I N S I D E T H I S

I S S U E :

Meet the new board 2-3

Award recipients 4

Mini-Symposium in

Boston 5

Report from 2nd HBA-

USA Conference 6

Top10 Publications 7

Interview

with Dr. Sachlos

8

Activities 9

New members 10

Positions 11

Hellenic Bioscientific Association in the USA

Newsletter D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 2 W W W . H B A - U S A . O R G B O A R D O F

D I R E C T O R S

Ioannis Zervantonakis

President

Athanasios Vassilopoulos

Vice President

Anastasia Nikolopoulou

General Secretary

Eleftherios Makris

Treasurer

Konstantinos Biliouris

Appointed Secretary

Panteleimon Mavroudis

Councilor

Pavlos Msaouel

Councilor

The HBA-USA board would like to extend our best wishes for a happy, healthy, and scientifically productive 2013.

Season Greetings We hope you will enjoy reading the new develop-ments in our association in this newsletter. In April 2012, the 4th HBA-USA board of directors was elected since the creation of

our association in 2005. We present the profiles of the new board members in the next pages. We are also in the process of updating our website and would like to invite you to receive your comments and suggestions. Please join us in congratulating our mem-bers for receiving prestig-ious awards which we are also listing in this newsletter. Reports from the 2nd HBA-USA meeting in New York and a mini-symposium on Epigenetics in Boston are also presented. Featured in this issue is an interview with Dr. E Terry. Sachlos, who authored the best peer-reviewed publica-tion in our top10 list. A listing of job opportunities in USA, Europe and Greece

are also presented. Further-more, please find in this newsletter news with re-spect to other activities of our association, such as the Scientist Teaching Ex-change Program. In particu-lar, since the beginning of the STEP program in Fall 2011, three professors, Dr. Floros, Dr. Rombakis and Dr. Stratakis have already visited universities in Greece and interacted with students. Finally, please make note of the 3rd Panamerican Meet-ing of the HBA-USA, which is currently being organized. The 3rd Panamerican Meet-ing will take place in Octo-ber, 2013 in Los Angeles (exact date and location TBA). The Board of Directors

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND UPDATES 2012 Membership Dues

Please pay the dues for 2012. Information on payment options: web-page.

We also welcome donations to support the organization of the 3rd HBA-USA conference.

Website upgrade under development

We are currently in the process of upgrading our website www.hba-usa.org and we would be delighted to received your comments and feedback, as well as requests for changes and new features. Please send us an e-mail at: administrator@hba-usa.org

3rd HBA-USA Conference

The 3rd HBA-USA Conference will be taking place in Los Angeles, CA in October 2013 (exact date and venue TBA), the conference theme will be Systems Biology. We look for-ward to greeting all our members in our bi-annual conference.

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I am currently a Research Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medi-

cine with my research interests focused on elucidating cellular processes and molecular mecha-

nisms that link aging and age-related diseases such as cancer. I received my undergraduate degree

in Biology from the University of Patras, Greece and my Ph.D. in “Molecular Physiology” from the

Department of Biology at the University of Athens, Greece. After graduation, I moved to the United

States to pursue my postdoctoral training as a visiting fellow at the National Institutes of Health

(NIH) and as a research fellow at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. I joined the HBA-USA

board of directors as a General Secretary in 2010, and I am currently serving as the Vice-President

of the Association. My major responsibilities involve the establishment of a network of communication among the mem-

bers of HBA-USA by contributing to the organization of scientific meetings and by developing programs such as the Sci-

ence and Teaching Exchange Program (STEP).

