Sara Parker, PhD – a CMM postdoctoral scholar in Dr. Gus Mouneimne’s lab - together with colleagues in the departments of Neuroscience, Pharmacology, an Immunobiology have recently published a new study in the journal eNeuro entitled “High Fidelity Cryopreservation and Recovery of Primary Rodent Cortical Neurons".  Cryopreservation is the process of freezing biological materials, and is used routinely for the storage of cell lines. Certain cells, however, are extremely sensitive to cryostorage, and cannot be frozen such as primary neurons isolated from mouse or rat embryos, which show extremely poor viability when subjected to standard cryopreservation methodologies. Dr. Parker and colleagues, experimenting with a specialty cryopreservation reagent designed for clinical-grade storage of human stem and primary cells, found that this reagent substantially improved the viability of cryopreserved neurons, yielding cells that were indistinguishable from freshly dissected neurons. This experimental tool not only improves efficiency and maximizes utilization of animal-sourced materials, it also facilitates greater collaboration between laboratories.

Marco Padilla-Rodriguez, PhD – a recent CMM graduate from Dr. Gus Mouneimne’s lab- and colleagues have recently published a new study in Nature Communications highlighting estrogen’s dual effects of promoting tumor growth in estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer, and suppressing tumor invasion through actin cytoskeletal remodeling.