News & Events It is with a sense of loss that we announce two of our senior office staff, will be retiring in August. Mary Cappello has been Administrator of DMB since 1987, the year in which Dr. Stanley became Chair. For the 37 years since then, she has seamlessly overseen the DMB office and managed the Department. In particular, she has tirelessly supported the submission and management of the grants of all our primary faculty. Mary arrives very early every morning and has worked hard for each working day of those 37 years with amazing resilience and stoicism. We are deeply appreciative of her efforts on our behalf. We will miss her greatly. We wish Mary health and happiness in her retirement. Maryann Montaturo has provided strong support for Mary ever since she joined the department 19 years ago. She also starts work early each morning and one has the feeling that together they are top of the day’s problems before the rest of the Department turns up for work! Maryann has coordinated the recruitment and onboarding process of the members of the department, playing a major role in welcoming personnel to the Department. She has assisted Mary with the post-award paperwork and the faculty and other members of DMB with general typing, work orders and other requests to ensure the smooth functioning of the Department. We also wish Maryann health and happiness after her retirement on August 4. Sountharia Rajendran has been working closely with Mary over the last several months and will be transitioning from Scientific Facilities Coordinator to Administrator of DMB upon Mary’s retirement on August 25. Thanks to the support and training provided to Sountharia by the office staff, we expect a seamless transition as she takes over. Gabriel Igartua, has been trained by Sountharia and will oversee and manage the department’s shared equipment and spaces in addition to providing technical and technological support. Recent Graduations & Promotions Congratulations to Violeta Chitu from the Stanley lab for being promoted as the Research Professor of DMB. A hearty congratulations to Floralba Gjergjova from the Cuervo lab and Jonathan Handy from the Jenny lab for passing the qualifying exam and thus are now MSc. Kudos to Alexander Ledet, Phillip Dmitriev, and Sandra Pelka who passed the qualifying exam with Honors and thus are now MSc. Recent Funding & Awards Congratulations to Bianca Rivera-Penna from the Shastri lab who received the Young Investigators Program Award from the Society of Hematologic Oncology Mericka McCabe from the Cuervo lab was selected as a delegate to participate in the Advocacy Training Program of the ASBMB this summer. Kudos Mericka! Rebecca Sereda from the Cuervo lab was invited to give a talk on her thesis work at the NYAS symposium "Targeting molecular mechanisms of Aging" May 2023. Congrats Rebecca! Congratulations to Samarpana Chakraborty from the Shastri lab for receiving the Inaugural Einstein Blood Cancer Institute Ceriale Career Development Award Satya Surabhi from the Jenny lab received the grant from the American Parkinson Disease Association. Congrats Satya! Welcome to DMB! Floralba Gjergjova, a PhD student and Sandra Pelka, an MSTP student joined DMB as part of the Macian-Cuervo merge. Welcome Floralba and Sandra! Jessicah Bullock has joined the Eliscovich Lab as a new Research Technician. Welcome Jessicah! Julia Alvarenga has joined the Stanley Lab as a technician. Welcome Julia! Welcome Juliana Gomes, a new postdoc in the de Oliveira Lab. Zoe King is a pediatric heme-onc fellow that joined the Shastri Lab for 2 years - welcome Zoe! Recent Publications Congrats to the Di Cristofano lab for their publication in Cancer Letters titled “Anaplastic thyroid cancer cells upregulate mitochondrial one-carbon metabolism to meet purine demand, eliciting a critical targetable vulnerability” Congratulations to Violeta Chitu and Fabrizio Biundo from the Stanley lab for their paper in press in Glia - “Prophylactic effect of chronic immunosuppression in a mouse model of CRL.” Fabrizio Biundo and Violeta Chitu from the Stanley lab have also published a paper in Biomedicines titled “Trem2 Enhances Demyelination in the Csf1r+/− Mouse Model of Leukoencephalopathy”. Congratulations! Monday, July 31, 2023