Anastasia Nikolopoulou, PhD I obtained my B.Sc. in Chemistry and my Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and my M.Sc. in Biochemistry at Paris VII (Denis Diderot) University, France. For the last three years I have been working as a postdoctoral fellow in the research laboratory of Nuclear Medicine (under the mentorship of Dr Shankar Vallabhajosula) at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York. My main research interests include the molecular targeting of pros-tate cancer with radiolabeled PSMA-specific probes as well as the development of

11C-tracers for

studying neurodegenerative disorders with positron emission tomography. Since March 2012, I serve the board of Directors of HBA-USA as the General Secretary. My main

responsibilities include the communication with the members of the Association either directly or via social networking websites, such as LinkedIn, the recruitment of new members and the organization of local social events.

Eleftherios Makris, MD, PhD I was born in Larisa, Greece in 1984.I graduated from Aristotelian University Medical School, and un-dertook a PhD program in clinical orthopedics immediately after my graduation. From 2008 to 2010 I had been working as a Clinical and Research Fellow in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Musculoskeletal Trauma of University Hospital of Thessalia under the supervision of Professor Mal-izos. Since September 2010, I have been working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Biomedical En-gineering department at UC Davis, under the supervision of Professor Athanasiou; my research mainly concerns articular cartilage regeneration and tissue engineering. During my PhD, I focused on developing and testing a new medicine aimed at protecting and regenerating articular cartilage in ex-perimental model of osteoarthritis. At the present time, my postdoctoral research at UC Davis is fo-

cused on tissue engineering of articular cartilage, in order to use it for transplant procedures for tackling degenerative pathologies, as well as for the development of new medicines for the prevention and regeneration of articular cartilage. In 2010 I joined the HBA-USA while in 2012 I was elected as treasurer in the board of directors. My responsibilities in-clude performing all financial affairs and acts of the association, drawing up the annual budget and balance, keeping the accounts and all books and records provided by the law, collecting the contributions and the subscriptions and proceed-ing to payments.

Athanasios Vassilopoulos, PhD

Ioannis K. Zervantonakis, PhD Ioannis is currently a Research Fellow in Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School. Ioannis received his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his research interests are focused on the development of novel assays utilizing microfluidics for monitoring and controlling the cellular micro-environment, with a focus on cancer angiogenesis, biomechanics and metastasis. Ioannis received his diploma from the School of Mechanical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens and a masters from the Technical University of Munich in 2005. Ioannis joined the HBA-USA board of directors as a councilor member in January 2010, and is currently (spring 2012) president of the board. His re-sponsibilities involve representing the association in events, overseeing and coordinating the associa-

tions’ programs and activities.

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Konstantinos Biliouris

Panteleimon Mavroudis Panteleimon received his BS in Chemical Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 2009. During his studies, he took part in IAESTE (the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience) and worked as a summer intern at the Institute of Biochemical Physics in Moscow, Russia. He is currently a 4

th year PhD candidate at the Department of Chemical and

Biochemical Engineering of Rutgers University and works on the broader area of Systems Biology and Inflammation. In particular, his work is based on the overarch-ing hypothesis that disorganization of the mammalian homeostatic rhythms can lead

to disease conditions. As such, he evaluates the rhythmic dynamics of signals at the cellular, hormonal and autonomic level that can be represented by appropriate mechanistic models and integrated ultimately into mathematical models of inflammation that aid to better understand the human physiology under stress. Apart from being a member of HBA-USA since 2010, Panteleimon has also been a member of the American

Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) as well as the Panles-

vian Union of Thessaloniki (filiation from the island of Lesvos). His responsibilities in HBA-USA are related to

the publishing and editing of the newsletter, designing of the website and organizing the events.

i graduated with honors from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Aristotle Uni-versity of Thessaloniki in 2008. I then joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota where I was recently awarded the Doctoral Dissertation Fel-lowship, an honor given to Chemical Engineering Doctorate students at the University of Minnesota as recognition of excellence in studies and outstanding research accomplish-ments. My research interests and expertise are centered around the mathematical model-ing and simulation of natural and synthetic biological organisms ranging from microbes to mammals. I was the President of the Hellenic Student Association at the University of Minnesota

from 2011 to 2012 and recently elected appointed secretary of the HBA. My responsibilities are focused on expanding the HBA, contributing to editing and publishing the HBA newsletter and helping with organizing

