- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Make that a scientist who knows about soluble epoxide hydrolase, and a physician who knows about acute kidney injury (AKI), formerly called acute renal failure.
"It makes my brain hurt (reading it)," commented a colleague who is neither.
However, it's an important research paper published in the current edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and it's co-authored by a distinguished UC Davis professor trained as an entomologist: Bruce Hammock, who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The gist of it: newly published research by an international team of scientists, headed by the Jun-Yan Liu lab of Tongji University, Shanghai, China, and the Bruce Hammock lab at UC Davis, may provide promising therapeutic strategies for those suffering from acute kidney injury (AKI), formerly called acute renal failure. Access PNAS article.
“The soluble epoxide hydrolase or sEH degrades chemically stable fatty acid epoxides,” explained Hammock. “But sometimes it can be useful to block the function of sEH, so that beneficial fatty acid epoxides, like those from omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, are not degraded. These fatty acid epoxides have been found to protect the kidney, reduce inflammation, inflammatory pain, and even chronic or neuropathic pain.”
In general, the epoxides of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) from fish oil make the soluble epoxide hydrolase inhibitors even more effective, the Hammock lab has found. “However, in this case, the fish oil seemed to be deleterious rather than beneficial when combined with the sEH inhibitors with kidney injury,” Hammock said. This was unexpected and the investigators caution that fish oil may not always have beneficial effects.
Professor Jun-Yan Liu, a former postgraduate researcher and assistant project scientist in the Hammock lab, related that the lipid mediators that preserve the kidney in AKI are termed EETs. “Their levels can be changed by altering their degradation or biosynthesis with selective inhibitors. This increase in EET resulted in anticipated decreases in the plasma level of creatinine and urea nitrogen—both biomarkers for kidney injury.” He added that they are looking forward to the epoxide hydrolase inhibitors finishing phase I clinical trials in humans so they can be evaluated for preventing or treating AKI.
Specifically, the researchers discovered that a 14(15)-EET mitigated kidney injury and prolonged life, while another epoxide, 19(20)-EDP from fish oil, exacerbated the kidney injury and shortened life. “We found that epoxides of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and DHA-enriched fish oil worsened kidney injury prophylactically and therapeutically in multiple animal models of AKI,” wrote Liu, pointing out that fish oil has proven beneficial in a number of other investigations.
Statistics show that “the incidence of AKI in hospitalized patients increased dramatically from 4.9 percent in 1983 to 20 percent in 2012,” the researchers wrote in their paper. “The mortality from AKI is greater than 50 percent; worldwide, approximately 2 million people die of AKI every year. Therefore, novel, safe and effective approaches are urgently needed to prevent and treat AKI.”
Says Weiss: “Because AKI has no specific effective therapy and treatment is merely supportive frequently requiring hemodialysis any new treatment or therapeutic paradigm would be welcome in the nephrology community and has the potential to improve the lives of many patients with AKI."
Kidney injury expert Alan Parrish of the University of Missouri's School of Medicine, Columbia, also not involved in the research, called the findings “significant.”
“The collaborative studies between Dr. Liu's and Hammock's group are an elegant, and timely, contribution to our understanding of acute kidney injury (AKI),” said Parrish, vice chair for education and director of Graduate Studies for Medical Pharmacology at the medical school. “AKI has potentially devastating short-term consequences - high mortality - as well as the detrimental long-term impact on renal function. Importantly, specific interventions to treat AKI in patients have not yet been identified. These results are significant in that they provide a unique mechanistic insight into pathways targeted by soluble epoxide hydrolase inhibitors that attenuate AKI, providing a powerful rationale for future clinical trials in AKI patients.”
Bruce Hammock knows well the tragedy of AKI and its terrible toll. "When I was in a burn unit in the U.S. Army, many patients faced their last few hours with sepsis and AKI. I have had my mom and cousin die of acute renal failure. It is not all that rare, and there is not much a doctor can do now except watch. Dialysis normally comes too late--and dialysis comes with its own problems."
The paper is the work of scientists led by Jun-Yan Liu from the Center for the Nephrology and Metabolomics and Division of Nephrology and Rheumatology, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China: Bing-Qing Deng, Ying Luo, Xin Kang, Chang-Bin Li, Jian Huang, Da-Yong Hu, Ming-Yu Wu, and Ai Peng; and Hammock and his lab researchers Jun Yang, Christophe Morrisseau, Kin Sing Stephen Lee at UC Davis.
What's next?
"For humans, we are supported by the National Institutes of Health Blueprint Program to take this through Human Phase I," Hammock says. "We hope to be in Phase 1 next year. We are looking for support for Phase II. Once Phase 1 is finished, there should be an IND that can be referenced for physician-initiated trials. We are looking for angel or venture funding for similar FDA trials in horses and companion animals.”
