2020 Wrap-up

Well, I suppose I should write a 2020 wrap-up for posterity’s sake. This was a very challenging year for the lab, with a COVID-19 related shut-down that interrupted our lab work and lives for several months. Despite these great challenges, we have had several bright spots this year. Here are 10 great things that happened for the lab this year (in no particular order):

  1. We successfully recruited two new graduate students through the ILS rotation season: Kendall Clay and Taylor Medlock. Lab members did an excellent job hosting rotation students safely mid-pandemic (including creation of a suite of training videos). We’re excited to have them join us!

  2. Graduate student Tulip Chandra passed her qualifying exam.

  3. Rachel received an NSF CAREER award.

  4. Jennifer presented her exciting research virtually at the Society for Developmental Biology meeting.

  5. We prioritized self-care and mental health with a lab wellness check and other related activities.

  6. We held our first ever lab career development week (we liked it so much we made it 2 weeks long!).

  7. Our Spring undergraduates (Rachel, Raag, Labo, and Anusha) virtually presented their work at the CURO Symposium.

  8. Rachel was invited to write a Perspective and a book chapter, published in the summer and out in 2021 respectively.

  9. Britessia built a fancy recirculation system for the lab which is almost complete!

  10. We submitted our first research paper from the lab, which is in review but which can be found at bioRxiv!

I’m grateful for the support that my trainees have offered to each other in this truly difficult year. I’m so grateful for the support of colleagues, particularly junior faculty members at UGA and around the country, who unfailingly offered their time and generously offered their friendship (and made me laugh when I needed it most). Wishing you and yours all the best (especially good health and research progress) in 2021.

Rotation 2 in the books!

We were really happy to have Anna Iouchmanov and Kendall Clay with us for the 2nd rotation, which wrapped up a couple of weeks ago. They worked so well together and it was a joy to welcome such bright and cooperative team members into the group for a while. They, like our 1st rotation students, were so adaptable and resilient in training during a pandemic. We enjoyed their enthusiasm and interest in the work, too! They worked on cloning some genes we’re interested in studying and we’re excited to continue this work!

Rotation 1 in the books!

We were grateful to have Taylor Medlock and Justin McCurdy rotate with us in the first ILS rotation. They were eager and adaptable, which has been especially important for rotation students working in the lab during a pandemic! They tried some new techniques and even got some things to work! Hooray! We wish them the best in their future rotations. We’re also excited to welcome Kendall Clay and Anna Iouchmanov to the lab for the 2nd rotation! Lots of exciting science happening this fall!

A new (academic) year...

We’re excited (and maybe a little trepidatious) about a new academic year here at the University of Georgia. I (RRG) am teaching Cell Biology again (CBIO3400), which will be online. Though online teaching is a little disappointing, the course plan is really exciting and I’m looking forward to meeting a new cohort of students. I’m also teaching a small first year seminar on undergraduate research opportunities, so that will be fun. We have two ILS students joining us for the first rotation, Taylor Medlock and Justin McCurdy. We’re excited to have some new folks in the lab and have done a lot over the past several weeks to make training them easier and more effective (e.g. making training videos, reorganizing the lab). It’s an experiment but hopefully we’ll be able to give them a great training experience despite the pandemic still very active in our state! We’re taking a little hiatus from having new undergraduate trainees in the lab, but look forward to having some new undergrads join us in coming semesters.