Pavlos Msaouel, MD/PhD Pavlos is currently a resident at the Jacobi Medical Center Internal Medicine Program of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx where he was recently voted as the best overall resident of his class for 2011-2012. He completed his MD/PhD studies at the medical school of the university of Athens focusing on neoplasm research and was a re-search fellow at the Mayo Clinic between 2007-2009 where he focused on oncolytic vi-rotherapy. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed scientific papers, book chapters and invited scientific editorials on cancer research, health policy, occupational stress and reproductive biology. He is also serving as a peer-reviewer for multiple scientific journals. He has served as a founding member, special secretary, general secretary and chairman

of the Greek Junior Doctors and Health Scientists Society. Pavlos coordinated the development of the Greek

version of the Effort-­‐reward imbalance questionnaire which can measure the asymmetric exchanges be-

tween occupational effort and rewards in Greek workers. He was also a founding member, designer and edi-tor of the greek political website e-rooster as well as a founding member and member of the temporary board of directors of the Greek political party "Liberal Alliance".

Pavlos joined the HBA-USA board of directors as a counsilor member recently and his responsibilities include assisting medical students and residents seeking training and/or employment in the US.

P A G E 4 W W W . H B A - U S A . O R G

AWARDS

Melpo Christofidou-Solomidou, PhD

Dr. Melpo Christofidou-Solomidou was selected from the Euro American Women’s Council (EAWC) as one of the honorees for the 16th Annual Global Women’s “Goddess Artemis Awards Ceremony”. The ceremony took place in Washington D.C. at the Rayburn House Office Building Congressional Meeting Room South, hosted by the Honorable US Congresswoman, Carolyn B. Maloney. The EAWC is a nonprofit 501(c) organization founded by high-ranking professional women from around the world who have been able to prosper in their careers while also establishing families. EAWC venerates women and men leaders from around the globe for their distinguished achievements with EAWC’s renowned “Goddess Artemis Awards”. The Award Ceremony pays tribute to individuals from the fields of business, civil rights, medicine, sports, academia, science, arts and culture whose achievements have decisively contributed to the growth and advancement of societies on a national and international scale.

Tom Maniatis, PhD

Dr. Maniatis is one of the founders of molecular cloning, and the methods he pioneered for understanding gene expression have had a profound impact on biology, from advancing basic knowledge to creating new therapies to treat human genetic diseases. For this work, and his own research focusing on the way human genes are switched on and off in cells, Dr. Maniatis was awarded a 2012 Lasker- Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science. Dr. Maniatis is an Isidore S. Edelman Professor of Biochemistry and chair, at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, College of Physicians and Surgeons, in Columbia University.

George Georgiou, PhD

George Georgiou , a professor at the University of Texas at Austin whose technology develop- ments in the engineering, medical, biochemical and cellular fields could help treat tens of thousands of patients with diseases such as cancer and osteoporosis, has been elected as a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Established in 1970, IOM is the health arm of the National Academies. Induction into the institute is considered one of the highest honors in health and medicine, reserved for outstanding professional accomplishment and commitment to service. Georgiou, a professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering and the College of Natural Sciences, is only the third faculty member from the university and the second from the Cockrell School’s Biomedical Engineering Department and Chemical Engineering Department to be inducted into IOM.

H E L L E N I C B I O S C I E N T I F I C A S S O C I A T I O N I N T H E U S A

P A G E 5 W W W . H B A - U S A . O R G

HBA-USA MINI SIMPOSIUM ON EPIGENETICS, 25th September 2012

The board of HBA-USA hosted a Mini-Symposium on Epigenetics featuring a presentation of the association’s latest activities and two scientific talks from two distinguished HBA-USA members: Prof. Manolis Kellis, Associ-ate Professor of Computer Science in MIT and Prof. Dimitrios Iliopoulos, Associate Professor of Medicine in UCLA. The talks were followed by many discussions with an attendance of 30, including researchers and stu-dents in the Boston area, joined by existing and new members of our association. The event was concluded with a social for new HBA-USA members in the Boston area.

