Associate Professor Ron Korstanje, Ph.D., of The Jackson Laboratory named Evnin Family Chair
Appointment honors Korstanje’s accomplishments as an exemplary scientist and mentor
2024-03-01
(Press-News.org)
Associate Professor Ron Korstanje, Ph.D., has been named the Evnin Family Chair at The Jackson Laboratory. An expert in the genetics of kidney function and disease, Korstanje’s appointment marks a new chapter in his 20 years of service to JAX’s mission.
“Ron’s exceptional contributions to JAX have advanced research discoveries and nurtured generations of future scientists,” said President and CEO Lon Cardon, Ph.D., FMedSci. “His appointment as the Evnin Family Chair bolsters our commitment to understanding the most complex health challenges of our time. I’m grateful to him, and to the Evnin family for their support in helping us recruit and retain top scientists.”
As a standout researcher in his field, Korstanje has authored more than 110 publications exploring the intersection of kidney function, aging, metabolism and genomics. He is a lead collaborator at the JAX Center for Aging Research and is a consummate volunteer for internal committees and boards and for organizations outside of JAX.
To better understand the biology of aging and age-associated decline of kidney function, Korstanje has been performing studies in different species, including C. elegans, zebrafish, mice, and even black bears. He co-authored studies which discovered new genes that were previously unassociated with lifespan, and identified therapies that act on these genes to improve kidney function and extend lifespan and healthspan.
Born and educated in the Netherlands, Korstanje first arrived at JAX in 2001 as a postdoctoral fellow, working alongside the late legendary scientist and mentor Beverly Paigen, Ph.D. He was recruited back overseas to the University of Groningen in 2004 as a research associate in the medical biology division, where he quickly progressed to assistant professor. After returning to JAX in 2007 as a research scientist in Paigen’s laboratory, he advanced to the rank of associate professor in 2019.
Throughout his tenure at JAX, Korstanje has mentored dozens of undergraduate, predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees. He also works with students in the nonprofit biomedical research institution’s prestigious Summer Student Program (SSP), which marks its 100th anniversary this summer. Korstanje has served as the Bar Harbor SSP resident supervisor, living with his family alongside students throughout the 10-week program. In a full-circle moment, last year the inaugural Paigen Fellow was named to a yearlong appointment in his laboratory.
“I’m honored to be appointed the Evnin Family Chair,” Korstanje said. “For more than two decades, I’ve been able to advance my research with the help of world-class resources and incredible mentors and colleagues here at JAX. I’m excited to continue making contributions to this wonderful community of scientists and our shared vision for a healthier future.”
The Evnin Family Chair was established in 2015 by Emeritus Trustee Anthony B. Evnin, Ph.D., and his wife Judith, who were among the first to support endowed chairs at JAX. Korstanje succeeds the late George Weinstock, Ph.D., a pioneering geneticist and deeply respected member of the JAX community. The Evnins also established a second chair, the Evnin Family Endowed Chair in Alzheimer's Research, to support novel JAX research focused on protecting people from Alzheimer's disease even if they carry the genetic disposition toward it.
JAX currently has 15 endowed chair positions funded by support from generous donors. To learn more, visit our endowed chair page.
About The Jackson Laboratory
The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution with a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center and nearly 3,000 employees in locations across the United States (Maine, Connecticut, California), Japan and China. Its mission is to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health. For more information, please visit www.jax.org.
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2024-03-01
In a collaborative effort to improve the food industry, Dr. Mustafa Akbulut, professor of chemical engineering, and Dr. Luis Cisneros-Zevallos, professor of horticultural science, have developed a two-step coating solution for galvanized steel that is more hygienic and reduces the risk of corrosion.
Galvanized steel containers and surfaces are used for harvested produce because of their durability, strength and lower cost compared to stainless steel. However, bacteria residing in storage containers can cause corrosion.
The ...
2024-03-01
DURHAM, N.C. – A perplexing problem for people with recurring urinary tract infections (UTIs) is persistent pain, even after antibiotics have successfully cleared the bacteria.
Now Duke Health researchers have identified the likely cause - an overgrowth of nerve cells in the bladder.
