Happy Graduation Day!

Several lab alums graduated from UGA on May 13. We celebrated the graduation of Rachel Grimes, former undergraduate researcher and current lab staff, this past week. Rachel spent 6 (!) semesters in the lab, which is a new R-G lab record for undergraduate students. Rachel graduates as a Cell Biology major and will attend the Medical College of Georgia in the fall. Raag Patel and Anusha Jain (former undergraduate researchers) also graduated, and will attend Medical College of Georgia and Dental School at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (FL), respectively. Congratulations to Rachel, Raag and Anusha!

Our high school researcher, Ariel Robinson, will also graduate from Clarke Central High School on May 26. Congratulations, Ariel!

Lab dinner at 5&10. From L to R: Rachel Grimes, Taylor Medlock-Lanier, Bidushi Chandra, Alejandra Gonzalez, Andres Villalobos, Jen Jenkins, Kendall Clay, and Rachel R-G.

Student Employees of the Year Banquet

Today, we celebrated our undergraduate researcher and student employee, Rachel Grimes, at a banquet for student employees of the year. Rachel was an undergrad in the lab in 2019-2020 and then came back last year as a technician and to help with a few more projects. She has been an extremely valuable group member, contributing both scientifically through her individual research and as a team member and colleague. She is headed off to medical school next year and we will miss her lots!

So grateful for Rachel and her time in the lab!

Kind of wanted to take the bulldog back to the lab with us!

CURO Symposium

Andres and Alejandra with me (Dr. R-G) at the 2022 CURO Symposium. Nice work!

We were so excited for undergraduate researchers Andres and Alejandra to present their research at the 2022 Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO) Symposium. And it was in person (yay)! They each presented posters, which were thoughtfully created, and practiced short oral presentations of their work. They presented research that they have completed over the past 2 semesters in the lab, focusing on planarian regeneration. They did an AMAZING job. I also want to commend their graduate mentors, Bidushi and Jen, for their excellent mentorship of “The A-team.” Job well done, everyone!

What we're up to...

Lots of new things going on in the lab. Here’s what we’re up to!

  • Jen just posted her paper as a preprint here. We also submitted this paper, fingers crossed!

  • Tulip is writing her manuscript and finishing up experiments. Stay tuned soon to hear more about her work on planarian glia!

  • Kendall and Taylor have some exciting hits from their screen of neural regeneration regulators. They are also preparing for their qualifying exams.

  • We are working on a collaborative review on planarian behavior. Stay tuned for that, soon, too!

  • Graduate students completed their Individual Development Plans and thought a lot about what they want to accomplish this year.

  • Our undergraduate students are doing really well. Andres has applied for some summer research programs and will head to MIT this summer. Alejandra is preparing for the MCAT. Both are making progress on their projects, troubleshooting (sometimes!), and learning lots.

  • Rachel Grimes is finishing up a screen and is making a decision on which Medical School to attend soon.

  • We are hosting a high school student for the first time! Ariel Robinson is a senior at Clarke Central High School.

  • We had our first ever “Merge Meetings” - join lab meetings with Dr. Mansi Srivastava and a few of her trainees. We also tried out a lab meeting dedicated to learning to be better writers. Great job, team!

  • We are looking forward to a new season of Flatworm Fridays seminars.

  • Rachel (R-G) sat on an NIH study section, which was a great learning experience. She is also co-teaching Advanced Developmental Biology (CBIO8300) this Spring! RRG is also trying to get some experiments done this Spring and is looking forward to a summer research trip to University of Kentucky to visit Dr. Beth Duncan as part of the SEC Travel program.