William Gunn

About

Country

United States

Affiliation

Academia

Field of Training

Life sciences

Bio

I am a senior graduate student at the Tulane Center for Gene Therapy.

My dissertation is entitled “Investigating the Role of Human Multipotent Mesenchymal Stromal Cells in the Repair of Bone.”

An updated list of my publications can be found here.

My reading list at Connotea is here.

I keep an open science journal and weblog at Synthesis.

Title

Graduate Researcher

Organization

Tulane University Center for Gene Therapy

Projects

Completed Work:

As part of my graduate research, I have participated in research showing:

That MSCs contribute to bone repair by proliferating under the influence of Dkk1 and then undergoing osteogenesis to effect remodeling at the site of injury.
That Dkk1 is secreted by myeloma cells and acts upon MSCs to result in osteolytic lesions in bone that are resistant to remodeling.
That remodeling can occur if the effect of Dkk1 on MSCs is blocked using small molecule activators of Wnt signaling.

Experiments in Progress:

Show that osteoclasts are upregulated while osteoblasts are deficient in an animal model of multiple myeloma.
Show that Dkk1 is produced by the tumors in vivo, and Dkk1 levels are correlated with the magnitude of the defect.
Show that MSCs derived from these animals are different in a similar fashion to the MSCs derived from myeloma

patients.

Show that I can treat the animals in this model with the small molecule Wnt activators and reduce the size of tumors and incidence of osteolytic lesions.

Publications

Gunn W, Conley A, Deininger L, Olson S, Prockop D, Gregory C. A crosstalk between myeloma cells and marrow stromal cells stimulates production of DKK1 and interleukin-6: a potential role in the development of lytic bone disease and tumor progression in multiple myeloma. Stem cells (Dayton, Ohio) 24 (4) , 986-91 (Epub 17 Nov 2005) PubMed ID: 16293576 doi:10.1634/stemcells.2005-0220
Carl A. Gregory, Anthony S. Perry, Emigdio Reyes, Adam Conley, W. Grady Gunn, and Darwin J. Prockop Dkk-1-derived Synthetic Peptides and Lithium Chloride for the Control and Recovery of Adult Stem Cells from Bone Marrow Journal of Biological Chemistry 280 (3) , 2309 - 232 (20 Nov 2004) PubMed ID: 15504735 doi: 10.1074/jbc.M406275200
Gregory C, Green A, Lee N, Rao A, Gunn W. The promise of canonical Wnt signaling modulators in enhancing bone repair. Drug news & perspectives 19 (8) , 445-52 PubMed ID:17160144 doi:10.1358/dnp.19.8.1043960
Gregory C, Gunn W, Peister A, Prockop D. An Alizarin red-based assay of mineralization by adherent cells in culture: comparison with cetylpyridinium chloride extraction. Analytical biochemistry 329 (1) , 77-84 PubMed ID: 15136169 doi: 10.1016/j.ab.2004.02.002
Gregory C, Gunn W, Reyes E, Smolarz A, Munoz J, Spees J, Prockop D. How Wnt signaling affects bone repair by mesenchymal stem cells from the bone marrow. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1049 , 97-106 PubMed ID: 15965110 doi:10.1196/annals.1334.010

Interests

Adult Stem Cell Research, Bone Biology, Statistical Analysis, Expert Systems, Data Mining