraduate Research in Engineering, Arts & Sciences, Medicine, and the Social Sciences). It was a big day for showing of all of our hard work over the past year!

Photo credits to Rachel Ye!

Julia did a fantastic job defending her Master's thesis "The Role of Hypoxia-regulated RhoB Expression in Breast Cancer Progression". We're so proud of you!

Photo credits to Rachel Ye!

Listen to Daniele's podcast with Dr. Paul Macklin in which they discuss their cross disciplinary approach to breast cancer research. Check it out here.

Daniel Shade, one of our senior undergraduates, was accepted to Georgia Tech's Chemical Engineering Department as a PhD student. Congratulations Danny!

Daniele recently traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana to present some of our research for the American Physical Society.

Grace Kim, an undergrad in the Gilkes Lab, was awarded a Provost's Undergraduate Research Award from Johns Hopkins University for her proposed work on collagen alignment and HIF-1 in breast cancer in our lab. She joins Rachel, Julia, and Danny in our list of lab members who have previously earned this award!

The Breast Cancer Research Foundation announced an exciting new collaboration with The Jayne Koskinas Ted Giovanis Foundation for Health and Policy. The have funded a pilot project between the Gilkes and Macklin Lab which involves Ines' work with color-changing cells and hypoxia! Check out the article here.

Dr. Gilkes was interviewed by Science News for an article titled "Instead of starving a cancer, researchers go after its defenses". The article details the relationship of hypoxia and cancer progression. Check it out here.

Inês won this award for her outstanding academic performance and remarkable scientific progress in her Master's thesis on hypoxia and breast cancer spheroid invasion in 3D collagen matrices! The award serves to recognize the achievements and contributions of female scientists. Pictured with Inês is the other award recipient, Professor Maria da Graça Carvalho.

Daniele Gilkes recently published an article with Dr. Denis Wirtz on the quantification of solid stress within tumors! Check our publication section for a link!

Check out our newest review paper exploring the roles of BRCA1 and BRCA2 in breast cancer and potential therapeutics involving them here.

The Gilkes Lab held a White Elephant gift exchange party today to celebrate the holidays!

João successfully defended his Master's thesis, "Hypoxia Gene-expression Signature: Patient Survival and New Hypoxia-gene", earning an outstanding score of 18 for his hard work and research at the Gilkes Lab!

The Gilkes Lab participated in Community Science Day by hosting several young 5th grade scientists and showing them how to make their very own flubber!

The Gilkes Lab participated in their first ChemBE Halloween Costume Party

Daniele Gilkes published a review on Implications of Hypoxia in Breast Cancer Metastasis to Bone!

Daniele Gilkes presented at the 9th Annual Breast Cancer Research Retreat.

Josh, Rachel, and Julia graduated today! They worked as undergraduate research students in the Gilkes Lab, and they will continue to work with us, but now in different positions! We are so glad to have you!