P A G E 6 W W W . H B A - U S A . O R G

Report from 2nd HBA-USA Symposium The Hellenic Bioscientific Association in USA (HBA-USA) organized the second Pan-American Congress at Columbia University in New York on October 15th-16th 2011. The conference theme was "Moving from basic to translational research via novel tech-nologies" and was supported by the Columbia University Hellenic Association. About 100 Greek researchers in the field of biosci-ences from 15 U.S. states attended the conference. The first day included the opening ceremony and talks from the President of the HBA-USA, Dr. Thomas Thomou (Harvard University, MA), the representative of the Columbia University Hellenic Association, Mr. Thomas Nikolakakis and general consuls of Greece and Cyprus in New York, Mrs Agi Balta and Mrs. Koula Sofianou. Following the opening ceremony, Mr. Stavros Vougiouklakis and Niki Sideri, who passed away unexpectedly 3 days before the start of the conference, were nominated as honorary members of the Association. This was followed by the award to Professor Vassilis Zannis (Boston University, MA) for his contributions to education in the field of biosciences and the award to Professor Charalambos Gavras (Boston University, MA) for his contributions in biomedical research. The next section of the first day of the conference included presen-tations by Dr. Iannis Affanti (New York University, NY), Dr. Poulikos Poulikakos (Memorial Sloan Kettering, NY) and Dr. Nick Vlahakis (Mayo Clinic, MN), whose published scientific papers were the best among the scientific publications of the members of the Association during the last year. The first day of the conference ended with a reception where all the attendees of the conference had the chance to interact with each other.

The first session of the 2nd day was sponsored by the family of Christos Polentas and the theme park in memory of road accident victims in Chania, Crete. This session was focused on the implementation of new technologies in research and started with the distinguished lecture given by Dr. Nikos Kyrpides (head of the Genome Biology Programm U.S. Depart-ment of Energy, CA) followed by two lectures by Dr. Nikos Chronis (University of Michigan, MI) and Dr. Maria Liberis (University of Pennsylvania, PA). The session was opened by Deputy Ambassador of the Permanent Representation of Greece to the United Nations (UN), Mr. Dimitris Karamitsos-Tziras, which focused on the particular value of the role of expatriate Greek scientists in Greece ravaged by the economic crisis. Further, he referred to the cooperation of the UN with the Park "Christos Polentas" to build a memorial in mem-ory of victims of road accidents.

The next session, which was sponsored by the Atlantic Bank of New York, focused on research related to metabolism and cardio-vascular diseases. Dr. Litsa Kranias (University of Cincinnati, OH) gave the distinguished lecture on the mechanisms that cause calcium disorders. In the same session Dr. Chris Vlahos (Lilly Research Laboratories, IN) discussed the process for the design and manufacture of drugs in the industry and Dr. Tasos Lymperopoulos (Nova Southeastern University, FL) talked about new therapeutic targets in heart failure. The last scientific session, which was sponsored by the "Pangregorian Enterprizes of Metro NY and Long Island" included lectures focused on cancer research. Mr. Dimitris Kafkitsas, president of the sponsor emphasized the enterprizes interests to support scientific events. Dr. John Kyriakis (Tufts University) presented the distinguished lecture in this session on the iden-tification and mechanisms of action of a tumor suppressor protein, followed by Dr. Constantine Stratakis (Director of the Endocrinology & Genetics at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, MD) who described mechanisms that contribute to the development of adrenal tumors. This session ended with the talks of Dr. Gabriela Chiosis (Memorial Sloan-Kettering, NY) and Dr. Dimitris Iliopoulos (Harvard, MA) who discussed novel approaches for finding new therapeutic treatments for cancer patients.

