Bradford Berges
Evaluation of how well the academic objectives of the proposal were met
Several of my students have moved on to future positions, as follows:
Medical school: Marshall Sheide, Stanton Nielsen, German Cuadra
Graduate school: Jamie Gardiner, Steve Hallam (still interviewing)
Currently employed: Joel Gardner, Wittnee Estes
Jamie Gardiner traveled with me to the American Society for Virology conference to present the results of her research.
I submitted an NIH R21 proposal using findings from this grant, but I have not achieved additional funding yet for this project. I also co-authored an R21 proposal with Dr. Subhash Verma (Univ of Nevada, Reno) in 2012 and our proposal was not funded.
I have had further discussions with a biotech company (Vironika) to test their drugs currently in development against KSHV, but we have not yet begun that collaboration.
See below in the ‘academic deliverables’ section for further details on presentations, grant funding awarded directly to students, and publications.
Evaluation of the mentoring environment
As in the original proposal, I met with each of my students weekly and we also held weekly group meetings for the entire research lab group. I had the students over to my home for a barbecue and some informal time together. As stated, I always keep my office door open so that students can reach me at any time and they know that they can call/text/email me when I am not on campus.
List of students who participated and what academic deliverables they have produced or it is anticipated they will produce
1. Marshall Sheide—
a. ORCA award 1: Examination of the role of the LANA protein in persistence of Kaposi’s Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus Infections
b. ORCA award 2: Examination of the role of the LANA protein in persistence of Kaposi’s Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus Infections
c. Anticipated authorship on a peer-reviewed publication
2. Wittnee Estes—
a. Conference presentation, but on another project
3. Jamie Gardiner—
a. Conference presentation at the American Society for Virology (see below)
b. ORCA award: Determining the Role of Kaposi’s Sarcoma-associated Herpesvirus LANA Protein in the Development of Persistent Infection.
c. BYU Cancer Research Center Fellowship: in the amount of $6,600 for her proposal entitled, “Characterization of KSHV Gene Expression in Infected Humanized Mice”.
d. Anticipated authorship on a peer-reviewed publication
4. Joel Gardner—
a. Conference presentation at the American Society for Virology (see below)
5. Gregory Low—
a. Pending ORCA submission
b. Anticipated authorship on a peer-reviewed publication
6. Stanton Nielsen—
Conference presentation, but on another project
7. German Cuadra—
a. Conference presentation at the American Society for Virology (see below)
b. Conference presentation at the American Society of Microbiology Intermountain Branch Meeting (see below)
8. Steven Hallam—
a. Conference presentation, but on another project
Conference Presentations (BYU undergrads in bold):
1. Freddy S. Tumbaco, Jamie D. Gardiner, Joel R. Gardner, German R. Cuadra, and Bradford K. Berges. Infection of humanized Rag2-/-gc-/- mice with Kaposi’s Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus for studies of AIDS-associated lymphomas. American Society for Virology.
2. German I. Cuadra and Bradford K. Berges. “Humanized Mice as a Model to study Human Gammaherpesvirus Transmission”. American Society of Microbiology Intermountain Branch Meeting.
Peer-reviewed publications:
Still pending.
Description of the results/findings of the project
At the time of the writing of this grant we did not know that production of the LANA mutant strain would be sproblematic. The main obstacles we have faced are that the mutant strain tends to kill cells after transfection of the viral DNA, and also that the virus cannot achieve latency in those cells because LANA is necessary for latent infection. So, although we have successfully propagated the wild-type and LANA revertant strains, we still have not successfully produced
any stocks of the LANA mutant virus to date. Because of that obstacle, we have worked on other areas of KSHV biology in the meantime and some of our presentations have been in those other areas. Grew Low has been working to produce the LANA mutant strain using a different strategy. We obtained a LANA-complementing cell line provided by our collaborator (Dr. Verma at Univ of Nevada, Reno), and Greg now has LANA mutant-transfected cells and so that part of the project can now catch up to the other two virus strains which were produced a year ago. We just looked at his transfections from last week and we clearly saw some GFP+ cells, so it looks like we will shortly be past that problematic phase of the project. He still needs to select for transfected cells using hygromycin, to produce virus stocks and titer them, and then we can infect animals as stated in the original grant proposal. We already have sufficient numbers of humanized mice available for infection, so we should have all of the original aims of the project completed within the next several months.
Description of how the budget was spent
The budget was spent in very similar fashion to the original proposal:
Jamie Gardiner traveled with me to the ASV meeting to present, thus using the travel funds. Most of the rest of the funds were used for supplies, and 2 students were employed.