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John Jung from the Chapkin Lab has fulfilled all requirements for the 2019-2020 Undergraduate Research Scholar (URS) thesis program. After graduation from Texas A&M University, John will be recognized as an Undergraduate Research Scholar on his official transcript. John will also receive an Undergraduate Research Scholars medallion to wear as graduation regalia.

In the lab, John used both confocal imaging and imaging flow cytometry to show that disruption of adiponectin signaling by knocking out / deleting either individual or both adiponectin receptors (AR) in HAP1 isogenic cell lines, modifies the order/fluidity of the plasma membrane. These findings are noteworthy because they may in part explain how adiponectin reduces cancer risk.

Dr. Sharon Donovan, Professor and Melissa M. Noel Endowed Chair in Nutrition and Health, Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been awarded a Hagler Fellowship at Texas A&M University. Dr. Donovan’s laboratory conducts research in pediatric nutrition, focusing on optimizing neonatal intestinal and gut microbial development with respect tocognition and the reduction of childhood obesity.

The Chapkin lab along with Dr. Donovan and collaborators (Dr. Ivan Ivanov, Dr. Irina Gaynanova, and Dr. Grace Yoon) will systematically integrate genomic data from both the infant (host mucosa) and gut microbiota in order to define host-microbe gene-diet interactions within the context of the structure and functionality of gut microbial communities

Under the Microscope: AhR Microbes Holding the Keys to Your Gut Health?

“It’s really very predominantly a nutritional story,” says Texas A&M’s Dr. Robert Chapkin, describing one of his current passions — the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) signaling system that exists in every cell. It works like a lock and key. When natural keys, or ligands, get inserted into receptors, the doors open to an array of health-promoting activities. Read Full Interview Here

Some recent good fortune for the Chapkin Lab in the past few months.  We are pleased to report that a new NIH R21CA245456 grant “Diet and the colonic exfoliome: A novel, non-invasive approach to testing interventions in humans”, which leverages our novel non-invasive transcriptomics (exfoliomics) platform in relation to humans fed a chemoprotective diet, was funded in January, 2020.

The second piece of good new relates to the validation of our groundbreaking work on a membrane therapeutics approach to target cancer stem cells.  Our NIH RO1 CA244359 grant, “Targeting plasma membrane spatial dynamics to suppress aberrant Wnt signaling” will also be funded. It received a priority score = 11, placing it in the 1^st percentile!  I believe that these efforts reflect the best work generated by the Chapkin lab to date, and we anticipate that our seminal discoveries in cancer biology, computational biology, disease prediction, and single cell analyses, will be highly cited in the years to come.

Chapkin et al discuss how several dietary constituents implicated in colorectal cancer are modified by gut microbial metabolism, and how highly fermentable fiber and n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) may alter critical pathways critical to colorectal cancer prevention.