• Dr. Jason Bartz was an invited speaker at the national meeting of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine, October 16-18, in Salt Lake City.  In addition, Dr. Bartz’ most recent manuscript has been accepted for publication in the January issue of the Journal of Virology:

Bartz, J.C., M.L. Kramer, M.H. Sheehan, J.A.L. Hutter, J.I. Ayers, R.A. Bessen and A.E. Kincaid.  Prion Interference Is Due to a Reduction in Strain-Specific PrPSc Levels. 2007.  J. Virol. 81: (in press)

• Dr. Kristen Drescher was selected to participate as a Junior Investigator in the Round Table Discussion “Is There a Need for Improved Animal Models in TID and MS-Cross Disease Lessons?” at the recent Animal Models for Type 1 Diabetes and Multiple Sclerosis Conference sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences
   
• Dr. Martha Gentry-Nielsen was invited to give a talk on November 17th as part of the annual meeting of the Alcohol and Immunology Research Interest Group in Chicago.  Adam Pitz, a graduate student in her laboratory, also received a travel award to present his poster entitled "Alveolar Macrophage Phagocytosis in the Drinking and Smoking Host".  While in Chicago they also attended the Midwest Autumn Immunology Conference.  Work by Elizabeth Vander Top in Dr. Gentry-Nielsen’s laboratory has recently been published:

Vander Top, E.A., G.A. Perry, M.U. Snitily, M.J. Gentry-Nielsen.  Smoke Exposure and Ethanol Ingestion Modulate Polymorphonuclear Leukocyte Killing, But Not Recruitment or Phagocytosis. 2006. Alcoholism: Clin Exp Res 30:1599-1607.

Vander Top, E.A., G.A. Perry, M.J. Gentry-Nielsen.  A Novel Flow Cytometric Assay for Measurement of In vivo Pulmonary Neutrophil Phagocytosis.  2006.  BioMed Central Microbiology 6:61. 

• Dr. Richard Goering has been appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 1 January 2007 through 31 December 2009. Work by Kristin Bonnstetter in Dr. Goering’s laboratory has been accepted for publication in the January issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology:

Bonnstetter, K.K.,  D.J. Wolter, F.C. Tenover, L.K. McDougal, and R.V. Goering.  2007.  Rapid Multiplex PCR Assay for Identification of USA300 Community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Isolates. J. Clin. Microbiol. 24:  (in press)

• Chemicon / Millipore has just signed an exclusive license agreement with Dr. Nancy Hanson and Creighton University regarding her development of novel molecular methods for detecting beta-lactamase resistance genes in clinically important bacterial isolates (patents currently in place or pending).
   
• In response to a November 13 editorial in the Omaha World Herald regarding the current state of NIH funding, Dr. Patrick Swanson wrote a letter to the editor underscoring the issues which was published in the Public Pulse on November 20.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________