Seminar: Prof. Kai Kessenbrock (University of California, Irvine) - Friday, Nov. 10, 2017 @ 3:00 p.m.

Seminar: Prof. Kai Kessenbrock (University of California, Irvine)

UWinChemBiochem Seminar Series - Fall 2017

Prof. Kai Kessenbrock 
Department of Biological Chemistry
School of Medicine 
http://kessenbrocklab.com/kai-kessenbrock/

Title: “The role of the microenvironment in epithelial tissue homeostasis and breast cancer”

Friday, Nov. 10, 2017 @ 3:00 p.m.
Room #186 Essex Hall

**Everyone Welcome**

Dr. Pandey is honoured for research in cancer therapeutics and neurodegeneration

Prof. Siyaram Pandey is to be honoured with “Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Samman” at the House of Lords, London UK on Sept 30, 2016 by the Non Resident Indian (NRI) Welfare Society.





The Non-Resident Indians Welfare Society (NRI Welfare Society) of India was established with the noble objective of strengthening the interaction and bonds between India and Non-Resident Indians sprawling throughout the world strongly desire to see their motherland prosper and the common man should have better resources for bringing up his family. With this aim, thousands and thousands of NRIs have shown their readiness to make investments in India.

The Society organizes, seminars, conferences and symposia on national and International levels in different parts of the world and also honours NRI men and women from various parts of the world to recognize their work.

NRI Welfare society of India is organizing the Global Indian Summit in House of Lords, London, UK on 29-30 September and 1 October, 2016.

One of the highlight of the function will be presentation of Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Samman at House of Lords, London, to those who have made India made Shine. These Awards will be presented to 25 Indians from all over the Globe.

Professor Pandey was nominated and has been selected for this honour for his outstanding achievements as a researcher in the area of cancer therapeutics and neurodegeneration. He will be presented with Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Samman on Sept 30th 2016 at the Global Indian Summit in House of Lords, London UK.

CBC highlight: Pamela Ovadje recognized for anti-cancer work

Windsor's dandelion tea researcher Pamela Ovadje recognized for anti-cancer work
Pamela Ovadje was 'a little bit skeptical' that dandelions could have cancer-fighting properties

A post-doctoral fellow at the University of Windsor is being recognized for the work she has done investigating the anti-cancer properties of several natural extracts, including those of dandelions.

Pamela Ovadje will receive the Mitacs Award for Outstanding Innovation-Postdoctoral at a ceremony in Ottawa on Tuesday.

Mitacs is a non-profit organization that works with universities, governments and companies in Canada, to build partnerships to promote social and industrial innovation.

Close-up of a dandelion plant

Pamela Ovadje's research has examined the anti-cancer properties of several natural extracts, including dandelion roots. 

Ovadje told CBC Radio's Windsor Morning that the story of the work she has been doing tracks back to 2009.

"We had information from an oncologist, a collaborator here in Windsor, who had patients that showed improvement after taking dandelion-root tea," Ovadje told Windsor Morning.

"And so, with a phone call, we decided to start studying what was in this tea that made patients respond to it, so we started digging up dandelions."

Read the full story at the CBC web site

UWindsor researcher on a roll using natural extracts to fight cancer

UWindsor researcher on a roll using natural extracts to fight cancer

After finding treatment possibilities in dandelion root extract, biochemistry professor Siyaram Pandey and the students in his lab have discovered a second natural extract that successfully targets cancer cells.

His latest paper shows that extract from the flowering plant long pepper makes cancer cells undergo apoptosis—essentially committing suicide.

“It targets the weakness of the cancer cells, the metabolic vulnerability of cancer cells. Healthy cells can tolerate the extract but cancer cells cannot tolerate it, they die,” says Dr. Pandey. In addition to testing the substance on a cellular level and studying cells in a petri dish in the lab, his team also fed it orally to mice with tumours. “We proved it is not toxic. It dissolves into the system, goes to the tumour site and blocks the growth of the tumour.”

Pandey, post-doctoral fellow Pam Ovadje, and graduate and undergraduate student contributors, have just published their long pepper findings in the November 2014 edition of PLOS One.

To read more, see the full Daily News story here!

Dennis Ma is awarded a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship

Dennis Ma pulls a tray of experimental cancer cell samples out of a liquid nitrogen tank in his Essex Hall lab.

Congratulations to Dennis Ma!


All of the dedication and commitment Dennis Ma has put into his research are beginning to pay off, both in his academic career and the progress he’s made in finding new ways to fight cancer.

“I’ve never worked harder in my whole life than I have in the past few years,” said Ma, a PhD student in Chemistry and Biochemistry and the recent recipient of a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. “A lot of times we’re here at 7 a.m. and don’t get home until after midnight. It’s been a lot of hard work and a lot of long hours.”

Ma was one of 156 doctoral students from 29 Canadian universities to receive one of the scholarships, which provide $50,000 per year in funding over a three year period. The successful recipients were announced at a reception last week in Kingston, Ontario.

Click here to read the whole story in the Daily News.

Dr. Pandey discusses disease-fighting natural compounds on research talk show

Siyaram Pandey was skeptical when he was first approached by a local oncologist who was curious about cancer patients who had been drinking dandelion tea and seemed to be getting better.

“To be honest I was very pessimistic,” said Dr. Pandey, a professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry who researches the effects that a variety of natural compounds have on the process of cell death. “She said it could be coincidental but it couldn’t hurt to see if there is anything.”

Pandey, who will appear today on CJAM to discuss his research, conducted a literature review and could only find one journal article suggesting dandelions may have cancer-killing properties. But he and his team of graduate students collected a bunch of the weeds anyway, ground them up with a mixture of water in a food processor and developed a simple formula they could experiment with.

