End of the year 2018...

Whew! We just finished up the last rotation of 2018, with Jeremy Burton and Garrett Medley joining us to learn about planarians and try their hands at some molecular biology, RNAi, and in situ hybridizations. They did a great job, getting some interesting results and giving nice presentations of their work. We had a truly excellent crop of scientists/rotation students come through the lab this fall. It was an honor and privilege to work with them and they each brought unique strengths and energy to our group.

We then moved into decision season, with Garrett Medley and Bidushi (Tulip) Chandra opting to join our group starting in January 2019. We are so excited to have them join us and can’t wait to get started on some new and exciting projects!

We also finished up the undergrads’ first semester of truly independent research. They sometimes struggled with the bumps in the road that science can sometimes involve, but each student managed to complete some experiments and most had some data to show for it by the end of the term. They each wrote a mini-paper on their work and presented both a research article and their original research over the course of the semester. Lots of time and hard work! Several will be joining us again this Spring and a few new students will be joining us in Summer and Fall of 2019.

Our “senior” graduate student, Jennifer, submitted her NSF GRF proposal this fall and has made a great amount of progress on her project this semester. She is excited to have some graduate student peers in the lab come January.

And Britessia, our technician and my right-hand person, has continued to work on her screen as she has also managed to write a microscope manual, keep the lab stocked and organized, and help me put out fires (figurative, not literal - so far!).

At the end of the year, it’s a great time for me to reflect back on the progress we have made and re-center myself for a year ahead that will be full of new science and adventure. I’m so grateful to each lab member for his/her unique contribution(s) to the group. And I’m hugely grateful to my colleagues at UGA and around the world who have supported me (and us) this year. Thanks, all!

Wishing everything a wonderful 2019!

NSURE information

We are excited to participate in a new neuroscience program for undergraduate researchers, to be held at UGA starting in Summer 2019. The program will enable students to work in Neuroscience labs at UGA and will also provide professional development activities, social events, a research symposium, and more! This program is open to UGA undergraduate students, as well as students from other institutions.

Interested undergraduate students can find more information at the NSURE website. You can also find more about our Neuroscience program here.

Feel free to contact RRG for more information.

November!

Whew! We had a great month in October… some highlights:

1) Grant submissions by Jennifer (NSF GRF) and Rachel (MIRA & several others).

2) Good work in the lab done by rotation students Tulip and Kathy.

3) Britessia tackled some new things in the lab, making T3 and T7 polymerase successfully and purifying yeast RNA for us to use in our ISH experiments. This also meant I got to pour some protein gels for the first time since arriving at UGA; still using the same recipe I learned in the Gould lab 15 years ago!

4) Undergrads are starting to get some interesting results with their projects and several have really adjusted well to the independence gained in the 2nd semester in the lab. Our undergrads are also starting to present journal articles to the lab, which has been challenging but fun (for me and hopefully for them, too).

5) Had a great chat with GVSU students (in Dr. Dawn Hart’s class and Dr. Matt Christians’s class) who are doing a first-year CURE using planarians. They are using RNAi to target a subset of genes we’re interested in and have developed their hypotheses. Very excited to see their results!

6) Had some fantastic guests to UGA for the Developmental Biology Symposium (Dr. Claude Desplan, Dr. Vivian Irish, and Dr. John Wallingford). I also hosted Dr. Ken Poss for the CBIO seminar series. I also got to hear my colleague Dr. Nadja Zeltner present her work (she is also new faculty at UGA), which was very fun. I really feel like we got spoiled by all of the exciting science we got to hear about this month!

We’re excited to welcome two new rotation students on Monday: Garrett and Jeremy. Hope that November is just as productive and fun as October!

Jennifer Jenkins submits her NSF Graduate Research Fellowship proposal

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.

Fall update

Whew! What a busy few weeks it has been in the R-G lab. A brief update:

1. 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.

2. 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!

3. Our undergrads are moving things along and are taking some steps toward independence this semester, which is exciting for me!

4. Jennifer has been working on an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship proposal and has firmed up plans for her thesis project.

5. 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!

6. 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!