Center News

“We’re talking about the number one cause of death in the world [for humans],” said study author Dr. Charles Murry, director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (ISCRM) at the University of Washington. And at the moment all of our treatments are … dancing around the root problem, which is that you don’t have enough muscle cells.”

After inducing heart attacks in macaques, the percent of blood their hearts pumped out with each beat dropped from roughly 70%, which is normal, to a weaker 40%. One month later, five monkeys who received human embryonic stem cells recouped 10.6 percentage points on average, versus only 2.5 in the control group. The paper titled, “Human embryonic stem cell–derived cardiomyocytes restore function in infarcted hearts of non-human primates” was published in Nature Biotechnology. Authors include WaNPRC’s Keith Vogel, Cliff Astley, Audrey Baldessari, and Jason Ogle.  Learn more at CNN and GeekWire.

Courtney joined the WaNPRC in March of 2018. She was brought on board during a transition within the Finance Division’s grant operations. This was also amidst Ann Schmidt’s retirement after her 36 years of service here. Courtney describes herself as highly motivated and goal oriented as a senior grant & contract management specialist. She has a Master’s degree and within her 17 years of experience has tested for and achieved credentials as a Certified Research Administrator and Certified Pre-Award Research Administrator.

She has a background clinical and biomedical research and administration within academic, for-profit, and non-profit settings. Her extensive expertise covers the entire grant life cycle with contract management, clinical site and research contracts, federal and non-profit grant applications, awards, subcontracts and sub awards.

Courtney is poised to expand our grant portfolio and increase research funding. These operations have obvious impacts upon all of us employed at the Primate Center.

Could you please briefly describe your role as Grant and Contract Manager?

I am involved in the pre-award phase of the grant application process which includes the non-scientific sections and the routing of the complete application to the Office of Sponsored Programs. I also work with outside investigators on the scope of work, coordinating with Jesse Day and the Finance team to assess that our facilities, resources and capabilities are compatible with their projects.

Have you held prior positions that will help you in your relatively new role here?

In my last position as Grants Manager at Swedish Health Services, I provided entire life-cycle grants management for all research units, from proposal development through closeout. I ensured the timely submission of the Research Performance Progress Reports for their various grants. I was also considered the “resident expert” in the funding agency’s requirements. After the merger of Swedish with Providence Health & Services, I was named to the Grants Management Team tasked with harmonizing a uniform grants management approach across both organizations.

Do you have a background in science?

My education includes a Master’s in Biology. Prior to pursuing work in grants management, I was enrolled in a Cellular and Molecular Biology doctoral program.  I have also worked in the private, biotechnology industry as an analytical chemist and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy specialist.

It seems like that scientific experience would give you something in common with the PIs that you assist. What are the main challenges of your position?

My challenge is to make sure that the PIs here are informed about funding opportunities. I also would like them to be aware of the fact that I am here as a resource for the application process.

What are some of the business systems and interfaces you utilize in your position?

Let’s start with eRA Commons (Electronic Research Administration); the grants management portal at the National Institutes of Health. The NIH defines it as an online interface where signing officials, principal investigators, trainees and post-docs at institutions/organizations can access and share administrative information relating to research grants.

Their website offers this description:

eRA provides critical IT infrastructure to manage over $30 billion in research and non-research grants awarded annually by NIH and other grantor agencies in support of the collective mission of improving human health.   eRA systems, including eRA Commons, ASSIST and IMPAC II modules, support the full grants life cycle and are used by applicants and grantees worldwide as well as federal staff at the NIH, AHRQ, the CDC, FDA, SAMHSA, and VA.

The UW has SAGE – the System to Administer Grants Electronically. It interfaces with Grants.gov and allows you to submit funding applications for consideration, route them electronically for approval, request advance budget numbers, and initiate sub awards.

Do you have any closing thoughts?

I just want everyone to know that I look forward to taking a hands-on approach and I may be more involved in the grant process than Investigators here may be used to or early career PIs may even know about. The important takeaway is that I am happy to help beyond sending out FOAs (Funding Opportunity Announcements). Thanks for making this platform available to me to share with the Center.

