RENNE LAB - News

Renne lab members judge science fair

2/9/2019

Lauren and Yuan volunteered to judge at the Alachua Region Science and Engineering Fair on Thursday, Feb. 7. The regional fair consisted of approximately 170 projects from middle and high school students who attend public, private, and charter schools in Alachua county.

circRNA Paper published in Jv!

12/19/2018

Members of the Flemington, Renne, and Tibbetts labs co-authored a paper on circular RNAs entitled, "Comparative analysis of gammaherpesvirus circRNA repertoires: conserved and unique viral circRNAs". Despite the importance of non-coding RNAs in persistent infection, the circRNA class of non-coding RNAs has only recently been identified in gammaherpesviruses. Accordingly, their roles in virus infection and associated oncogenesis are unknown. Here we report evolutionary conservation of EBV encoded circRNAs by assessing the circRNAome in rLCV infected lymphomas from an SIV infected rhesus macaque and we report latent and lytic circRNAs from KSHV and MHV68. These experiments demonstrate utilization of the circular RNA class of RNAs across 4 members of the gammaherpesvirus subfamily and they identify orthologs and potential homoplastic circRNAs, implying conserved circRNA functions in virus biology and associated malignancies.

To read the full publication, click here.

Merin thomas and team win silver in igem 2018

10/29/2018

Renne Lab student assistant Merin Thomas and her team from UF participated in the 2018 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition in Boston this past weekend. iGEM Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to education and competition, the advancement of synthetic biology, and the development of an open community and collaboration. Merin and her team engineered a bacterium they called "The Ferminator", which they hope to "train" to produce large amounts of butyrate, a fatty acid critical to maintain proper gastrointestinal function and immune responses. Butyrate works to reduce inflammation and strengthen the integrity of the gut barrier. To optimize butyrate production, they inserted the correct pathway into E. coli Nissle and used gene deletions to get rid of offshoot pathways that direct carbon flow away from the endpoint. Their project was a silver medal winner! For more about team UFlorida's project, visit their team page.

Renne Lab at nih

9/10/2018

This past week, Dr. Renne and Dr. Jain visited the NIH to attend and present at the 2018 Chromatin Control of Viral Infection conference. The talk and poster title was "Histone variant H3.3 and Chaperones HIRA and DAXX Regulate the Establishment and Maintenance of the Latent KSHV Epigenome". They even brought the Mechanisms of Oncogenesis (MOO) program mascot along for the ride!

Congratulations, dr. serfecz!

8/14/2018

Congratulations to Jackie Serfecz on the completion of her PhD! Dr. Renne was happy to escort Jackie at her graduation ceremony, but we will all be sad to see her go! Jackie and her fiancee will be relocating to Maryland.

We celebrated earlier that week with a lab lunch downtown. We wish Jackie the best in her new journey!

onward and upward!

7/11/2018

Yesterday, the Renne Lab had to wish "Bon Voyage" to 2 of our Lab Techs: Natalie Martinez and Alex Dolce. Natalie will remain at the University of Florida, but will be devoting her full attention to pursuing her PhD. Alex will be beginning Med school in Georgia. We bid them farewell with way too much food from a local Vietnamese restaurant. They will both be missed!

But the show must go on! Melissa Berrio has joined the lab as a new Lab Tech, and we will also have the assistance of two lab volunteers, Caelan Christian and Matthew Valentine. Welcome!!

sethuraman paper published in nucleic acids research journal!

6/12/2018

Congratulations to Sunantha, Merin, Lauren, and Dr. Renne on the recent publication of their paper, entitled, "Computational analysis of ribonomics datasets identifies long non-coding RNA targets of γ-herpesviral miRNAs" published in Nucleic Acids Research. Check out the full paper here.

First P01 Retreat and eab meeting a success!

4/25/2018

The first P01 Project retreat and EAB meeting were held April 24-25 at the beautiful Austin Cary Forest Campus in Gainesville, FL. The Renne, Tibbetts, and Flemington labs attended, as well as our distinguished EAB members: Britt Glaunsinger, PhD, UC Berkeley; Eric Johannsen, MD, University of Wisconsin; and Charles Rice, PhD, The Rockefeller University.

Project and Core leaders, as well as lab trainees, presented their work to highlight the progress made in the first year, and discussed plans for the next grant year. The EAB members were very complimentary of the project's progress, and offered excellent advice for the future of the P01.

Thank you to everyone who attended or assisted with the retreat!

Check out this great photo compilation prepared by Pete Turner:

annual_retreat_2018_photos_v2.pdf
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Dr. renne Collaboration mentioned in Florida Veterinarian magazine article

3/29/2018

In the Spring edition of Florida Veterinarian magazine, the cover story focused on the research of Alissa Deming, DVM, a UF trained veterinary researcher studying the effect of viruses in aquatic animals. Her recent research has been on herpesvirus-associated cervical cancer in sea lions. Deming’s Ph.D. program is aimed at determining the role of OtHV1 in the development of urogenital carcinoma in California sea lions, a persistent cause of stranding and death in sea lions along the Western Coast of the U.S.

Dr. Rolf Renne is mentioned in the article for his collaboration with Deming regarding the study of human herpesviruses associated with cancer.

Read the full article on pages 14-18 here.

COngratulations!

2/13/2018

Congratulations to lab manager Pete Turner and his new bride, Tamara! The Renne Lab wishes you a lifetime of happiness!