The conference ended with the presentation of collaborative educational programs between the U.S., Greece and Cyprus by Dr. Vassilis Zannis (Boston University, MA), Dr. John Evans (Harvard University, MA) and Mr. Leon Stavrou (the Next Generation Initiative). The President of the Association, Dr. Thomas Thomou, presented the Science Teaching Exchange Program (STEP) with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of Ioannina in Greece, which was just launched with the support of Greek expatriates, the Maritime Administration of Thessaloniki, and the think tank Strategy International. Finally Dr. Stelios Papadopoulos deliv-ered the final talk in the session with the presentation of Fondation Santé, which provides schol-arships to young scientists from Greece and Southeast Europe for training in pharmaceutical companies.

The conference concluded with a speech by Dr. Athanasios Vasilopoulos (Vanderbilt University, TN), Vice-President of the HBA-USA, who emphasized the value of volunteer work of the members of the Association which contributed to the success of the conference as well as the high scientific level of the research findings presented by all speakers indicating the great impact of the Greek bioscientists in the USA on the scientific community worldwide. The Board of Directors renewed the appointment with the members of the Association in 2 years, when the 3rd Pan-American conference of the HBA-USA will take place.

H E L L E N I C B I O S C I E N T I F I C A S S O C I A T I O N I N T H E U S A W W W . H B A - U S A . O R G

Congratulations to all!

Refer to the next page to read an

interesting interview with Dr Sachlos, about the No 1

publication “Identification of drugs including a

dopamine receptor antagonist that se-lectively target can-

cer stem cells”

P A G E 7

Top 10 Publications List

1. Sachlos E, Risueno RM, Laronde S, Shapovalova Z, Lee JH, Russell J, Malig M, McNicol JD, Fiebig-Comyn A, Graham M, Levadoux-Martin M, Lee JB, Giacomelli AO, Hassell JA, Fischer-Russell D, Trus MR, Foley R, Leber B, Xenocostas A, Brown ED, Collins TJ, Bhatia M: Identification of drugs including a dopamine receptor antagonist that selectively target cancer stem cells. Cell 2012;149:1284-1297. IF: 32.40

2. Chauhan VP, Stylianopoulos T, Martin JD, Popovic Z, Chen O, Kamoun WS, Bawendi MG, Fukumura D, Jain RK: Normalization of tumour blood vessels improves the delivery of nanomedicines in a size-dependent manner. Nat Nanotechnol 2012;7:383-388. IF: 27.27 3. Kyriakis JM, Avruch J: Mammalian MAPK signal transduction pathways activated by stress and inflammation: a 10-year update. Physiol Rev 2012;92:689-737. IF: 26.86 4. Frangogiannis NG: Matricellular proteins in cardiac adaptation and disease. Physiol Rev 2012;92:635-688. IF: 26.86 5. Ntziachristos P, Tsirigos A, Van Vlierberghe P, Nedjic J, Trimarchi T, Flaherty MS, Ferres-

Marco D, da Ros V, Tang Z, Siegle J, Asp P, Hadler M, Rigo I, De Keersmaecker K, Patel J, Huynh T, Utro F, Poglio S, Samon JB, Paietta E, Racevskis J, Rowe JM, Rabadan R, Levine RL, Brown S, Pflumio F, Dominguez M, Ferrando A, Aifantis I: Genetic inactivation of the polycomb repressive complex 2 in T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Nat Med 2012;18:298-301. IF: 22.46

6. Koppaka V, Thompson DC, Chen Y, Ellermann M, Nicolaou KC, Juvonen RO, Petersen D,

Deitrich RA, Hurley TD, Vasiliou V: Aldehyde dehydrogenase inhibitors: a comprehensive review of the pharmacology, mechanism of action, substrate specificity, and clinical appli-cation. Pharmacol Rev 2012;64:520-539. IF: 20.23