Contact info for: Courtney A Miller, MS, CRA, CPRA

Grant and Contract Manager

OFFICE HOURS: 6 AM to 2 PM M-Th | TELEWORK: 6 AM to 2 PM F

MAIL: Box 357330 | OFFICE: 206.616.3812 | CELL: 205.317.8400 | EMAIL: cmiller6@uw.edu

When and how did you first arrive here at the UW and Primate Center? What was your path to the position you are now leaving?

I graduated as a Vet Tech (Pierce College) in 1979.  I was working at the old Emergency Vet Hospital with Bill Morton, who was also the WaNPRC Supervisory Vet at the time.  He ‘recruited’ me into the WaNPRC, as the overnight, graveyard vet tech, in 1982. So my first few years here were passing out meds, treating minor injuries, checking lixits and water filters, assisting feeding times at the Infant Lab, and “other duties as needed.”

After I moved to daytime working hours, I had the opportunity to work in many areas of the Primate Center – daily clinical support, tissue program, surgery, etc.  After being the Vet Tech assigned to the Infant Lab for some years in the late 80s/early 90s, I was offered the opportunity to work with the AIDS-related research projects.  This was early in the AIDS outbreak and it was the policy to limit the personnel with access to the animals assigned to those protocols.  So a small number of staff were responsible for the conduct of the experiments, data collection and the daily oversight of their clinical status. This was before the existence of the Research Support Services – actually, this small group became the ‘seed’ that the RSS sprouted from.  It became clear that having consistent research support from staff that were comfortable with the animals, liked the animals and were a familiar presence to the animals, was a benefit to both the study and to the animals’ well-being.

The outgrowth of the research work developed into helping PIs develop the budgets for their studies.  After a time, the hands-on animal work had to become a part of my past.  The budget developments became a full-time effort assisting PIs with their pre-award processes, for scientists within the Center, other UW departments, and other institutions.

Looking back on your years at the Center, what are some positive changes you have seen in NHP research? What possibly has stayed the same?

I think the thing that really stands out to me is the recognition of the need for the Psychological Well-Being (PWB) and the Environment Enrichment programs.  There had always been efforts made on the part of individuals.  Having a mandated program, with coordinated supervision, has been a pleasure to observe.  Even though I personally have not had any interactions with the animals in a number of years, I know the staff in the program are passionate about their work and the PWB of the animals is in good hands.

The hope is that we are constantly making things better, faster, smarter or less expensive. We try to strive to do more—with less. Perhaps tell us about a project or problem that you improved in these ways.

I’d like to think that I am a solution oriented type of person, with a eye out for areas that could benefit from changes (and coincidentally making my job easier).  Some of these improvements are still being used today, albeit with updates and modifications as warranted.  After all, every process, every form, every SOP should always be seen as a living thing with changes made as time, circumstances, rules and guidelines and technology move forward.  There is no improvement that can’t be improved.  I am proud that some of the seeds I have planted have shown value and have grown.

What’s next for you, Ann?

Disneyland?

A piece on Dr. Eberhard Fetz, WaNPRC core staff scientist and professor of physiology & biophysics has appeared within the cover article published in the January 4^th issue of The Economist. The piece, as part of the Technology Quarterly, focuses on the science of thoughts controlling machines.

“BCIs have deep roots. In the 18th century Luigi Galvani discovered the role of electricity in nerve activity when he found that applying voltage could cause a dead frog’s legs to twitch. In the 1920s Hans Berger used electroencephalography to record human brain waves. In the 1960s José Delgado theatrically used a brain implant to stop a charging bull in its tracks. One of the field’s father figures is still hard at work in the lab.

Eberhard Fetz was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle when he decided to test whether a monkey could control the needle of a meter using only its mind. A paper based on that research, published in 1969, showed that it could. Dr Fetz tracked down the movement of the needle to the firing rate of a single neuron in the monkey’s brain. The animal learned to control the activity of that single cell within two minutes, and was also able to switch to control a different neuron.” Read more at The Economist.

