Blog
2024
Dr. Naomi Ko and Dr. Ruben Dries at BUMC's Grand Rounds
Every year BUMC hosts a Grand Rounds seminar where researchers in the Hematology and Medical Oncology department can present their projects and literature. This year, our very own Dr. Ko and Dr. Dries presented on the collaboration between our two labs to all the Hematology/Oncology faculty and staff. It’s hard to see the big picture when working in the lab day in and day out, working through successes and failures big or small. This presentation is an inspiring reminder of why we do what we ...
Jeff at San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium
This year, Dr. Jeffrey P. Sheridan presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium on the lab’s 3D Biopsy project. This project is about digitally reconstructing biopsies using spatial transriptomics and enhanced imaging. Speaking of enhanced imaging, I helped y’all zoom in on this picture. Jeff wore the same colored shirt as the Hydrangeas Existential Crisis
It all started when Munawwar wore her yellow sweater and blue jeans for the first time at the Dries Lab. That very day set a great plan into motion, it was to be executed the day of Halloween. Everyone on site at the Dries & Ko Labs dressed up as their assigned characters from Arthur. Never fear, a two hour long photoshoot captured the fun and excitement that day. –Credits– Director: Munawwar, Quynh Creative Directors: Munawwar, Veronica, Quynh Camera: Quynh’s Google Pixel Camerapeople:...
Happy Birthday Eddie! We celebrated with a quick trip to Flour bakery, trying some of their Halloween special cakes. We Definitely Lit a Birthday Cupcake Safely
BUMC’s Evans Day is a poster conference for faculty, fellows, and students to showcase the Department of Medicine’s ongoing research. This year, the Dries and Ko Lab submitted a whopping total of 7 posters. Dr. Jeffrey P. Sheridan was additionally selected to orally present his project for the research faction, while Dr. Naomi Ko and Dr. Ruben Dries presented their poster for the clinical faction. Jeff Prepares for his Presentation The Parents on Evans Day ...
Congratulations to Jeff! He just won 2nd place for his oral presentation during BUMC’s Evans Day! The Light Shines Kindly Upon Jeff
Give it up for Michelle! Michelle passed her Qualification Exam with flying colors. All students are now officially Ph.D. Candidates! Take a break, touch grass, enjoy the end of an era (as a Ph.D. student)! Michelle Photobombed my Shot of the Pipette Filter
Here’s your annual reminder from the Dries Lab to clean out that nasty -80C freezer and defrost it for best freezer health. Rare Sighting: Have you ever seen such an empty freezer?
The Dries and Ko Labs gathered at Dr. Naomi Ko’s house for a get together to celebrate the teams at BUMC and BMC. Time quickly passed from afternoon to evening as everyone laughed and chatted into the night while feasting on the delicious dishes. The spotlight was on Tam and Fenway (dogs) as they travelled through the crowd earning many praises and pats. We tied off the day with a ping-pong tournament, crowning Jeff as the new champion, dethroning Ruben. The prize is limited bragging rights a...
Eddie Gives a Talk at DuckCon!
On August 15th, Eddie presented his Ph.D. project at DuckCon! After his qualification exam, Eddie has been working hard to polish his project. He got the chance to not only attend but also give a talk on his work, garnering more interest for the Dries Lab. Please take a look at his presentation: https://rpubs.com/Ed2uiz/dbverse-duckCon2024 We are very proud of you! Thank you for all the Duck merch.
A new lab member just dropped! We warmly welcome Munawwar as our new lab and project manager! The Dries and Ko Lab will be sharing Munawwar because sharing is caring and we care about Munawwar. We look forward to working with you, Munawwar! Stepping up to Project Management
A new lab member just dropped! Mason is joining the Ko lab as a clinical research assistant, he will be aiding Dr. Naomi Ko in consenting patients. Naomi describes Mason as “charming.” Now put that charm to work, we look forward to working with you! Make sure to visit the Dries Lab often. Update: Since Mason has joined, he’s consented an astounding number of patients and earned the Dries and Ko lab a huge number of both blood and tissue samples. Charming is a most apt description. ...
A new lab member just dropped! The Dries Lab has officially gained another BioInformatician, we are swimming in analysts and datasets. Our SCC will crash many times in the coming days, but you can memorize Giotto in the meantime (no pressure). We look forward to working with you Veronica! All the Way from Texas!
The Dries Lab has officially completed our very first Xenium Run with 10X representative, Stephen Wood! A round of applause to our dedicated workers: George, Jeff, Quynh, and Junxiang. The Machine Houses the Dries Lab’s Dreams
Many of the lab members gathered at Quynh’s new rental for a dumpling folding workshop. Some had the misfortune of missing out on the fun. The plum wine that George brought was finished in 17 minutes. Many mistakes were made, actually, more mistakes than dumplings were made. The Dries lab should stick to research Mass Production
Big Congratulations to Eddie for passing his Qual Exam! Eddie worked especially hard during the weeks leading up to the examination and deserves every bit of applause and praise for passing this big milestone! Take a rest buddy, you’ve earned it. Eddie Looks so Professional in a Lab Coat
To celebrate National Children’s Day, we put together a compilation of all the happy families and furry children the Dries & Ko Lab have raised thus far. Currently, Iqra has raised the most. Update: New children and members have been added since this date. Left to Right: Naomi’s, Munawwar’s, Mason’s Top: Michelle’s, Quynh and Quynh’s; Bottom: All Veronica’s All Iqra’s All Iqra’s Ruben and Kim’s
On a rainy Sunday the Dries Lab strapped up their boots and sneakers for a nature walk at World’s End. Kim and Fran joined along for the leisurely stroll and many pictures were taken to record the wondrous day. Michelle was the most prepared for the hike, her bright jacket leading the way, though Junxiang’s Jordans were the MVP of the day. Most memorable was the walk along a very short isthmus with crabs and other shells washed up along the thin shores. Quynh was on the hunt for a four leaf c...
