News

Find a list of our news and selected achievements below:

Dr. Cruse named University Faculty Scholar | February 20, 2024

Dr. Cruse was named a 2023/2024 University Faculty Scholar by NC State University. Read more on the College of Veterinary Medicine story here.

 

Happy Halloween | October 31, 2023

Happy Halloween from the “Cruise” crew. I run a tight ship!

Congratulations to Barry Hedgespeth on successfully defending his PhD thesis | July 18, 2023

Barry successfully defended his PhD thesis including an excellent seminar

.

We have published our recent research developing a tool to enable delivery of small quantities of expensive therapeutics to the airways of mice | June 14, 2023

Read the paper by Drs. Gracioso Martins and Snider as co-first authors published in the Journal of Controlled Release

A Cruse lab study identified that systemic delivery of a slice switching oligonucleotide targeting CD117 depletes tissue resident mast cells to reduce systemic anaphylaxis | Jan 23, 2023

The study by Drs. Hedgespeth, Snider, Bitting and Cruse is published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.

The Cruse lab have published their most recent work in the journal Allergy | Jan 10, 2023

The study by Dr. Bitting et al. entitled Identification of redundancy between human FcεRIβ and MS4A6A proteins points toward additional complex mechanisms for FcεRI trafficking and signaling has been published in Allergy

Congratulations to Dr. Douglas Snider DVM, MSc, PhD, DACVP, DABT, PAS on graduating with a Ph.D. | May 12, 2023

Congratulations to Dr. Snider, a trainee from the Cruse lab, on graduating with a Ph.D. from the Comparative Biomedical Sciences program at NC State University.

Drs. Hedgespeth and Bitting present their work at Immunology 2022 | May 12, 2022

Drs Barry Hedgespeth and Katie Bitting presented their work last week at the American Association of Immunologists Annual Meeting in Portland Oregon.

Dr Cruse has been named a 2021-2022 Goodnight Early Career Innovator by NC State University | May 12, 2022

The award recognizes outstanding early career faculty with scholarship in STEM and STEM education. Read more about the award and awardees at NC State University and the story about Dr Cruse and the other recipients from the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Dr Cruse appointed as Associate Editor of the journal Frontiers in Immunology | April 20, 2022

Dr Cruse has been appointed as an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Immunology, Molecular Innate Immunity Section.

Drs Cruse and Bitting awarded Pilot Project to study the effects of contaminant on mast cells and inflammation | March 24, 2022

The award from the Center for Human Health and the Environment is for one year and is designed to generate pilot data to enable larger studies on the effects of environmental contaminants on mast cell function and inflammation. This interdisciplinary study will utilize the chemistry expertise of Dr Bitting, who will act as a co-PI on the project, to integrate organic chemistry and molecular and cellular biology techniques to explore the effects of chemical contaminants on the immune system.

Dr Cruse has been granted US patent 11268096 for targeting the beta subunit of the high affinity IgE receptor | March 8, 2022

Dr Cruse has been awarded a patent for Compounds for modulating Fc-epsilon-RI-beta expression and uses thereof.

New review on IgE receptor regulation and trafficking published by the Cruse Lab | January 12, 2022

A Cruse Lab review of the high affinity IgE receptor has been published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Cruse Lab research study reporting an innovative therapeutic strategy for mast cell neoplastic diseases published | August 6, 2021

A Cruse Lab study reports the unconventional utility of exon skipping oligonucleotides to introduce a frameshift into mature mRNA for the receptor tyrosine kinase KIT. Gain-of-function mutations in the KIT receptor are associated with mast cell neoplastic diseases. We have utilized “frameshifting” of KIT transcripts in cancerous mast cells to markedly reduce KIT protein expression and function, which results in reduced proliferation and controlled cell death of the cancer cells in vitro. We also demonstrate that this approach reduces tumor growth and spread in pre-clinical in vivo mouse models. Read more about this exciting study in a news story at NC State University, and in the paper published in Molecular Therapy.

Cruse Lab review published | January 21, 2021

A Cruse Lab collaboration with Dr. Donald Freytes on Mast Cell-Biomaterial Interactions and Tissue Repair has been published in Tissue Engineering Part B Reviews.

Cruse Lab collaborative work published | October 1, 2020

A Cruse Lab collaboration with Dr. Donald Freytes on mast cells in dermal extracellular matrix hydrogels (see our research page) has been published in Tissue Engineering Part A.