The strategy introduces stable components of flu virus to the body to spur universal, and long-lasting DNA-enhanced protection.

Getting a flu shot every year can be a pain. One UW Medicine researcher is hoping to make the yearly poke a thing of the past with the development of a universal vaccine that would protect from all strains of influenza virus, even as the viruses genetically shape-shift from year to year.

The research in Deborah Fuller’s lab uses a DNA vaccine to instruct the individual’s own skin cells to produce antigens and induce antibodies and T cell responses to fight the infection. Her most recent research on this effort was published today in PLOS ONE.

“Relatively speaking, DNA vaccination is the new kid on the block with regard to the types of vaccines,” said Fuller, a professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. This year, U.S. medical professionals expect a challenging flu season, with 7,000 confirmed cases reported nationwide by the end of November – double the number from last year at the same time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The DNA vaccine in Fuller’s lab was engineered by using genetic components of influenza virus – the conserved areas – which do not change. This is one way Fuller’s DNA vaccine gets around the genetic drift, or changes, that occur in influenza strains from year to year, and challenge clinicians who combat the disease.

It is also administered through the epidermis with a “gene gun” device that injects the DNA vaccine directly into the skin cells. The cells then produce the flu vaccine and prompts the body to create antibodies and T-cells to fight infection.

“With the immunized groups, we found that using this conserved component of the virus gave them 100 percent protection against a previous circulating influenza virus that didn’t match the vaccine,” Fuller said. “This was very exciting for us.”

The vaccine developed by Fuller’s lab takes a different approach to attacking the influenza virus within the body. Instead of simply repelling the virus, as on-the-market vaccines do now, this vaccine seeks out infected cells and kills them. The T-cell responses against the virus were so swift and complete in the tested non-human primates that they simply did not get sick, she said. Fuller’s team also was able to direct the T-cells to go to the lungs first, where much of the damage of an influenza infection occurs.

Another advantage: This approach requires production time of about three months, whereas it typically takes about nine months to produce the U.S.-approved vaccine for a flu season that begins in December (in the United States) and runs through February.

Fuller firmly believes this is the new direction of vaccine research.

“We’ve been working essentially with the same vaccine (techniques) over the last 40 years. It’s been a shake-and-bake vaccine: You produce the virus, you kill the virus, you inject it. Now it’s time for vaccines to go through an overhaul, and this includes the influenza vaccine.”

A “universal” vaccine would eliminate the need for yearly flu vaccinations and could be on-hand for rapid deployment should a deadly pandemic strain of the virus emerge.

The idea of a DNA-based vaccine might also pose a mechanism for vaccines for other viruses, such as Zika, and for possible pandemic outbreaks which might emerge in the future, she said.

But don’t expect the vaccine in Fuller’s lab to appear on the drugstore shelves anytime soon. It can take five to 10 years from the time a vaccine shows promising results in the lab to commercial availability.

A deeper look into this research:

In the Fuller lab, senior research scientist, Jim Fuller, engineered a vaccine that contained DNA coding for viral proteins from four different influenza A strains. These proteins, called HA, are targeted by standard vaccines and are known to trigger a strong immune response to each individual strain. In addition, the vaccine included DNA for a protein that is highly conserved and, thus, shared across different strains of virus.

Because DNA vaccines often fail to generate a strong immune response, the researchers sought to boost the vaccine’s effectiveness by fusing the DNA for some of the antigens with DNA proteins from a bacteria, a toxin from E. Coli, and protein from the hepatitis B virus that are known to be antigens that elicit a strong immune response.

In an animal study in cynomolgus macaques, researchers in the Fuller lab, Drs. Merika Treants Koday and Jolie Leonard, found that after three doses, the DNA vaccine generated a strong antibody response against each of the flu strains it targeted. Antibodies bind to and help clear microbial invaders, preventing an infection from taking hold or reducing its severity.

