Jon Masterson, a project coordinator for OHSU Design & Construction, will be retiring from OHSU at the end of June. During his 28-year tenure, his focus has been on research and academic areas.

“Jon has been an instrumental part of the change that OHSU’s built environment has seen over the last three decades. He was forever improving and building relationships – across campus and with outside vendors. He fostered success within his project teams and was always willing to mentor those that asked that of him. Design & Construction will miss his experience, knowledge, can-do attitude and overall positivity. We wish him well in his retirement,” said Jon’s colleague Sue Gosselin.

A campus-wide party will be held on Friday, June 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Mackenzie Hall patio. All are welcome to attend.

A random sampling of OHSU employees recently received a commute survey from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). If less than 75 percent of recipients complete the survey, TriMet commuters may be in jeopardy of losing their discounted passes.

If you received a commute survey and have not yet completed it, please do so by Friday, June 28, 2013. The survey should take less than five minutes to complete. Individuals who received the email but no longer have it may contact Transportation & Parking at (503) 494-8283, and the survey will be resent.

For more information, visit the Staff News blog.

If you use electron microscopy, fluorescent microscopy, or x-ray crystallography in your lab, chances are you’ve got a pretty cool image or two laying around somewhere. The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) seeks entries for its second annual BioArt Competition. Last year, winning images were displayed at the NIH visitor center and a Capitol Hill reception.

Submit your images and videos by July 11, 2013.

The OHSU Department of Pediatrics is excited to welcome Ernesto R. Bongarzoon, Ph.D., as guest speaker for the upcoming installment of their research seminar series. Dr. Bongarzone, associate professor & director of Graduate Studies at The Myelin Regeneration Group, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, University of Illinois, Chicago, will talk on “The Complexity of Myelin Disorders: Lessons from Krabbe Disease.”

This seminar starts at noon on Monday, July 8, 2013 in the Vey Auditorium, 11th floor of the Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.

OHSU Faculty Host: Magdalena Petryniak, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics.

Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Fusion. Image: Business Wire

This July, OHSU’s Proteomics Shared Resource will be adding a high-resolution mass spectrometer called a Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Fusion. OHSU will be one of the first universities in the world to install this new flagship proteomics platform by Thermo.

The Orbitrap Fusion will allow OHSU researchers to incorporate the latest technologies in proteomics including tandem mass tags, iTRAQ, and SILAC multiplexing of complex protein samples, as well as improve their detection and quantitation of protein modifications, such as phosphorylation, acetylation, and ubiquitination. The system will also have an automated robot to speed H/D exchange experiments to support protein structure studies.

The new instrument’s resolution is so high that it can detect mass defects caused by a neutron’s association with different nuclei. Being able to detect this mass defect will be a key technology that allows multiplexing of more samples into single LC/MS runs. This is a major game changer in proteomics, because it will allow an experiment to have many biological replicates without significantly increasing the analysis cost.

The purchase of the instrument was made possible both by an NIH S10 Shared Equipment Grant and support from the OHSU University Shared Resources Program. More information will be made available this summer when the instrument becomes operational. The Proteomics Shared Resource will also be hosting an open house so that researches can come see the new instrument and learn more about its capabilities.

2012 MRF Awardees from left: Bonnie Nagel, Ph.D., OHSU (Richard T. Jones New Investigator Award); Christopher Minson, Ph.D., University of Oregon (Mentor Award); Joseph S. Beckman, Ph.D., Oregon State University (Discovery Award)

In addition to their quarterly grant program, the Medical Research Foundation recognizes Oregonians who are performing cutting edge research and demonstrating outstanding leadership. The official call for MRF award nominations will occur in July and nominations will be due August 23, 2013.

In the meantime, please start thinking about nominating your most talented and promising colleagues for an award. Detailed information about each category – including the Mentor Award, Discovery Award, and Richard T. Jones New Investigator Award – is available on the MRF website.

Questions? Contact Amy Von Jenef at 503 220-8348 or Barbara Soule’ at 503 220-8340.

Find out about all of the latest happenings in Tech Transfer and Business Development at OHSU in the new quarterly TTBD newsletter. Highlights include:

• The Guide to Technology Transfer and Business Development – A handy online document outlining how our office can assist you
• Important patent law changes – What is the America Invents Act and how does that relate to patents at OHSU?
• Success story – Neuro Kinetics Inc. has licensed software from OHSU
• Industry and academic collaborations – Did you know that, on average, 2.57 agreements are signed per day?

Download a copy of the newsletter.

The OHSU Funding Opportunities Database has recently undergone a major upgrade. This database can be used by any OHSU student or employee to search for research grants and fellowships by keyword, rank, residence type, deadline, or sponsor. With this upgrade, the keyword search function has become more robust. Additionally, the database now tracks multiple deadlines for grant programs with more than one deadline per year.

The database houses funding opportunities, primarily from non-governmental sources, of particular relevance to OHSU researchers. The database is also used to track all limited submissions and their corresponding internal deadlines, including federal opportunities.

To access the database, log in here with your OHSU network ID and password. Please update your bookmarks to the new URL.

Questions? Contact funding@ohsu.edu. Visit the Research Funding & Development homepage for more research funding resources.

It is important to report potential breaches of confidentiality to both the Institutional Review Board and the Office for Information Privacy and Security as soon as possible. For the IRB, a breach of confidentiality can be considered an Unanticipated Problem, a Protocol Deviation, or both.

Submit an Unanticipated Problem (UP) report if: The incident was unanticipated and may place subjects or others at a greater risk of harm or discomfort. A confidentiality UP involves any accidental disclosure or potential disclosure of subject information. Disclosures not authorized by the study documents and the IRB’s approval should always be reported. The classic case is a stolen laptop.

Submit a Protocol Deviation (PD) report if: The incident resulted in a deviation from confidentiality protection procedures described in your protocol or study documents. For example, if your protocol states that the code key will be kept in a locked file cabinet separate from the rest of the study records, and your colleague discovers the code key sitting on your desk while you’re out at a meeting, you would submit a PD.

Submit BOTH a UP and a PD if: The incident resulted in a deviation from the protocol’s confidentiality procedures that was unanticipated and may place subjects or others at a greater risk of harm or discomfort. For instance, the PD scenario above also becomes reportable as a UP if the colleague was not associated with the study and the code key was sitting alongside several study files. The stolen laptop UP scenario also becomes reportable as a PD if your protocol describes security measures for transporting data on laptops, and those security measures were not being followed when the laptop was stolen.

The IRB evaluates each reportable event submission to determine whether it meets the regulatory definition of an unanticipated problem involving risks to subjects or others and/or an instance of serious or continuing noncompliance. Both UPs and PDs can sometimes fit either or both of these definitions. If the event meets one or both definitions, corrective actions will likely be required, and the event may need to be reported to certain federal agencies and/or the sponsor of the research, as applicable.

If you are not sure what type of submission is required or whether a particular event is reportable, feel free to contact the Integrity Office for guidance at 503 494-7887, option 1.

Do you have a notebook full of promising ideas that didn’t turn out as you expected?  F1000 is looking for papers reporting negative or null results, and they will waive publication fees for such manuscripts until August 1. So your negative results will cost you nothing. Read the blog post linked above for the details and the coupon code.