Cruse Lab collaborative work published | April 8, 2020

A Cruse Lab collaboration with Dr. Santosh Mishra on periostin and itch has been published in Cell Reports.

 

Cruse Lab publishes study identifying a role for MS4A4A in mast cell degranulation | March 30, 2020

Congratulations to Greer Arthur on her publication demonstrating an important role for MS4A4A in IgE-mediated mast cell degranulation and store-operated calcium entry through Orai1. This study published in the journal Cellular Signalling, is an important step forwards for establishing roles for this understudied protein in immunology and a potential association with allergic diseases.

 

 

Cruse Lab collaborative work published | February 26, 2020

A Cruse Lab collaboration with Dr. Ashley Brown’s Advanced Wound Healing Lab on nanosilver composite pNIPAm microgels has been published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research.

 

Cruse Lab awarded NIH R01 from NIAID | September 18, 2019

The Cruse Lab has been awarded an R01 grant from NIAID, NIH to study the Regulation of FcεRI function by the MS4A gene cluster! For details about this project see the molecular mechanisms section of our research. We are looking for motivated people with an interest in molecular and mast cell biology to join this project.

 

Congratulations to Lauren | June 29, 2019

After 3 years in the Cruse lab, Lauren is leaving to study in the MD program at Wake Forest medical school. Thank you for all of your hard work over the last 3 years and best of luck in your new career!

 

 

 

Greer’s last day in the lab | September 18, 2018

After 2 years in the Cruse lab, Greer is leaving to join Dr. Thakur as the new communications and program specialist for the Global Health Program at CVM. Best of luck for the future!!

 

 

 

New Publication |  September 2, 2018

Today, we published our methods of exon skipping in mast cells, and the assays we use to examine the responses of mast cells in vitro and in vivo. Find the article here.

 

 

 

 

2018 CMI Symposium | NC State

Congratulations to Jen and Doug for presenting their posters at the 2018 CMI Symposium, hopefully the first of many presentations for their joint work on drug delivery.

 

 

 

 

2018 CMI Symposium | NC State

Congratulations to Ariana for presenting her poster at the 2018 CMI Symposium and winning second prize for her SIRI project!

 

 

 

 

Immunology 2018 | Austin, TX

Congratulations to Greer for presenting her work “Roles for MS4A4 in FcεRI signal transduction and store-operated calcium entry in human mast cells” at the 2018 AAI conference in Austin, TX, and receiving a 2018 AAI Trainee Poster Award!

 

 

Young Scholar Award | CMI, 2018

Congratulations to Greer and Doug for teaming up with Emily Wrona (Freytes Lab) and Greg Krane (Breen Lab) and winning a Young Scholar Award! Together, they put together a proposal for a summer research project as part of the CMI’s SIRI program. With the award, they will receive a summer stipend for an undergraduate student. Project Title: Development of a Three-Dimensional In Vitro Model of Mast Cell Neoplasia.

 

 

CVM Research Forum | September 22, 2017

Greer and Lauren presented their research on MS4A proteins at the 2017 CVM Research Day & Litwack Lecture today. Find out more about this project on our Research page.

 

 

In: Veterinary Medicine News | April 26, 2017

Article: Attacking Allergies at their Source

Dr. Cruse discusses his recent work on antisense oligonucleotides and the IgE receptor, published in PNAS (Pubmed), and the implications for allergic diseases.

 

 

In: Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology | February, 2017

Our work on antisense oligonucleotides and the IgE receptor, published in PNAS (Pubmed), featured in JACI’s News Beyond Our Pages feature this month. Read the piece here.

 

 

 

In: World Allergy Organization | December, 2016

We’re really pleased to see that our work on antisense oligonucleotides and the IgE receptor, published in PNAS (Pubmed), featured in WAO’s Editor’s Choice this month.

 

 

New Publication in PNAS |  December 6, 2016

Today, we published the findings of our study that investigated the use of antisense oligonucleotides for eliminating expression of the β-subunit of the high-affinity IgE receptor (FcεRIβ) in mast cells. Read more in the news article for NC State University, and in the article here.

 

In: Medical Xpress | November, 2016

It’s great to see an article about our work on antisense oligonucleotides and the IgE receptor, published in PNAS (Pubmed), on Medical Xpress this month too!

 

In: Science Daily | November, 2016

It’s good to see an article about our PNAS paper (Pubmed) published on Science Daily!