“The epoxy fatty acids and sHE inhibitors block ER stress," Hammock says. "Thus, they should help with a number of disorders that arise from ER stress. We are first targeting neuropathic pain in humans and inflammatory pain in horses and companion animals.”
The intellectual property status? “Some licensed by the University of California to EicOsis LLC (a company founded by Hammock, the CEO) and others are EicOsis patents.”
Licensing? “Licensed exclusively to EicOsis, but EicOsis is interested in partnerships or sublicenses for specific indications.”
Resources:
Access PNAS article
Hammock lab: http://www.biopestlab.ucdavis.edu/Epoxide_Hydrolase/
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Have you ever considered them as important vectors of floral microbes?
Well, they are!
Community ecologist Ash Zemenick, formerly in the graduate student program of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will present an exit seminar, "Do Flower Visitors Network with Floral Microbes?" from 4:10 to 5 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 8 in 122 Briggs Hall, UC Davis campus.
Zemenick received a doctorate in entomology in September 2017 from UC Davis, studying with major professor Jay Rosenheim and with assistant professor Rachel Vannette.
"Flowers are colonized by diverse microbial communities that can influence plant and pollinator health and mediate plant-pollinate interactions," says Zemenick, now a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow in the Weber lab at Michigan State University. "Because flower-visiting insects and hummingbirds can harbor high densities of microbial cells, flower visitors are thought to be important vectors of floral microbes. Although floral microbe community assembly is dependent, in part, on dispersal by flower visitors, floral microbe community assembly has yet to be fully considered in the context of the rich network of plant-flower visitor interactions with which they are linked."
The Zemenick dissertation involved "using an historic flower visitor dataset, field experiments and construction of a plant-flower visitor-microbe network to demonstrate the importance of flower visitor identity and interaction in mediating floral microbe community assembly and structure at both local and regional scales."
"With the help of four motivated undergraduates and many gracious entomologists, I built a tripartite plant-flower visitor-floral microbe network. Data was collected from 20 co-flowering plant species over a short phenological timespan in a high elevation wet meadow located in the Tahoe National Forest."
"Questions I (set about) answering with this dataset included: do plants occupy similar positions in both networks? Do plants with similar visitors have similar microbes? Which plants are hubs of floral microbe diversity? Can we determine whether dispersal (by visitor) or environmental filtering (by plant traits) is more important in structuring floral microbial communities?"
As a PhD candidate in the Rosenheim lab, Zemenick worked to "disentangle how the structure of plant-flower visitor interactions varies for different types of flower visitors, and the implications of varying structure for floral microbe communities."
Now, as a post doc in the Weber lab, "I will be studying how plant-mite interactions directly and indirectly influence leaf microbial communities and subsequent invasibility by pathogens. I will also be working on building a repository of introductory biology teaching material that humanizes the field of biology and biologists. It will include how biological research applies to current societal problems and highlight what it is like to be a biologist. The materials will be comprised of examples provided by biologists that self-identify as being part of underrepresented group(s) in STEM (e.g. in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexuality, income, nationality, immigrant status, cognitive and physical ability, etc.)."
Overall, Zemenick enjoys studying ecological networks, community assembly, plants, insects, and microbes. "I also love to teach and help students get involved in research."
See more information on Zemenick's website, Inclusive Plant-Insect Microbial Ecology.
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's fall quarter seminars, coordinated by Rachel Vannette, assistant professor, are held Wednesdays from 4:10 to 5 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. They are open to all interested persons. See seminar schedule.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden is sponsoring its annual fall clearance plant sale from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 4 at its Arboretum Teaching Nursery headquarters on Garrod Drive, UC Davis campus. The inventory includes more than 16,000 plants and almost 550 varieties.
And you're invited.
And it's all for a good cause; to benefit the good work that the Arboretum does.
It may be raining, but not to worry. There's a special rainy day discount; Arboretum officials say that everything will be at least 25 percent off with even deeper discounts on selected plants. Members receive an additional 10 percent off (and you can join at the gate or online.)
Featured will be many of their Garden Gems. What's a Garden Gem? A low-water plant well-suited to the Central Valley climate. They include some of our favorites (and pollinator favorites!):
- Chilean rock purslane, Calandrina grandiflora
- Butterfly bush, Buddleia davidii
- Laura Beard tongue, Penstemen 'Pensham Laura'
- Pomegranate, Punica granatum 'Wonderful'
- Black sage, Salvia mellifera
- Red-violet autumn sage, Salvia 'Dark Dancer'
- Furman's red autumn sage, Salvia greggii 'Furman's Red'
- San Carlos festival sage, Salvia microphylla 'San Carlos Festival'
- Spreading purple sage, Salvia leucophylla 'Point Sal'
Other popular plant lists are Life After Lawn, and Durable Delights.
You can also download the entire plant sale inventory:
Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) or Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)
What to bring? Yourself. Your family and friends. Your umbrella.
