Kurt WhittemoreHarvard Medical School | HMS · Hematology
Kurt Whittemore
PhD
About
23
Publications
7,382
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376
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Passionate biological researcher with over six years of experience in gene and cell therapies. Currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School, developing a lentivirus-based gene therapy for inflammatory bowel disease. Previously discovered that telomere shortening rate, but not initial telomere length, can predict species lifespan at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre. Eager to leverage my expertise and achievements to drive innovative solutions in biology.
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (23)
Glioblastoma (GBM) represents the most lethal cancer of the central nervous system. An insight into the mechanisms that regulate gliomagenesis and progression, and identification of potential therapeutic targets is vital for its management and improving patient outcome. Here, we identified miR-490 as a novel tumour suppressor miRNA regulating the m...
Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most aggressive cancer of central nervous system with worst patient outcome. Telomere maintenance is a crucial mechanism governing GBM initiation and progression making it an attractive target. microRNAs (miRNAs) have shown therapeutic potential in GBM. Earlier, we showed miR-490 is downregulated in GBM patients and plays...
Telomere elongation is protective of genomic stability, whereas telomere shortening increases genomic instability and thereby increases cancer risk. Long telomeres lower the risk of clinical cancer, while short telomeres are part of a causal cascade of intracellular events that result in oncogenesis and, ultimately, clinical cancer. Telomerase ther...
Telomerase deficiency leads to age-related diseases and shorter lifespans. Inhibition of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) delays aging and age-related pathologies. Here, we show that telomerase deficient mice with short telomeres (G2-Terc−/−) have an hyper-activated mTOR pathway with increased levels of phosphorylated ribosomal S6 protein...
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
Although there is previous evidence showing an increase in various types of DNA damage with aging in mice and humans, a comparative study determining accumulation rates of DNA double strand breaks, as determined by presence of phosphorylated histone H2AX (γH2AX), in leukocytes of individuals of different ages from phylogenetically distinct species...
Significance
The exact causes of aging are still not understood, and it is unclear why some species live less than 1 d, while others can live more than 400 y. Research suggests that telomeres are related to the aging process, but a clear relationship between the life span of a species and initial telomere length has not been observed. Here, we meas...
Neurodegenerative diseases associated with old age such as Alzheimer's disease present major problems for society, and they currently have no cure. The telomere protective caps at the ends of chromosomes shorten with age, and when they become critically short, they can induce a persistent DNA damage response at chromosome ends, triggering secondary...
Short and dysfunctional telomeres are sufficient to induce a persistent DNA damage response at chromosome ends, which leads to the induction of senescence and/or apoptosis and to various age-related conditions, including a group of diseases known as “telomere syndromes”, which are provoked by extremely short telomeres owing to germline mutations in...
Adeno and adeno-associated virus co-infect lung cells.
A. Representative images of β-Gal (brown) immunohistochemistry staining of lungs one week after double infection with adeno-cre and AAV9-GFP. B. Representative images of β-Gal (brown) and GFP (purple) immunohistochemistry double staining of lungs one week after double infection with adeno-cre a...
AAV9-Tert therapy does not aggravate K-Ras-mediated lung tumor development in a p53-deficient background.
A. Eight weeks old K-Ras+/G12V
p53-/- mice were transduced with AAV9 (Null or Tert) vectors by tail vein injection and four weeks after they were infected with Adeno-cre intratracheally. Mice were sacrificed 5 months post-oncogene activation fo...
We have previously shown that the diversity of antibodies in an individual can be displayed on chips on which 130,000 peptides chosen from random sequence space have been synthesized. This immunosignature technology is unbiased in displaying antibody diversity relative to natural sequence space, and has been shown to have diagnostic and prognostic...
Fig. S1. Changes of TRF1 levels with aging in mice.
Fig. S2. RT‐qPCR of shelterin proteins in muscle tissue.
Fig. S3. Correlation between percentage of nuclei overexpressing high TRF1 levels and readouts of aging.
Fig. S4. AAV9‐TRF1 gene therapy has no effect on mean telomere length.
The shelterin complex protects telomeres by preventing them from being degraded and recognized as double-strand DNA breaks. TRF1 is an essential component of shelterin, with important roles in telomere protection and telomere replication. We previously showed that TRF1 deficiency in the context of different mouse tissues leads to loss of tissue hom...
Antigen-antibody complexes are central players in an effective immune response. However, finding those interactions relevant to a particular disease state can be arduous. Nonetheless many paths to discovery have been explored since deciphering these interactions can greatly facilitate the development of new diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines....
Selective binding of anti-SMCfs serum to a set of 108 random sequence peptides displayed on a microarray.
The intensities of all 10,000 peptides are available upon request.
(DOCX)
GLAM4 analysis of the sequence similarity between the 108 selected peptides and KLH protein sequence.
(DOCX)
GLAM2 analysis of the sequence similarity between 108 selected array peptides and the SMCfs peptide.
(DOCX)
Changes in 108 random peptide binding intensities following anti-SMCfs antibody depletion of serum.
The intensity of all 10,000 peptides are available upon request.
(DOCX)
The immune system responds to tumor cells. The challenge has been how to effectively use these responses to treat or protect against cancer. Toward the goal of developing a cancer vaccine, we are pursuing methodologies for the discovery and testing of useful antigens. We present an array-based approach for discovering these B cell antigens by direc...
Questions
Question (1)
Is there some software that will allow me to create a bar graph which automatically places the sample size label above the error bar for each bar? I work in a biology lab, and I have to make a lot of bar graphs which would be suitable for a scientific journal publication. I usually make these graphs in Excel. However, I have to manually create text boxes to put the sample size above the error bar of each bar, and this can be time consuming. Ideally, I would also like the created graph to be editable in powerpoint. The sample size labels may need to be adjusted as well as the x and y axis labels.
