Yearbook 01


Christian Könecke
Home Institution Medizinische Hochschule Hannover Host Institution Harvard Medical School, Transplantation Biology Research Center, BMT Section, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Mentor: Megan Sykes, M.D. E-Mail c.koenecke@gmx.de
Research Topic see Abstract
Personal Reactions to the U.S. Experience As a German student with all my history classes and the "broken nationalism" of our country, I felt very strange watching all those people waving flags after 9/11. In fact, what happened was terrible and I really feel sorry for all those people who lost somebody, but in my opinion this is not the right way to deal with this tragedy! I learned that revenge is a big word in the US. Aside from that, it is just great to be in Boston. The city is beautiful and it would be hard to find a place to meet more interesting people and to find better surroundings for research. When I came to my lab the first time, I was really happy to get my own projects, but I figured out pretty soon what that really meant. I was just on my own. I mean nobody helped me, but I had to present results every week. This was tough! It would have been much easier for me just to join a group, doing something well established. But right now (after more than four months), I am really happy to have this experience, even if I will leave the lab without finishing these projects.
Greatest Difficulties Encountered : One day I decided to go to the Harvard Sports Center for a basketball "pick up" game. After 10 min in the game (a very rough game, by the way), a player from the other team hit me with his elbow and broke my nose. What followed is a little bit strange! Somebody said: "Oh, it's broken. I heard a crack!" but everybody continued playing and I had to help myself. On my way downstairs, searching for a bathroom, I spilled blood everywhere (I had nothing but my T-shirt to cover my nose). Instead of showing me the right way, the building manager decided to yell at me, because of the blood stains on the carpet (a red carpet!). Finally, I made it to the ER, where I had to wait about five hours until a second year medical student practiced a whole neurological examination on me. After a quick look at my face, the attending MD decided to put my nose back into its former position. Of course, the medical student had some tries, until the attendant felt sorry for me and took over. After all that, I came out of this story with a slight nose deviation and a $2200 bill.
Most humorous incident One day there was no shuttle service to my lab, so I asked my French roommate if I could borrow his car (a very heavy, old car!). Once in the car, I saw that the fuel was almost empty, and I decided to search for a gas station. I made it to Chinatown, where the car broke down in the middle of heavy traffic on a four lane road. It was very difficult getting somebody to help me to push the car to the sidewalk. After 1 hour a friend rescued me.
Helpful Hints for Future Students Be nice to immigration officers and tell them what they want to hear!
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Abstracts on Research Topic:

1) The role of killer inhibitory receptors on NK cells in allogeneic bone marrow chimeras

Authors:
C. Koenecke, M. Sykes

Institution at which research was done:
Transplantation Biology Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital

Purpose:
Killer Inhibitory Receptors (KIRs) are used by NK cells to distinguish "self" from "non-self", but the determinants of KIR expression that allow this distinction to be made are not understood. This is an important mechanism of tolerance or rejection in transplantation. We are studying the NK cells for self/non-self recognition in human mixed allogeneic bone marrow chimeras, in which NK cells are both host and donor origin. These patients underwent non-myeloablative mismatched bone marrow transplantation. We are following the expression of KIRs and the NK cell function after transplantation.

Patients and Methods:
Patients undergoing bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell transplantation using non-myeloablative conditioning regimens will be eligible for this study. Blood from each patient will be drawn before and after transplantation. KIR expression will be analyzed using 4 or 5 color Flow cytometry. The activity of the NK cells will be measured by in vitro 51Cr release assays.

2) Upregulation of chemokines in the skin as a predictor of acute Graft-versus-Host disease following bone marrow transplantation or donor lymphocyte Infusion

Authors:
Christian Koenecke, Bimal Dey and Megan Sykes

Institution at which research was done:
Transplantation Biology Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital

Purpose:
In this study we would like to perform skin biopsies in patients undergoing allogeneic BMT immediately prior to the marrow or donor leukocyte infusions. We will use RNAse protection assays for chemokines to investigate whether the presence of RNA for these important regulators of cell migration predicts the development of GvHD. The findings of this study will be examined in the context of donor T cell chimerism, the T cell subsets and the activation markers of host-reactive donor T cells. Identification of predictors of GvHD will be of crucial importance in the optimization of therapy of patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation.

Patients and Methods:
Patients undergoing bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell transplantation using both myeloablative and non-myeloablative conditioning regimens will be eligible for this study. Each patient will undergo two skin biopsies, one on day 0 right before the stem cell infusion and the other before the infusion of donor leukocytes, which occurs around day 35 post-transplant or beyond. RNA will be purified and analyzed using the RiboquantTM System (Pharmingen) for RNAse protection assays.

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