More importantly, the vaccine triggered a strong cellular immune response that was effective not only against the strains covered by the vaccine but also strains that were not.

Deborah Fuller was the co-inventor of the gene gun used in this research, and co-founded Orlance, Inc. a startup which is working on engineering a clinical version of the DNA vaccine delivery system and commercializing it for vaccines, including influenza.

This project has been funded by National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (https://www.niaid.nih.gov) NIH/NIAID U01 AI074509 to DHF; NIH/NIAID, Department of Health and Human Services under Centers of Excellence in Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS) (http://www.niaidceirs.org) contract HHSN272201400005C; and NIH/ORIP P51OD010425-51 to WaNPRC. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish,or preparation of the manuscript.

UW Medicine writer Michael McCarthy contributed to this report.

Published on: Oct 6, 2017
The Washington National Primate Research Center was tapped to serve as the coordinating center to oversee the combined pledge of funds from the NPRCs in California, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin totaling $30,000.

This aid will arrive in Puerto Rico by way of a container ship with vital supplies and equipment. The NIH is facilitating these operations, and FEMA is prioritizing urgent animal support supplies in order to avoid some of the supply chain backups that have plagued ground distribution in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

Noah Snyder-Mackler, assistant professor of psychology here at UW, is providing leadership to a diverse group of stakeholders including coordinating efforts with the NPRC consortium, the non-profit “Better Research, Better Life Foundation” (BRBLF), and investigators from New York University, University of Pennsylvania and the University of Exeter in England.

 

 

“It’s hard to fathom how these small monkeys managed to weather such a powerful storm, but they are not out of the woods yet,” said Snyder-Mackler. “We need to mobilize our resources to rebuild the infrastructure on the island as well as that of the community that supports it. If we don’t, we are at risk of losing one of our most valuable scientific resources.”

Two GoFundMe sites have been set up in conjunction with these operations: Cayo Santiago Monkeys: Maria Relief and Relief for Cayo Santiago Employees. An update from the latter page reads: “One NY-based colleague who will be flying to Puerto Rico on Tuesday with supplies for Cayo Santiago facilities (tools and a satellite phone that will greatly improve our ability to communicate with those in Punta Santiago) is also bringing some much needed relief for Cayo Santiago employees, including solar-powered USB chargers, solar flashlights, crank radios, batteries, water filtration systems, and formula and powdered milk for staff with young children.” This page has raised over $50,000 in donations to this point.
New York University assistant professor of biological anthropology James Higham discussed the hurricane’s impact and the relief efforts of academic institutions already underway.

 

Additional reading: “Study finds survivors of weather-related disasters may have accelerated aging”

Credit: Pasupathy ShapeLAB/UW Medicine

^{Anitha Pasupathy of UW Medicine in Seattle explains her work on how different parts of the brain communicate when trying to recognize partially hidden shapes. She is on the faculty of the Department of Biological Structure at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Credit: Randy Carnell and Megan Clark/UW Medicine}

September 19, 2017, University of Washington

How does a driver’s brain realize that a stop sign is behind a bush when only a red edge is showing? Or how can a monkey suspect that the yellow sliver in the leaves is a round piece of fruit?

The human (and non-human) primate brain is remarkable in recognizing objects when the view is nearly blocked. This skill let our ancient ancestors find food and avoid danger. It continues to be critical to making sense of our surroundings.

UW Medicine scientists are conducting research to discover ways that the brain operates when figuring out shapes, from those that are completely visible to those that are mostly hidden.

Although computers can be at the world’s best chess players, scientists have not yet designed artificial intelligence that performs as well as the average person in distinguishing shapes that are semi-obscured.

Studies of signals generated by the brain are helping to fill in the picture of what goes on when looking at, then trying to recognize, shapes. Such research is also showing why attempts have failed to mechanically replicate the ability of humans and primates to identify partially hidden objects.

The most recent results of this work are published Sept. 19 in the scientific journal eLife.

