Pamela J. Skinner

Assistant Professor

Veterinary Biosciences

Email: skinn002@umn.edu
Phone: (612) 624-4649

Education

Ph.D., University of Minnesota

Research Interests

Dr. Skinner's laboratory focuses on two distinct research projects. The goal of the first project is to gain insights into prion and Alzheimer disease pathogenesis. The goal of the second project is to gain insights into human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) pathogenesis. Prion and Alzheimer diseases are fatal neurodegenerative diseases with no known cure. Increased understanding of the molecular events that lead to neurodegeneration in each of these diseases is needed for early diagnosis and the development of new drug therapies. Current efforts in Dr. Skinner's lab involve the use of cDNA microarrays to identify alterations in gene expression that occur during prion-induced pathogenesis and Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis. The ultimate goal of the prion/Alzheimer research project is to increase our understanding of the molecular events that occur during these disease processes, identify markers for early diagnosis, and identify new targets for drug therapy. The HIV/SIV project is motivated by the fact that over 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV. A pressing biomedical priority is the development of an effective HIV vaccine. Several lines of evidence have indicated that the development of an effective HIV vaccine will require the induction of a strong virus specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response. Using MHC-class I tetramers, Dr. Skinner developed a method to stain antigen specific CTLs in tissue sections. This technique is referred to as in situ tetramer staining (IST). Dr. Skinner's lab is using IST to evaluate SIV and HIV specific T cells in tissues after infection, and plans to use IST to evaluate the effects of vaccination on the development of anti-viral T cells in tissues.

Selected Recent Publications

• Skinner PJ, Abbassi H, Chesebro B, Race RE, Reilly C, Haase AT.Gene expression alterations in brains of mice infected with three strains of scrapie. BMC Genomics. 2006 May 16;7(1):114
• Semple G, Skinner PJ, Cherrier MC, Webb PJ, Sage CR, Tamura SY, Chen R, Richman JG, Connolly DT.1-Alkyl-benzotriazole-5-carboxylic acids are highly selective agonists of the human orphan G-protein-coupled receptor GPR109b. J Med Chem. 2006 Feb 23;49(4):1227-30.
• Reynolds MR, Rakasz E, Skinner PJ, White C, Abel K, Ma ZM, Compton L, Napoe G, Wilson N, Miller CJ, Haase A, Watkins DI.CD8+ T-lymphocyte response to major immunodominant epitopes after vaginal exposure to simian immunodeficiency virus: too late and too little. J Virol. 2005 Jul;79(14):9228-35.
• Skinner PJ, Haase AT, 2002. In situ tetramer staining. Journal of Immunological Methods. 268: 29-34.
• Skinner PJ, Vierra-Green CA, Emamian E, Zoghbi HY, Orr HT, 2002. Amino acids in a region of ataxin-1 outside of the polyglutamine tract influence the course of disease in SCA1 transgenic mice. Neuromolecular Medicine. 1(1):33-42.
• MothÈ BR, Horton H, Carter DK, Liebl ME, Skinner PJ, Allen TM, Vogel TU, Franchini G, Rehrauer W, Wilson N, Altman JD, Haase AT, Picker LJ, Sette AD, Watkins DI, 2002. Dominance of CD8 Responses Specific for Epitopes Bound by a Single MHC Class I Molecule During Both the Acute and Chronic Phases of Viral Infection. Journal of Virology. 76(2): 875-84.
• Skinner PJ, Vierra-Green CA, Clark HB, Zoghbi HY, Orr HT, 2001. Altered trafficking of membrane proteins in Purkinje cells of SCA1 transgenic mice. American Journal of Pathology. 159, 905-13.
• Skinner PJ, Daniels MA, Schmidt CS, Jameson SC, Haase AT, 2000. In situ tetramer staining of antigen-specific T cells in tissues. Journal of Immunology 165 (2): 613-617.
• Kaytor MD, Duvick LA, Skinner PJ, Koob MD, Ranum LPW, Orr HT, 1999. Nuclear localization of the spinocerebellar ataxia type 7 protein, ataxin-7. Human Molecular Genetics 8(9): 1657-1664.
• Klement IA, Skinner PJ, Kaytor MD, Hong Y, Hersch SM, Clark HB, Zoghbi HY, Orr HT, 1998. Ataxin-1 nuclear localization and aggregation: role in polyglutamine-induced disease in SCA1 transgenic mice. Cell 95: 41-53.
• Skinner PJ, Koshy BT, Cummings CJ, Klement IA, Helin K, Servadio A, Zoghbi HY, Orr HT, 1997. Ataxin-1 With an Expanded Glutamine Tract Alters Nuclear Matrix-Associated Structures. Nature 389: 971-974.