Heather Hook Recipient of Inaugural Kilachand Doctoral Fellowship
Heather Hook of the Siggers Lab is a recipient of the inaugural Kilachand Doctoral Fellowship. This fellowship is funded by the Multicellular Design Program (MDP), which combines research in Synthetic Biology, Microbial Engineering, Tissue Engineering, Data Science, and Biophysics to understand the design principles of multicellular systems.
Heather’s research is focused on developing a new high-throughput technique, termed CASCADE (Comprehensive Assessment of Complex Assembly at DNA Elements), to precisely profile the effects of single nucleotide variants on the indirect recruitment of transcriptional cofactors to DNA across different cell types and stimulus conditions. Using macrophage nuclear extracts, CASCADE has been used to map the determinants of constitutive and stimulus-dependent recruitment of cofactors to various enhancers and promoters of immune response genes. Furthermore, CASCADE has been used to characterize defective cofactor recruitment at known stimulus dependent GWAS single nucleotide variants (SNPs) implicated in immune diseases.
CASCADE will be used for Heather’s collaborative research project with the Mostoslavsksy lab of the Center of the Regenerative Medicine for her MDP fellowship. The goal of the project is to use CASCADE to identify transcriptional regulators controlling cell fate. Heather plans on following the development of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to specific immune cells to identify transcriptional regulatory complexes governing developmental decisions. This work will help establish a new approach to understand and manipulate cellular fates that can be then be applied to more complex cellular differentiation systems.
Congratualtions, Heather!
Fall Semester GSO Travel Grant Winners
Congratulations to Brandon Güell (Warkentin Lab) and Natalie Vaisman (Frydman Lab) for being recipients of Fall 2019 Graduate Student Organization (GSO) Travel Grants! They are two of just ten winners.
Brandon Güell Earns Second Place in American Institute of Biological Sciences Photo Contest
Brandon Güell of the Warkentin Lab recently won second place in the American Institute of Biological Sciences 2019 Faces of Biology Photo Contest. The contest photos are used to help the public and policymakers better understand the value of biological research and education. Read the full announcement here.
Congratulations, Brandon!
Ashley Comer Receives 2019 I. Alden Macchi Award
GPN PhD student Ashley Comer of the Cruz-Martin Lab was selected as the winner of the 2019 I. Alden Macchi Award for excellence in the field of regulatory biology.
Ashley's research is focused on understanding how the immune and nervous system interact to shape brain development and behavior in healthy and diseased states. As part of her thesis research project, Ashley has sought to understand the role of a schizophrenia-associated gene called Complement component 4 (C4). Specifically she studies the impact of increased C4 expression on the wiring of the prefrontal cortex, a brain region implicated in social cognition, by assaying neuronal connectivity during early postnatal development. She has found that increased C4 expression disrupts synaptic development of the prefrontal cortex through microglia-mediated synapse elimination which leads to deficits in the social behavior of mice.
Congratulations, Ashley!
Laura DiRoberts Receives Inaugural Denton Award
Laura DiRoberts of the Rotjan Lab was selected as the inaugural winner of the Denton Award for her master's research thesis in biology titled "Nitrogen Cycling in the Temperate Northern Star Coral, Astrangia poculata: Distinguishing Autotrophic from Heterotrophic Nutrient Contributions." This award is given for excellence in scholarship and research accomplishment during a master's thesis in the Department of Biology.
Laura has a BA in Marine Biology from Salem State University and a BS in Environmental Science from the University of Saint Joseph. Prior to coming to BU, Laura interned at the Ocean Alliance in Gloucester, MA on the SnotBot project. She recently won "Best Talk" at the Astrangia Research Workshop at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Congratulations, Laura!
Jesse Delia Receives 2019 Belamarich Award
Dr. Jesse Delia of the Warkentin Lab was selected as the winner of the 2019 Belamarich Award for his doctoral dissertation in Biology titled “Ecology and Evolution of Parent-Embryo Interactions in Neotropical Glassfrogs.” This award is given annually to a recent PhD candidate for their outstanding doctoral dissertation completed in the Department of Biology. While several outstanding dissertations were nominated, Jesse's dissertation stood out based on the new ideas introduced into his discipline by his work, his extensive and detailed fieldwork, his consistently high levels of scientific productivity, as well as his independent approach and success in securing funding for his work.
In Dr. Warkentin’s lab, Jesse conducted dissertation research on the social dynamics of family life in glassfrogs. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, where he is investigating the mechanisms and evolution of biological transparency in frogs. Jesse is also a past recipient of the Thomas H. Kunz award (2015 & 2016).
As in previous years, there will be a Belamarich Seminar given by the awardee, with the Belamarich Award Ceremony and Reception immediately following. The Seminar will be held on Monday, October 28th, from 4:00pm-5:00pm in BRB 113. The Award Ceremony and Reception will take place down the hall in BRB 117, from 5:00pm-6:00pm. We are honored to have the Belamarich family joining us again to celebrate this year’s award winner.
We look forward to seeing everyone at the Belamarich Seminar and the Belamarich Ceremony and Reception!
More about the Belamarich Award:
Frank A. Belamarich joined the BU Biology Department in 1963 as an assistant professor where he quickly gained international recognition for his research in the field of comparative hemostasis, the process of blood clotting. Throughout his tenure at BU he was a popular teacher of a core course in cell biology which he developed. Belamarich maintained research laboratories in Boston as well as at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole in Falmouth, MA as part of the BU Marine Program.
Sasha Vivelo Published in FEMS Microbiology Ecology
Sasha Vivelo, PhD student in the Bhatnagar Lab, recently published a meta-analysis in FEMS Microbiology Ecology. An evolutionary signal to fungal succession during plant litter decay is the first study to test a long-standing hypothesis that succession in fungal decomposer communities depends on the evolutionary history of species, such that the loss of individual lineages of fungi in the future could shift one of the largest fluxes of carbon through the biosphere.
Sandy Serizier Wins Best Poster at UGSO Research Symposium
MCBB PhD student Sandy Serizier of the McCall Lab won "Best Poster" at the First Annual Underrepresented Graduate Student Organization Academic Research Symposium on September 26th. Sandy is enthusiastic about basic research and is interested in cell communication during development. She is also very passionate about community outreach.
Congratulations, Sandy!
BU URBAN Program Featured in BU Today
Photo from BU today: [Biology's] Tara Miller gathered data on wildlife health this summer as an intern in the Adirondacks. Portrait by Jackie Ricciardi. Photo of the Adirondack mountains by Robert Cicchetti/iStock
The BU Graduate Program in Urban Biogeoscience and Environmental Health was featured in BU Today. BU URBAN is an NSF-funded research traineeship (NRT) that trains PhD students in Biogeoscience, Environmental Health, and Statistics to address urban environmental challenges.
Biology PhD students Tara Miller and Jenna Rindy are program trainees. Biology's Dr. Pamela Templer serves as the program director; other Biology faculty who participate in BU URBAN include: Dr. Jennifer Bhatnagar, Dr. Adrien Finzi, Dr. Richard Primack, and Dr. Randi Rotjan. Congratulations to all involved!
The full article can be read here.
Congratulations to Our GSO Travel Grant Winners!
Congratulations to Tina Barbasch, Rebecca Branconi, Jamie Harrison, and Andressa Mota for being recipients of spring and summer Graduate Student Organization (GSO) Travel Grants!
The next Travel Grant deadline is December 1st: https://www.bu.edu/gso/travelgrants/