Hello! I’m the new lab manager and new narrative voice on the Dries Lab blog!
2023
Congratulations to Wonyl for passing his Quals! He got a lot of hard questions from his committee but answered them with utter confidence and suaveness. P.S. This was before my time, so no pictures of Wonyl.
Evans day this year was a great time for our lab members. We had the opportunity to see posters from four of our members, both current and alumni; Eddie, George, Junxiang, and Sophia. All of our presenters did a great job explaining their research projects to give others a better idea of what they do! Congratulations to all of them and a special shout out and happy birthday wishes to Eddie! Group Photo at Evans Day 1 Session 2 Happy Birthday Eddie!
On Friday October 6th one of our lab members and PhD students Eddie Ruiz was given a GSF spotlight to acknowledge his academic and professional progression to his current work in spatial omics.The mention highlights Eddie’s continuous efforts to ask important questions and contribute to new technological developments. Congrats Eddie! See link to read spotlight in full Eddie
Thank you Amelia (BRITE REU program)!
On Thursday August 10th Amelia Zug presented her Summer project in the Dries lab at the BRITE Mini-Symposium in the CDS building. Amelia did an amazing job, and together with members of our team, build an experimental and computational pipeline for high-throughput modeling of cellular cross-talk that is compatible with spatial multiplexing approaches. Amelia presenting Support team from the Dries lab & snacks
Congratulations Edward (Eddie) Ruiz on receiving the 2023 Hariri Institute for Computing Graduate Student Fellow award! See this link for more information.
Boston University CTSI Pilot grant!
The Dries lab received another pilot grant from the Boston University CTSI program. Together with Dr. Naomi Ko from the Breast Health Center at BMC we will explore how accurate current approaches and technologies for mapping breast cancer heterogeneity within a patient are. We hope that this will help understand the current limitations of such approaches and design the best ways to faithfully represent the tumor tissue of every single patient.
Edward (Eddie) Ruiz received an exciting Summer Internship for the 2023 Summer Institute in Statistical Genetics (SISG). We all know Eddie will have a great time at the University of Washington and look forward to hear what he has learned.
Jason Weis received an honorable mention from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. We have no doubt that he will excel in his graduate studies in the lab!
American Cancer Society grant!
The Dries lab is excited to receive a grant from the American Cancer Society (ACS) to pilot the establishment of clinical biopsy pipelines at Boston Medical Center, in collaboration with BMC, and to build the workflows and tools for applying multiplexed spatial in-situ RNA profiling (MERFISH) on primary breast cancer samples.
Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation grant!
The Dries lab is excited to receive a grant from the Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation (NETRF) to profile the distinct and heterogeneous spatial landscape of neuroendocrine tumors.
The Dries lab is excited to receive an STOmics grant to perform Stereo-Sequencing on primary breast cancer samples. Stereo-seq technology
2022
Giotto Suite awarded Chan Zuckerberg Initiative EOSS grant!
The Dries lab is excited to receive a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Essential Open Source Software for Science (EOSS) program to further develop and enhance the Giotto Suite platform. See link for more information: https://chanzuckerberg.com/eoss/proposals/enhancing-giotto-for-spatial-multi-resolution-technologies/ Giotto Suite logo
The Dries lab is excited to receive an NIH U01 supplement grant to investigate the spatial organization at the adipose-tumor interface and in collaboration with Dr. Gerald Denis, Dr. Naomi Ko, and Dr Stefano Monti.
Our undergraduate student Sophia applied and received a UROP award for her work in our lab. It’s great to see that her work and efforts are being recognized and we thank the BU UROP program for their support! Sophia for the win!
Thank you Laila and Ceci (BRITE REU program)!
On Thursday August 11th Laila Norford and Cecilia ‘Ceci’ McCormick presented their summer projects at the BRITE Mini-Symposium in the Kilachand Center. Laila and Ceci both joined the Dries lab this summer as part of the BRITE REU program. Together with graduate students in the lab they worked on intricate problems in spatial data biology and performed exceptionally well. Their presence in the Dries lab will surely be missed and we wish them all the best in their early scientific careers! ...
Goodbye and Goodluck Emma Kelley!
On Friday August 5th, the Dries lab said Goodbye to our lab manager Emma Kelley. Emma was a part of the Dries lab for 2 years and made quite an impact. She will be starting a masters program in genetic counseling at University of Michigan. We would like to wish Emma the best of luck in her future endeavors.
High School Outreach at the Dries Lab!
The BU/BMC Hematology-Oncology Section hosted its first Summer Outreach program this year. Boston high schoolers with an interest in science were recommended by their teachers to join our floor for a week, learning about biomedical research. Dries lab members taught the high schoolers about DNA replication and cancer cell development and taught pipetting and H&E staining. It was great to be a part of this week, break down misconceptions about working in science, and meet future scientist...
Blog post coming soom….. Our new Merscope platform arrived today from Vizgen, the first in-situ spatial transcriptomics platform at BU. We can’t wait to start experiments!
The 28th Annual Henry I. Russek Student Achievement Day was held on May 6 and is an annual celebration of the work done by PhD students in the Graduate Medical Sciences Program at BUSM. This year, 3rd year Dries lab student George Chen took home a second place prize for his work generating and analyzing a 3D breast cancer dataset. George won a prize and everyone else got free lunch, so it was a great day all around. George and Ruben strike a power pose