News
Our graduate student, Jennifer Jenkins, submitted an NSF GRF proposal that she has been working on for the past several weeks. We are super proud of her effort; it takes a lot of time and work to write up your first research proposal and even more time/work to get it in shape to submit for a fellowship application. We celebrated submission of the proposal with a lunch out at Taste of India. Congrats, Jennifer!
Rachel, Jennifer, and Britessia celebrate with a photo at the Arch at UGA.
Whew! What a busy few weeks it has been in the R-G lab. A brief update:
Ben and Christina finished up Rotation 1 with us and were able to get some interesting preliminary results about cell fate choices in the absence of a gene we’re studying (for a paper we’re finishing up). They presented their work and hopefully learned a few things about planarians.
Tulip and Kathy are both rotating with us during this 6-wk period. They are working on some more neurobiology-oriented projects, since they are both interested in the UGA Neuroscience Program. I’m enjoying having them in the lab and hopefully they’ll get some cool results, too!
Our undergrads are moving things along and are taking some steps toward independence this semester, which is exciting for me!
Jennifer has been working on an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship proposal and has firmed up plans for her thesis project.
Britessia has been hugely helpful in helping to get big lab jobs done and organized (like liver prep shown below!). Rays of praise for Britessia!
I have been writing a lot, and have submitted several grants in the past month: NIH MIRA-ESI, Sloan Foundation, Johnson & Johnson Women in STEM2D. I also submitted a letter of intent for the Whitehall Foundation. I’m excited about the work we’re doing and the work we’re proposing. So fingers crossed we get some support and good feedback from these efforts. A special thinks to my colleagues, the Office of Proposal Enhancement and the Sponsored Projects Administration offices at UGA who have helped me navigate grants from scientific, writing, and administrative sides! And thanks to my writing buddy, Dr. Amanda Frossard, who has helped me with a great writing practice over the past 6 months!
Liver Party October 2018. Thanks to all for the help and for Britessia making sure things went smoothly!
We are welcoming new students to the University of Georgia this week. We have a new crop of Integrated Life Science graduate students that we're happy to welcome on campus. I took part in "Neuroscience Day" on Friday and the Cellular Biology Retreat on Saturday, both of which partly function as events to recruit students from the ILS to labs in these programs.
We have two rotation students who are joining us for the next 6 weeks - Ben and Christina - they'll be following up on some of our previous results and trying to find targets for a couple of transcription factors we're interested in, which will hopefully help us to finish up a publication. Welcome to the lab and I hope it will be a fun few weeks!
We have 5 returning undergraduate students, who started in the lab last spring or summer. So welcome back to Jada, Lauren, Yamini, Princess, and Alicia!
RRG enjoyed a week of great science with even greater colleagues at the International Planarian Meeting in Madison, WI (hosted by Melanie and Phil of the Newmark Lab - Morgridge Institute - and Jochen Rink - Max Planck Institute). Lots of wonderful science that we're looking forward to reading in print. Polarity, stem cells, connections to parasitic flatworms, etc. Exciting stuff and inspiring ideas to bring back to the lab!
RRG with buddies/colleagues Dr. Melanie Issigonis and Dr. John Brubacher. Reunited!
I love the WI planarian logo...
Awesome planarian cakes by T. Chong!
Lake Mendota - Madison, WI
Jada, Alicia, and Princess presented their summer research in lab meeting today. They described the experiments they have been performing and also gave background on their projects. They fielded some questions (some of them tough!) and did a great job. Days like this are some of the most fun for me, because it is such a gift to watch talented students work hard and grow!
Jada, Princess, Alicia, and Lauren - Still smiling after their research presentations at lab meeting!
Lab selfie - Summer 2018!
