While the campus has been in reduced activity since mid-March, MET students and affiliates were able to move research forward and achieve notable accomplishments. During this time:
Fellowship Awarded
Anne Turco (Lab of Chad Vezina) successfully obtained an F31 fellowship. The proposal, “Developmental origins of prostate-related urinary dysfunction in adult males: TCDD exposure increases prostatic noradrenergic innervation and smooth muscle contraction” (F31 ES030968), started in April. Anne will use this funding to continue experiments and write papers, which will leader to graduation in the not-too-distant future.
Five students successfully defended their work and graduated
Folagbayi (Fola) Arowolo (Lab of Dhanansayan Shanmuganayagam) defended his PHD work, “Biological Impact of Dietary Lipid Oxidation Products.” At the beginning of July, he started a clinical postdoctoral position at UCSF. Prior to his defense, he sat down for an interview with Mark Marohl about his graduate school experience, and that is available here.
Shelby Petersen (Lab of Chad Vezina) defended her MS work, “The veterinary perspectives on Snake Fungal Disease.” She immediately moved to a position as a bio analyst at Covance.
Brandon Bocanegra (Lab of Vincent Cryns) defended his MS work, “Exploring Metabolic Vulnerabilities of Cancer Associated with Branched Chain Amino Acid and Methionine Deprivation.” Similarly, he was able to immediately entered into an industry position, working at Pace Analytical / 3M in the Twin Cities. (he “sat down” for an interview with Mark Marohl to discuss his graduate experience, available here)
Rachel Wilson (Lab of Christopher Bradfield) defended her PHD work, “The Aryl hydrocarbon receptor allelic series in mice.” She is still finalizing plans about what her next adventure will be.
Morten Seirup (Lab of James Thomson) defended his PHD work, “Loss of maturity in Primary hepatocyte culture: Understanding the mechanisms and improving the culture conditions.” He has a position lined-up at Dianomi.
As of August 01st, five students successfully completed their preliminary exams and have moved to candidacy
Charles Olmsted (Lab of Katrina McMahon)
Andrew Knutson (Lab of Jyoti Watters)
Brenda Rojas (Lab of Christopher Bradfield)
Patrick Carney (Lab of Christopher Bradfield)
Kenneth Rivera-Gonzalez (Lab of Robert Lipinski)
Undergraduate Summer Research Program Continued
Despite pandemic / lockdown conditions, the Molecular & Environmental Toxicology-Summer Research Opportunities Program “hosted” six students virtually for an experience that included learning the fundamentals of toxicology, professional development, and the analysis of large-scale databases to examine human health toxicants. A website including a full description of the summer is being developed and will be posted soon.
Incoming Class, Fall 2020
We have four new students joining us for the Fall term. Read more about them and their background here.
Beyond Science . . .
The School of Medicine & Public Health created a publication, Corpus Callosum, to highlight the fine artistic talent of those within SMPH. Its inaugural issue was released recently and Jessica Parrott (Lab of Christopher Bradfield) had her poem, “Sell Me a Scar,” published.