7. Tzeng SR, Kalodimos CG: Protein activity regulation by conformational entropy. Nature

2012;488:236-240. IF: 14.69 8. Fragakis N, Koskinas KC, Katritsis DG, Pagourelias ED, Zografos T, Geleris P: Compari-

son of effectiveness of ranolazine plus amiodarone versus amiodarone alone for conver-sion of recent-onset atrial fibrillation. Am J Cardiol 2012;110:673-677. IF: 14.16

9. Rasmussen MD, Kellis M: Unified modeling of gene duplication, loss, and coalescence

using a locus tree. Genome Res 2012;22:755-765. IF: 13.61 10. Vasiadi M, Therianou A, Sideri K, Smyrnioti M, Sismanopoulos N, Delivanis DA, Asadi S,

Katsarou-Katsari A, Petrakopoulou T, Theoharides A, Antoniou C, Papadavid E, Stavri-aneas N, Kalogeromitros D, Theoharides TC: Increased serum CRH levels with de-creased skin CRHR-1 gene expression in psoriasis and atopic dermatitis. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2012;129:1410-1413. IF: 11.03

The best 10 papers published during the period of Jan ’12 - June ’12 by members of the

Hellenic Bioscientific Association in the USA as the first, second, or as corresponding

last authors, have been posted on the association’s website (www.hba-usa.org). This is

an effort aiming to highlight and advertise the scientific achievements of the members of

the Hellenic Bioscientific Association in the USA.

P A G E 8 W W W . H B A - U S A . O R G

Interview with Dr. Terry Sachlos 1) Could you please describe your academic profile and your academic interests? With the support of a Bodossaki Foundation scholarship, I conducted my doctoral studies in Dr Jan T. Czernuszka’s lab at Oxford University where I become interested in developing bone extracellular matrix analogues using collagen and hydroxyapatite for bone tissue engi-neering. Bone is the second most transplanted tissue and is frequently required to fill up gaps created when bones are broken either due to trauma or surgery. I then wanted to spe-cialize in stem cells and started a postdoc shared between Dr Debra Auguste’s lab at Har-vard University and Dr Robert Langer’s at MIT. My fascination with stem cells prompted me to start a second postdoc in Dr Mick Bhatia’s lab working on using stem cells as a novel can-cer models for drug discovery.

