Advisory Committees

External Advisory Committee

  • Meet twice yearly (at least once in person), with one of these in conjunction with the annual retreat, to evaluate overall program components and provide strategic program guidance and mentorship to the Program Director/PI provide written critiques and recommendations twice annually
  • Assist in professional development program implementation and evaluation
  • Review pilot projects and approve final project selection prior to seeking NIGMS approval
  • Review replacement projects and approve final project selection

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee  will report to the PI and provide guidance in program administration, mentoring, and evaluation. All committee members are established scientists who represent GSBSE institutions that participate in IDeA programs. All have confirmed their commitment to the proposed COBRE over a five-year period as a means of growing GSBSE and Maine’s biomedical research capacity. The Steering committee will meet in person twice a year and ad hoc as needed. Meetings will occur with a minimum of 4 of the 6 members present. Minutes will document discussion and action items.

He has extensive experience as an investigator, administrator, and mentor. He was Professor of Physiology and Medicine and Associate Dean at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) prior to his current appointment at UMaine. His funding history with NIH includes 40 years of continuous R01 funding. He has been cited by NIH as being in the top 5% of funded investigators over a 25-year period. He has served as principal investigator on multiple P01 grants. Dr. Harder retired from MCW in 2019 as Professor Emeritus. His role at UMaine is to enhance the biomedical sciences research environment, with a focus on mentoring early career faculty and establishing professional development opportunities. His role in this COBRE will be to advise and assist Dr. Henry in mentoring activities.

Dr. Liaw is PI of the COBRE in Mesenchymal and Neural Regulation of Metabolic Networks at MMCRI. Dr. Liaw is Co-PI of the GSBSE T32 with Dr. Henry, and has worked closely with Dr. Henry on growing biomedical research education in Maine. Dr. Liaw is a Fellow of the American Heart Association, and has held leadership roles within that association, serving as past member of the Board of Directors of the Founders Affiliate (2007-2011), Chair of the Vascular Wall Biology study section (2010-2012), and as a member of the Research Committee (2009-2014).

In 2020, he was named a Javits Neuroscience Investigator by NINDS for his work on mouse models of neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Burgess has served in leadership roles within GSBSE for over a decade and is currently Chair of the GSBSE  Curriculum Committee. He is on the scientific advisory boards of the Charcot-Marie-Tooth Association, the Hereditary Neuropathy Foundation, and the Talia Duff Foundation, and he served as Chair of the NIH study section for Cellular and Molecular Biology of Neurodegeneration (2018-2020).

How do stem cells maintain pluripotency — the capacity to become other cell types in the body? Can our ability to regenerate after disease or injury be improved with the ability to switch on and off cellular pluripotency?
To answer these and other questions, the Updike Lab derives cues from quintessential stem cells found in the germline. Germline stem cells (GSCs) are the precursors to oocytes and sperm, and these cells must retain their stem cell attributes so that fertilized embryos can give rise to all of the cell types of each subsequent generation.

Mentors

  • Mary Baylies, PhD
    (Jared Talbot)
    Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | MSKCC · Department of Developmental Biology
  • Gregory A. Cox, PhD
    (Romain Madeleine)
    Associate Professor
    The Jackson Laboratory
  • Pranav Danthi, PhD
    (Melissa Maginnis)
    Professor, Biology
    Associate Chair for Teaching, Biology
    Indiana University Bloomington
  • Amy Gladfelter, PhD
    (Joshua Kelley)
    Associate Professor of Biology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and a fellow of the Marine Biological Laboratory
  • Andrew Holmes, PhD
    (Ben King)
    Biocontainment Research Scientist, University of Maine
  • Colin Parrish, PhD
    (Melissa Maginnis)
    John M. Olin Professor of Virology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University