The finding, appearing March 1 in the journal Science Immunology, provides a potential new approach to managing symptoms of recurring UTIs that would more effectively target the problem and reduce unnecessary antibiotic usage.
“Urinary tract infections account for almost 25% of infections in women,” said senior author Soman Abraham, Ph.D., professor in the departments ...
2024-03-01
T follicular helper cells (Tfh) are essential for strong antibody-mediated reactions of our immune system during infections and vaccinations. However, if they get out of control, this can cause diseases such as autoimmunity, allergies or cancer. Researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation2 at the University of Bonn investigated the underlying mechanisms of Tfh cell development in a mouse model and thus decoded their internal networking. They hope that this will lead to new strategies for the development of highly effective vaccines and new therapies to combat various diseases. The results have ...
2024-03-01
More than half of smokers in England wrongly believe that vaping is more harmful or as harmful as smoking, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers.
The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open and funded by Cancer Research UK, looked at survey responses from 28,393 smokers in England between 2014 and 2023.
The research team found that public perceptions of e-cigarettes had worsened considerably over the past decade, with an overall increase in the perceived harm of e-cigarettes since 2021, coinciding with a sharp rise in vaping among young ...
2024-03-01
WHAT:
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have identified antibodies targeting a hard-to-spot region of the influenza virus, shedding light on the relatively unexplored “dark side” of the neuraminidase (NA) protein head. The antibodies target a region of the NA protein that is common among many influenza viruses, including H3N2 subtype viruses, and could be a new target for countermeasures. The research, led by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Vaccine Research Center, part of NIH, was published today in Immunity.
Influenza, or flu, sickens millions ...
2024-03-01
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center announced 12 recipients of the 2024 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, which recognizes exceptional achievement in graduate studies in the biological sciences.
This year’s recipients come from U.S. and international research institutions with thesis topics that include brain signals related to learning and emotion, bacterial pathogens and health, AI algorithms in rare disease diagnosis and treatment, and immune cells involved in brain tumors.
“Weintraub awardees showcase how scientists are using advancements in technology to explore questions that have been out of reach,” said Jihong Bai, ...
2024-03-01
STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Mississippi State University's Department of Computer Science and Engineering has launched a new open-access academic journal focused on advancements in artificial intelligence.
The journal AI Letters aims to fill a gap in peer-reviewed publications covering AI research. Department Head Shahram Rahimi and Assistant Research Professor Noorbakhsh Amiri Golilarz, editors-in-chief of the journal, saw the need for a publication that could quickly share new ideas and insights in AI, a hot topic ...
2024-03-01
Over the last four decades, warming climate and ocean temperatures have rapidly altered the Greenland Ice Sheet, creating concern for marine ecosystems and weather patterns worldwide. The environment has challenged scientists in their attempts to measure how water moves around and melts the ice sheet because equipment can be destroyed by icebergs floating near the glaciers.
Collected using a novel approach, research from the University of Maine has unearthed new information to help scientists better understand circulation patterns of ocean water around glaciers. A group of pioneers in glacial research attached GPS devices to icebergs and used their mobility to understand fjord circulation, ...
2024-03-01
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Putting off a burdensome task may seem like a universal trait, but new research suggests that people whose negative attitudes tend to dictate their behavior in a range of situations are more likely to delay tackling the task at hand.
The psychological term to describe this mental process is called valence weighting bias, which describes people’s tendency to adapt in new circumstances by drawing more strongly from either their positive or negative attitudes – or, in the context of approaching an unpleasant task, whether negative or positive internal “signals” carry the most weight in guiding the final behavior.
“And ...
2024-03-01
Suppose two speakers of the same language are playing a guessing game where each has the same color swatches, and Player 1 tries to get Player 2 to guess a hue by naming the color. If the second player consistently guesses correctly as often as possible, that indicates their language has an efficient color naming system.
Past research has shown that efficient color vocabularies are constrained both by how people perceive colors and by how much they want or need to communicate about a given color. For example, Penn researchers found in a 2021 study that the need to communicate about reds and yellows is high across languages, while greens are more important in some languages.
Now, ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Associate Professor Ron Korstanje, Ph.D., of The Jackson Laboratory named Evnin Family Chair
Appointment honors Korstanje’s accomplishments as an exemplary scientist and mentor