2) Could you give us a brief summary of the most important findings of your paper in the June 2012 issue of Cell? Stem cells are defined by their functional properties of being able to both self-renew and differentiate. There is a growing body of evidence that cancer is driven by a rare population of cancer stem cells that share stem cell-like properties of enhanced self-renewal and partial differentiation. These CSC are suggested to be uniquely able to initiate and sustain the disease while being resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. However, CSC can currently only be measured in immunocompromised xenotrans-plant recipients which dramatically impedes the ability to screen thousands of compounds for anti-CSC activity. Our lab previous identified a human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) line that has undergone a spontaneous transformation conferring enhanced self-renewal and partial differentiation properties (Werbowetski-Ogilvie et al., Nat Biotech 2009). The ability to culture these neoplas-tic hPSCs, along with their normal hPSC counterparts, allowed us to ask the question whether they can be used as a surrogate model to identify selective anti-CSC agents. From a library of approximately 2500 compounds screened, thioridazine was found to selectively target neoplastic hPSC. Importantly, thioridazine was found to selectively target CSC from acute myeloid leukemia (AML) while sparing normal blood stem cells suggesting that the neoplastic vs normal hPSC screening platform is able to identify anti-CSC agents. Thioridazine is known to antagonize dopamine receptors (DRs) which led us to assess whether CSC express DRs. Indeed we found that DRs are associated with CSCs from AML and triple-negative breast cancer and suggest that antago-nizing DRs is one way to selectively target and eradicate CSCs. 3) Could you please describe the main challenges with developing the differential screening assay, the data analysis methods and interpreting the results? Pluripotent stem cells are notoriously difficult to culture in regular 6-well plate conditions so transferring both normal and neoplas-tic hPSC into 96-well plate format proved to be technically challenging. Furthermore, we had to custom build a fully automated screening platform able to maintain the cells, administer compounds, fix and stain, acquire the data using a high throughput plate reader and high content imaging system and develop a data management software system. This required input from multiple parties including equipment manufacturers and dedicated technical staff. Configuring all these separate pieces of equipment to work in sync was an engineering feat. Once the automated platform was operational we were able to quickly screen and gener-ate vast amounts of data which we are still working through. The lab has considerable expertise with well established in vitro and in vivo stem cells assays so we are able to validate our ‘hit’ compounds in multiple stem cell models. 4) An important finding of your work was the demonstration that the dopamine receptor antagonist, thioridazine works selectively on neoplastic human progenitor stem cells and leukemia stem cells. Could you please comment on the un-derlying biological mechanism and signal transduction pathways? We are still working on why leukemic stem cells would utilize dopamine receptors and the underlying signaling pathway. What we do know is that we can target these drugable receptors with thioridazine to reduce leukemic burden in xenotransplant models. This data is encouraging and we are hoping to leverage thioridazine’s existing clinical profile as an antipsychotic drug so as to initiate a clinical trial to test its effectiveness on AML patients. 5)Could you elaborate on how your study findings on dopamine receptor expression could inform cancer therapies to target tumors in individual patients and what could be potential challenges in the clinic? It appears that AML patient samples with a higher fraction of DR expressing blasts cells are associated with a poorer prognostic outcome. We are still following-up as to whether DR could be used as a prognostic biomarker in order to stratify patients. Also, CSCs are presumed to be resistant to conventional cancer therapy regimes suggesting that they may initiate disease relapse. It would be interesting to see if conventional cancer therapy augmented with thioridazine would lead to a reduction in patient re-lapse rates. 6)Do you have plans to investigate the expression and role of dopamine receptor signaling in other types of human tu-mors? In addition to AML, we have looked at highly aggressive triple-negative breast tumors and found DR associated with breast CSC. We are currently looking at other solid tumors but unlike breast tumors, most solid tumors are lacking a well defined CSC pheno-type. We’re hoping to expand this research avenue and collaborate with colleagues working on other solid tumors.

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W W W . H B A - U S A . O R G

One of the major objectives of HBA-USA is to foster scientific collaboration between its members in the USA and universities in Greece and Cyprus, with the aim of developing partnerships for the promotion of excellence in research and education. Funds from kind donations of the Greek community in the United States and from the HBA-USA member-ship fees were secured to initiate the creation of the Science Exchange Teaching Program (STEP). STEP covers travel and accommodation costs for visiting professors of Greek origin in American universities to visit participating universities in Greece and deliver lec-tures at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

In the fall of 2011 Dr. Joanna Floros (Professor of Pediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynecology, in the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Philadelphia) visited the Depart-ment of Biological Studies and Application in the University of Ioannina (Prof. Psarropou-lou and Prof. Thyfronitis). During Spring 2012 Dr. Nikolaos Rombakis (Professor of Psy-chiatry and Neurosciences in the School of Medicine Mount Sinai, New York) and Dr. Constantine Stratakis (Scientific Director at the Institute of Child Health and Human Devel-opment at the National Institutes of Health, Maryland) visited the Department of Physiol-ogy at the Medical School of AUTH (Prof. Albani) and the Department of Biology, Univer-sity of Thessaloniki (Prof. Chatzopoulou-Kladara). Besides the support from the faculty members in Greece, the nonprofit organization Strategy International and the Naval Com-mand of Northern Greece, also kindly supported this program through providing accom-modation for the visiting professors in Thessaloniki.

STEP aims to establish the first steps in developing collaborations among greek universi-ties and distinguished professors of greek origin working in the USA. Moreover, it provides a unique opportunity to students in the Greek universities to attend scientific seminars of distinguished scientists and learn about educational programs in the USA. Especially dur-ing the current difficult economic conditions prevailing in the Greek universities, this pro-gram will be important for promoting excellence in research and teaching in Greece.