The senior investigator is Anitha Pasupathy, associate professor of biological structure at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and a member of the Washington National Primate Research Center.

Anitha Pasupathy of UW Medicine in Seattle explains her work on how different parts of the brain communicate when trying to recognize partially hidden shapes. She is on the faculty of the Department of Biological Structure at the University of …more
There’s a computer game at the center that can be played to tell if two shapes are alike or different. A correct answer wins a treat. As dots start to appear over the shapes, the task becomes more difficult.

The researchers learned that, during the simpler part of the game, the brain generates signals in certain areas of the visual cortex – the part for sight. The neurons, or brain nerve cells, in that section respond more strongly to uncovered shapes.

However, when the shapes begin to disappear behind the dots, certain neurons in the part of the brain that governs functions like memory and planning – the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex – respond more intensely.

The researchers also observed that many of the neurons in the visual cortex had two quick response peaks. The second one occurred after the response onset in the thinking section of the brain. This seemed to enhance the response of the neurons in the visual cortex to the partially hidden shapes.

The results, according to Pasupathy, suggest how signals from the two different areas of the brain—thinking and vision—could interact to assist in recognizing shapes that are not fully visible.

They researches believe that other regions of the brain, in addition to those they studied, are likely to participate in object recognition.

“It’s not just the information flowing from the eyes into the sensory location of the brain that’s important to know what a shape is when it’s partially covered,” she said. “Feedback from other regions of the brain also help in making this determination.”

Relying only on the image of an object that appears on the eye’s retina makes it hard to make out what it is, because that image could have many interpretations.

Recognition stems not only from the physical appearance of the object, but also the scene, the context, the degree of covering, and the viewer’s experience, the researchers explained.

The study helps advance knowledge about how the brain typically works in solving this frequently encountered perceptual puzzle.

“The neural mechanisms that mediate perceptual capacities, such as this one, have been largely unknown, which is why we were interested in studying them,” Pasupathy noted.

Their recent findings also make the scientists wonder if impairments in this and other types of communication between the cognitive and sensory parts of the brain might have a role in certain difficulties that people with autism or Alzheimer’s encounter.

Pasupathy said, for example, some people with autism have a profound inability to function in cluttered or disorderly environments. They have problems processing sensory information and can become confused and distressed. Many patients with Alzheimer’s disease experience what is called visual agnosia. They have no trouble seeing objects, but they can’t tell what they are.

“So understanding how the sensory and cognitive areas in the brain communicate is of utmost importance to ultimately understand what might go wrong inside the nervous system that can cause these deficits,” Pasupathy said.

 

Journal reference: eLife  

Provided by: University of Washington

On June 29, the WaNPRC hosted Dr. Stefan Treue, Director of the German Primate Center (DPZ) and Head of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory (CNL) at the University of Göttingen. Dr. Treue was first greeted by Dr. Greg Horwitz whom he had teamed up with on a 2010 summer Computational Neuroscience workshop on vison at the Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory in New York. Soon they were joined by Dr. Eb Fetz who has visited the DPZ frequently over the years. Assistant Director Gail Ellingson had the pleasure of guiding Dr. Treue on a brief tour of the new Animal Research and Care Facility explaining the new model of collaboration with the UW Department of Comparative Medicine.

WaNPRC Director Dr. Mike Mustari sat down with Dr. Treue for discussion followed by a walk around to various neuroscience laboratory spaces. This was a great opportunity to touch on the similarities and differences between American and European centers for nonhuman primate research. Dr. Treue was able to coordinate his academic visit to the University of Washington with a family RV tour of the Western US National Parks.

Dr. Geoff Boyton from the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington served as faculty host for Treue’s seminar lecture entitled, “Cortical Area MT – Model Area for the Interface Between Visual Sensation and Cognition.” The seminar took place in Guthrie Hall and was attended by a full house made up of Psychology faculty, graduate students and neuroscientists from various WaNPRC affiliated labs.