Addy Alt-Holland
Addy Alt-Holland, IVACS Co-Chair
I am a molecular and cell biologist and a cancer researcher at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine (TUSDM) in Boston, MA. Although I am not a dentist, I was appointed Assistant Professor at the Department of Endodontics at TUSDM in 2007 to promote research and collaborations between clinicians and scientists. I am also the Director of Tufts Cancer Center Tissue Engineering Core, since 2012. I earned my Ph.D. degree, with highest distinction, in Molecular and Cell Biology from Bar-Ilan University in Israel, where I also received my M.Sc and B.Sc degrees. I have vast experience and multidisciplinary expertise in the fields of microbiology and virology, molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, tissue engineering, and cancer research. I am a co-inventor of several international patents, serve as a reviewer for different scientific journals, and have authored and co-authored peer-reviewed publications in journals, such as Cancer Research, Oncogene, Journal of Investigative Dermatology, In Vitro Cell and Developmental Biology Animal, Molecular Cell Biology, Journal of Cell Sciences and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. I am an active member of several associations, such as the Society for In Vitro Biology, American Association for Cancer Research, Society for Investigative Dermatology, and the American Association for Dental Research, and serve as the Vice President and a Board Member of the International Association for Biological and Medical Research. I have presented my research work at numerous national and international conferences during which I chaired and convened sessions, and delivered oral and poster presentations. As a full-time faculty member, I mentor and instruct faculty members, and graduate and undergraduate students from Tufts, and am the Director of the course “Selected Topics in Molecular and Cell Biology” that is offered to post-graduate students at TUSDM. Additionally, I am a member of thesis committees for the Master of Science Degree, a member of TUSDM research committee, and was appointed by the Dean as a member of the School’s Strategic Planning Steering committee.
As a dedicated cancer researcher, I strongly believe that only innovative collaborations designed to bridge complimentary areas of expertise that are driven by researchers’ synergistic and mutual interests would lead to novel therapeutics targeting human cancers. My collaborative relationships with leading investigators within Tufts Medical Center, Tufts Schools of Dental Medicine, Medicine and Engineering, as well as investigators across the country, some of whom I met at SIVB conferences, enable me to expand my research interests, and continue developing my academic career. My research projects are aimed to: 1) develop innovative, human three-dimensional bioengineered tissue models to explore tumor cell motility and invasion as well as tumor-microenvironment interactions in physiologically-relevant settings in vitro; 2) reveal novel potential targets for cancer therapeutics to intervene and revert early stages in skin and oral squamous cell carcinoma progression; and 3) develop new platforms for controlled drug delivery and release to ensure efficacy, potency and longer availability of drugs to inhibit cancer development in tissues in vitro and in vivo. As the Director of the Tissue Engineering Core, I work closely with Tufts Cancer Center researches and guide the development of human, three-dimensional tissue models that enable research into the complex interplay between multiple cell and tissue types during cancer development.
I was invited to present my research work at the 2010 SIVB meeting in St. Louis, MI. There, I felt not only welcome by the SIVB officers and members, but also inspired by the association’s mission to foster exchange of knowledge to advance current and future systems for in vitro biology of cells, tissues and organs from animals (including humans) and plants. This unique scientific environment made me feel “at home”. One year later, at the 2011 SIVB meeting in Raleigh, NC, I co-convened a symposium and a workshop on engineered three-dimensional tissues to which I invited renowned speakers from both academia and industry to successfully engage an audience with wide-range interest from both the animal and plant biology sections of the SIVB. As an enthusiastic mentor and a committed scientist, I continued to co-convene sessions at the 2012 SIVB meeting in Bellevue, WA, and as a result of my question “how can I do more for the SIVB?” I found myself elected to be the Chair of the IVACS Scientific Program for the 2013-2014 conferences. I would like to continue to contribute to the success of the SIVB association, and to promote the awareness of investigators and students from both the IVACS and PBS sections to the necessity and advantages of multidisciplinary scientific approaches and collaborations, and the powerful tools that tissue culture technologies have to offer to advance the scientific and medical achievements forward. I look forward to meeting familiar as well as new faces in the upcoming 2013 SIVB meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, and for successful, exciting and stimulating future SIVB meetings.
Submitted by Addy Alt-Holland, Ph.D.
Brad Upham
Brad Upham, IVACS Chair
Associate Professor
Michigan State University
Department of Pediatrics and Human Development
upham@msu.edu
My first introduction to the Society of In Vitro Biology was as an invited speaker at the 2003 World Congress on In Vitro Biology in Portland, OR; in a symposium on the “Epigenetic Toxicants, Altered Intra-cellular Signaling and Modulated Gap Junctional Intercellular Communication”. This gave me an excellent opportunity to experience the friendly environment of this society, and the high quality of the meeting program that presented cutting edge science in many aspects of cell biology. I particularly enjoyed this smaller meeting format that provided a more intimate climate that allowed attendees, including students, to be far more engaged with each other than the large meetings I typically attended. I also liked the very unique aspect of this society where scientists are from both the plant and animal arena of biology, and how the programmers did an excellent job integrating these fields in select joint symposia and workshops. Although I have been doing biomedical research for the last 22 years, I began my scientific career in the plant sciences earning an M.S. in botany and Ph.D. in plant physiology, pathology and weed science where my first research projects involved plant tissue culture to study plant development and photosynthesis. My first few publications were all related to plant science. Thus, SIVB had hooked my interest and I became a member.
I have since been privileged to be a part of this society where I have convened numerous sessions at our annual meetings, member of the “Long Range Planning Committee”, served as the co-chair for the IVACS section, chaired the IVACS committee for planning our National Meeting in 2011 and our World Congress in 2012. I am currently serving as chair for the IVACS meeting. I am strongly committed to interdisciplinary approaches of sciences, which is a large draw for me to this society and positions us to enhance interdisciplinary experiences for our members. I would like to improve communication between the various sectors of science and engineering to enhance more interdisciplinary approaches to research and would like to see our society playing a more active role to recruit more scientists from various disciplines using eukaryotic cell and tissue culture technology.
I have also served as an elected president for the Michigan Chapter of the Society of Toxicology (MISOT) and am currently an elected councilor for MISOT, on the editorial boards for the Journal of Toxicology and Journal of Biomedicine & Biotechnology, and am treasurer for the MSU chapter of Sigma Xi. I have served on several study sections at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) for P30 Environmental Health Centers, T32, K99/R00 & K01 training/mentor grants, and center applications for “Children’s Environmental Health & Disease Prevention” and “Formative Centers for Children’s Environmental Health & Disease Prevention”, reviewed grants for New Zealand Health Research Council, and University of New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station, and frequently reviews papers for numerous journals in toxicology and human health. I am also a member of the Society of Toxicology, and the American Chemical Society. I have published 58 papers in peer-reviewed journals and have provided numerous lectures at national and international conferences. My research interests are cellular mechanisms by which nutrition, oxidative stress, and environmental & food borne contaminants affect cell proliferative, differentiation and apoptotic processes that ultimately cumulates into states of human diseases such as cancer. My research programs have been funded as both, Principle Investigator (PI) and Co-Investigator, by R01, R56 and P40 grants from the National Institute on Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institute of Health, and as Co-investigator or Co-PI on grants funded by the Great Lakes Cancer Institute, National Cancer Society, U.S. Department of Defense-Air Force, and the Electrical Power research Institute. PubMed list of peer-reviewed papers: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=upham%20b.l.
Submitted by Brad Upham, Ph.D.
