June 2020 News
Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) is a co-Investigator with Professor Michael Wolfe (PI, Medicinal Chemistry) on an awarded NIH-NIA R01 research grant entitled “Structure and Function of Gamma-Secretase in Familial Alzheimer's Disease”.
Audrey Lamb (professor) is the recipient of the 2020 Louise Byrd Graduate Educator Award. Congratulations Audrey!
Angelica Lang (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) is the recipient of an Astronaut Scholarship, one of 56 nationally. The Astronaut Scholarships recognize “the brightest and most talented college students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics” “To aid the United States in retaining its world leadership in technology and innovation by supporting the very best and brightest scholars in science, technology, engineering and mathematics while commemorating the legacy of America’s pioneering astronauts.” Angelica is also a Beckman Scholar and Goldwater Scholar.
The following graduate students have almost a year of study under their belts and we are happy to announce that they have now found research homes!
Samalee Banerjee joined the Chandler lab and will be studying antibiotic resistance and cell-cell communication in the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Eldric Carreon joined the Neufeld lab to study the role of tumor suppressor protein APC in Wnt signal transmission.
Katherine (Katie) Hanson joined the Macdonald lab and will carry out experimental and computational genomics studies to understand the genetic basis of complex, biomedically-relevant traits using the fruit fly model system.
Bunu Lama joined the Yoshi Azuma lab and will be studying role of SUMOylated DNA Topoisomerase IIalfa/PICH interaction on novel mitotic checkpoint regulation and mitotic chromosomal organization.
Hana Mayfield joined the Yoshi Azuma lab and will be studying biochemical/cell biological aspect of DNA topoisomerase IIalfa binding to specific chromatin with histone methylation for faithful chromosome segregation.
Joseph O’Connor joined the Fehr lab and will be studying how PARP14 enhances the IFN response to virus infections.
Maxim Rodzkin joined the Dixon lab and will studying the control of cancer exosome secretion.
Congratulations to these stellar undergraduates for receiving Outstanding Presentation Awards at the 2020 Online Undergraduate Research Symposium:
Maya Bluitt is a behavioral neuroscience major from Lenexa. Her presentation was entitled “Do Flavin Monooxygenases Function in the Celsr/Flamingo Pathway During Neural Development?” and her mentor is Brian Ackley.
Dasha Frank is a biochemistry major from Tonganoxie. Her presentation was entitled “Effect of Vitamin C on Glycogen Phosphorylase b” and her mentor is Roberto de Guzman.
Hailey Young is a biology major from Overland Park. Her presentation was entitled “Retrospective docking of y-secretase modulators” and her mentors are Yinglong Miao and Apurba Bhattari.
Also of note, Brian Ackley (associate professor) was a nominee for the K. Barbara Schowen Undergraduate Research Mentor Award while Taybor Parker (graduate student-Neufeld lab) was a nominee for the Undergraduate Research Mentor Award.
