The Graduate School Launches Training Program for Leaders Advancing Socially Engaged Research (LASER)
This year, the Graduate School launched a new experiential training program focused on leadership skills and social responsibility. Leaders Advancing Socially Engaged Research, or LASER, is aimed at Notre Dame doctoral students in their 3rd or 4th years of study, and is intended to complement students’ individual research pursuits in their various fields. This year’s cohort consists of seventeen students completing individual LASER projects and hailing from each of the Graduate School’s four academic disciplines (engineering, humanities, social sciences, and science).
Scientists neutralize reactive nitrogen molecules to enhance cancer immunotherapy
Immunotherapy — harnessing T-cells to attack cancer cells in the body — has given hope to patients who endure round after round of treatment, including chemotherapy, to little effect. For all of its promise, however, immunotherapy still benefits only a minority of patients — a reality driving research in the field for ways to improve the relatively new approach. One method for improving efficacy is the development of bio- and activity-based markers to better predict which patients will respond to immunotherapy and identify why some don’t. In a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the University of Notre Dame studying tumors in prostate cancer models found that nitration of an amino acid can inhibit T-cell activation, thwarting the T-cell’s ability to kill cancer cells.
Committee identifies priorities for nation’s future water resource challenges
Jennifer Tank, Galla Professor of Biological Sciences and director of the Notre Dame Environmental Change Initiative, served as one of 15 experts on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Committee on Future Water Resource Needs for the Nation.
Notre Dame researcher to study dengue virus vaccine
Guido Camargo España Guido Camargo España, postdoctoral research associate of biological sciences, has received a Postdoctoral Training Award in Translational Research from the Indiana…
Lu receives Susan G. Komen grant to study how breast cancer spreads
Xin Lu, the John M. and Mary Jo Boler Assistant Professor of biology, was awarded a 2018 Susan G. Komen research grant to identify potential new therapies for treating metastatic breast cancer.