And BYOB, BYOC or BYOW. That would be Bring Your Own Box, Cart or Wagon as this will smoothe and expedite your browsing/sale experience.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Hamby, an assistant professor and extension specialist in the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland-College Park, will receive the Early Career Professional (ECP) Extension Award during the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America (ESA), Nov. 5-8 in Denver, Colo. The awards breakfast is set Nov. 7 in the Four Seasons Ballroom, Big Blue Bear, Colorado Convention Center.
The award is given to an early professional who excels in entomological Extension.
The ESA spotlighted her in its program: "Her research and extension program addresses invasive and emerging insect pest issues, evaluating and optimizing pest management programs, and development of sustainable alternative management tactics. Dr. Hamby is particularly interested in understanding and exploiting insect interactions with free-living microorganisms for sustainable pest management."
"Her current work includes characterizing spotted wing drosophila's interactions with yeast and fruit rot microorganisms and developing cultural control tactics for this invasive pest of small fruit. Her lab is also evaluating the pest suppression benefits and non-target impacts of neonicotinoid seed treatments in mid-Atlantic grain crop rotations."
"Dr. Hamby delivers timely, research-based extension programming via extension publications, field days, and winter meetings, serving the needs of Maryland's grain producers and diversified small fruit farmers. In addition to her research and extension responsibilities, Dr. Hamby teaches integrated pest management and provides K-12 outreach with hands-on pest management activities."
Hamby received all three of her degrees from the University of California, Davis. While studying for her bachelor's degree in environmental toxicology, specializing in ecotoxicology, she completed the integrated studies honors program and graduated with highest honors in June 2009, making the dean's honors list. She went on to obtain her master's degree (March 2012) and doctorate in entomology (March 2014), studying with major professor and integrated pest management specialist Frank Zalom, distinguished professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and a past president of the ESA. Her doctoral dissertation, completed in 2014, covered: “Biology and Pesticide Resistance Management of Drosophila suzukii in Coastal California Berries."
At UC Davis, Hamby was supported by a National Science Foundation Research Scholarship and went on to win the coveted John Henry Comstock Award from the Pacific Branch, ESA. She compiled a near perfect 4.0 grade point average during her years at UC Davis.
Hamby joined the ESA in 2009 and has presented her research at many of the annual meetings.
The ESA, founded in 1889, is the world's largest organization serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and people in related disciplines. Its nearly 7,000 members are affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government. Members are researchers, teachers, extension service personnel, administrators, marketing representatives, research technicians, consultants, students, and hobbyists.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Sure, they're known for donning butterfly, bee, and black widow spider costumes.
But sometimes they opt to characterize a scarecrow, a rag doll, a police officer, a pirate, Bernie Sanders and a hot dog. Or dress in a ghillie suit.
As a carved pumpkin spilled its guts, the costumes at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's Halloween party in the Academic Surge Building on Friday night, Oct. 27 startled, spooked and scared many of the Halloween celebrants.
However, not the costume of Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. She slipped on her lab coat. Quick and easy.
Bohart Museum research entomologist Tom Zavortink portrayed Bernie Sanders, complete with a dark suit and tie and a name tag that read simply: "Bernie."
Bohart senior museum scientist Steve Heydon and his wife, Anita, chose to be a scarecrow and a black widow spider, respectively.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology Department faculty, wore a ghillie suit. Last year he carried a duck on his shoulder, an invited guest. This year he came duckless.
Students Parras McGrath posed as a tarantula hawk, Jamie Fong as a hot dog, Keely Davies as a police officer, Gabriela Rivera as a ragdoll, and Diego Rivera as a pirate with a faux parrot perched on his shoulder.
Staffer Tabatha Yang, the Bohart's outreach and public education coordinator, came as a "staff infection" with an appropriate mark on her cheek.
Shark teeth showed up, too. For the occasion, UC Davis entomologist alumnus (and artist) Danielle Wishon of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, detailed her face with gleaming predatory teeth, straight out of Jaws.
Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas, a dragonfly and butterfly expert, came as himself. "What are you supposed to be?" we inquired. "I'm Greg!" he said.
The attendees exchanged greetings, enjoyed food (catered by entomologists Ivana Li and Corwin Parker), dipped marshmallows, fruit and pretzels into a chocolate fountain, and broke a pinata. (See previous Bug Squad). They listened to a trio of musicians performing in front of the gift shop: James Heydon on guitar, Maia Lundy, vocals; and Maia's sister, Jade Lundy, on violin. Later Andre Poon, framed by a harp, entertained on the violin.
That's what entomologists do.
When Lynn Kimsey cut a chocolate anniversary cake, the predators, the prey, the police officer, the scarecrow, the hot dog and Bernie--and all the others--stepped forward.
You can have your cake and eat it, too, no matter if you're prey or predator or something else.