Updates from the

Science and Technology Exchange Program (STEP)

W W W . H B A - U S A . O R G

Dr. Joanna Floros Dr. Nikolaos Robakis Dr. Constantine Stratakis

P A G E 1 0 W W W . H B A - U S A . O R G

We Welcome Our new members!

New Members

Harilaos Filippakis Postdoctoral Fellow ORI, Tufts Medical Center Magdalini Papadaki Postdoctoral Fellow MIT-CBI Nikolaos Paschos Postdoctoral Fellow University of California, Davis Marilena Karakatsani Graduate student Rutgers University Spyridon Papageorgiou PhD candidate University of Bonn Panagiotis Fotakis PhD candidate Boston University Nikolaos Biris Postdoctoral Fellow University of Texas Fani Boukouvala PhD candidate Rutgers University Christos Noutsos Postdoctoral Fellow Cold Spring Harbor Lab Konstantinos Parperis Rheumatology Fellow Medical College of Wisconsin Harris Lazaris Graduate student University of Edinburgh Dorothea Politis Graduate student Rutgers University Vaitsa Tziaferi Fellow in pediatric Endocrinology Royal London Hospital Joanna Christodoulou Postdoctoral Fellow Harvard Dimitra Pouli PhD student Tufts Nikolaos Dimitrakakis PhD student Tufts Marianthi Karampoukouki Master student Imperial College of London Georgios Varsos PhD student Cambridge University Despina Nellie Loufakis PhD student Virginia Tech Theodoros Giavridis MA student Columbia University Panayiotis Thanos Scientist Stony Brooke Konstantinos Xynos Associate Medical director Abbot, Chicago Elisavet Serti Postdoctoral Fellow NIH Maria Vogiatzi MD, Assistant Professor WCMC Theodore Aravidis President ARAVIN INC Georgios Koukos Research Fellow Dana Farber Agatha Nicolaou PhD Candidate UMNDH Manolis Gialitakis Postdoctoral Fellow NYU

W W W . H B A - U S A . O R G P A G E 1 1

H E L L E N I C B I O S C I E N T I F I C A S S O C I A T I O N I N T H E U S A

P.O. Box 1998

Brookline MA 02246

Email: administrator@hba-usa.org

Hellenic Bioscientific Association in the USA

We would like to remind you of the 2012 dues

($20 for graduate students, $30 for postdoctoral fel-lows and $50 for faculty members). For more informa-

tion with respect to annual dues payment options please visit our web-page

Since its creation, HBA-USA has had extremely lim-ited outside financial support. HBA-USA is a member organization entirely supported by member dues in

order to implement our association’s goals.

2012 Annual Dues Notice Contact us

Academic Hematopathologist Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, USA Assistant Professor in Immunology, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Infections Disease at the University of Calgary, Calgary, Canda Professor European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute, Cardiff, United Kingdom Junior Group Leader Positions The Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, University of Manchester, UK Staff Scientist Position Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, Fram-ingham, USA Postdoctoral Position in Cancer Biology, Dr. David Guis Lab in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA Postdoctoral Position in Neurobiology, at the Motor Neuron Center in Columbia University, New York, USA Postdoctoral Position Biosensors Lab, Institute of Molecular Biology, Foundation for Research and Technology, Crete, Greece Postdoctoral Position Division Hematology-Oncology, Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens If you want to be instantly notified when a position becomes available, please make sure to subscribe to our new positions and openings RSS feed in our webpage. The present postings are a portion of the posi-

tions presented in our webpage.

Available Positions

P A G E 1 2 W W W . H B A - U S A . O R G

2nd HBA-USA Conference Sponsors

We would like to thank our sponsors for kindly

supporting the organization of the 2nd HBA-USA Conference