Click here to read the full story on the Daily News!

Student researchers inspired by legacy of cancer patient

Every morning when they go to work in their Essex Hall biochemistry lab, Ph.D. students Pam Ovadje and Dennis Ma get an inspirational reminder of why they’re there. Mounted on the door to that lab is a plaque dedicating the space to the memory of Kevin Couvillon, who died at the age of 26 in November 2010, after a three-year battle with acute myeloid leukemia.

Last week, Ovadje, Ma and other graduate students from the lab of professor Siyaram Pandey met with Couvillon’s parents to give them an update on their research into how such natural products as dandelion root extract and pancratistatin – derived from a Hawaiian spider lily plant – cause certain cancer cells to effectively commit suicide.

After an emotional presentation in the Toldo Health Education building on what would have been Kevin’s 28th birthday, his father Dave discreetly handed Dr. Pandey a cheque for $20,000 to help fund the research, bringing the total the family has donated to the lab to $40,000. It was gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by the students.

Read more of this story here on the Daily News.

Researchers in Chemistry and Biochemistry receive Seeds4Hope funding

Congratulations to Professor James Green, who was awarded a Seeds4Hope grant to develop compounds that have shown early success killing cancer cells.

Excerpt from the Windsor Star article:

“As a chemist, you’re so used to having long hours of work without immediate rewards, that you often think, ‘I better not hope too much,’” Green said Monday after collecting a grant to continue his research for two more years. “But so far, I’m delighted. I really hope it leads to something.”

On Monday, Green’s project was awarded $67,000 over two years by Seeds4Hope, funded by the Windsor & Essex County Cancer Centre Foundation. Also collecting research grants from Seeds4Hope on Monday were University of Windsor professors Andrew Swan, who will use $63,000 over two years to probe tumour-suppressing functions of cancer genes, and Panayiotis Vacratsis, who will use $76,000 over two years to investigate a possible link between a specific tumour growth and survival.

To read more:

http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Protein+killer+holds+promise+cancer+cure/5635023/story.html#ixzz1cVCsZgZj

In addition, Prof. Otis Vacratsis was awarded $76,000 for his proposal: Functional Characterization of hYVH1/DUSP12: A Putative Oncogene Overexpressed in Late Stage Cancers. This research project focuses on investigating a new cell survival enzyme (hYVH1), that has recently been implemented in both cell growth and division, and has been found to be over productive in many aggressive, late stage cancers.

To learn more about our department, visit http://www.uwindsor.ca/chemistry.

Click the professors' names above to visit their websites.

See also: http://www.ourwindsor.ca/2011/11/206k-goes-to-local-cancer-research-projects/

Windsor student discovers promising cancer treatment option

Congratulations to Carly Griffin: Carly defended her Ph.D. thesis successfully on Jan 6th 2011.

by Meghan Scanlan — The Lance (University of Windsor)

WINDSOR, Ont. (CUP) — After her father was diagnosed with colon cancer, Carly Griffin made it her life’s ambition to find a cure for cancer.

After the devastating loss of her father and several years of research, she may have reached her goal.

“Ultimately, that fuelled my decision to study biochemistry at the University of Windsor,” said Griffin.

In her third year at the University of Windsor, she actively pursued her goal of finding a cure by inquiring about a position in Siyaram Pandey’s research lab. It is in this lab that Griffin would work on the substance of her PhD, now proven to be a promising advance in cancer research.

The key to Griffin’s success is found in the rare Hawaiian spider lily plant. The plant and its cancer-killing compounds according to Griffin “have been studied by organic chemists for decades.”

Pandey became interested after attending a weekly seminar hosted by the chemistry department. Interested in testing the plant’s anti-cancer activity, Pandey handed the task off to two volunteer undergraduate students.

According to Griffin, two very exciting things happened for Pandey, his volunteers and for the world of cancer research.

The volunteer research students found that pancratistatin, a compound found in the Hawaiian spider lily plant, was very potent against cancer cells. They also found that there was currently no other research group actively studying pancratistatin.

In 2004, Griffin joined the research group and says she has “spent the last six years trying to figure out how pancratistatin works against cancer.”

To see the entire article, please check out the following link:

http://newswire.cup.ca/articles/41476

Professor Siyaram Pandey receives three year CIHR grant for $302,000

Congratulations to Professor Siyaram Pandey, who as received a research grant of $302,000 over three years (2011-2014) for a research project entitled "Investigation of mechanism of neuroprotection by a water-soluble CoQ10 in a paraquat induced model of Parkinson's disease," in collaboration with Dr. Jerome Cohen (Psychology). This project application was ranked in the top three in this grant review committee.

For more information on Dr. Pandey's research, please visit:

http://www.uwindsor.ca/pandey

For more information on CIHR funding, please visit:

http://webapps.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/cfdd/db_results_submit

Public seminar: Cancer Cells, Enemies Within: Natural Compounds as Novel, Non-toxic Weapons Against Cancer

Cancer Cells, Enemies Within: Natural Compounds as Novel, Non-toxic Weapons Against Cancer
A free presentation with Dr. Siyaram Pandey
Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
at the University of Windsor
Thursday March 12, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Canada South Science City
893 Marion Avenue, Windsor

Have you ever wondered ...
What goes wrong in normal cells to cause them to become cancerous?
What challenges face researchers as they develop chemotherapy treatments?
Is there a natural, non-toxic approach to fighting this deadly disease?
Join Dr. Pandey as he discusses these issues and talks about the ground-breaking research he conducts with his team at the University of Windsor, working to develop natural non-toxic therapies to fight cancer.

Presented as part of the Youth Science & Technology Outreach Program (YSTOP). An excellent opportunity for young people and their families to interact with researchers. For more information call 519-973-3667