Rachel Dumez-Kornegay publishes paper in PLOS Genetics
Rachel Dumez-Kornegay
Rachel Dumez-Kornegay & Rob Dowen: Probiotics in kombucha found to mimic fasting and reduce fat stores in C. elegans model
“These findings are significant as they are consistent with purported human health benefits of kombucha tea, which include protection against metabolic diseases, improved liver function, and reduced fat accumulation.” — Rob Dowen, PhD
GMB Graduate Student Marielle Bond Wins People’s Choice Award at Three Minute Thesis Competition
First place: Kirsten Giesbrecht (Department of Mathematics; College of Arts and Sciences) Second place: Rebecca Radomsky (Department of Chemistry; College of Arts and Sciences) Peoples’ Choice: Marielle Bond (Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology)
Congratulations to Genetics and Molecular Biology Graduate Student Marielle Bond in the labs of Doug Phanstiel (Cell Biology and Physiology) and Hyejung Won (Genetics), for receiving the “People’s Choice Award” at the 2023 Three Minute Thesis Competition!
The Graduate School’s annual Three Minute Thesis competition final, an initiative of Professional Development, helps graduate students distill their research topics in only three minutes for a non-specialist audience in order to present their groundbreaking research in an easy-to-understand way.
Graduate students from many areas of campus, including in science and in the humanities, presented their research for a panel of judges to determine the top 10 participants who advanced to the final competition.
This year’s juried competition is one of nearly 900 similar competitions around the world and in 85 countries. The Three Minute Thesis is an initiative founded by the University of Queensland in Australia.
Congratulations to GMB Graduate Student Marielle Bond who is a Finalist in the 2023 UNC Three Minute Thesis Competition
Marielle Bond
Marielle Bond, a doctoral student in Genetics and Molecular Biology (Doug Phanstiel and Hyejung Won labs), is a finalist in the UNC Graduate School’s Three Minute Thesis competition. This achievement reflects her ability to present her research in an accessible and compelling way.
The final competition will be this Wednesday, October 25 in the UNC Freedom Forum Conference Center.
Increases in chromatin features correlate with increases in chromatin looping at the TBX3 locus.Marielle Bond
Marielle Bond (Doug Phanstiel and Hyejung Won labs) published an article titled “Chromatin loop dynamics during cellular differentiation are associated with changes to both anchor and internal regulatory features” in Genome Research (doi:10.1101/gr.277397.122).
M.L. Bond, E.S. Davis, I.Y. Quiroga, A. Dey, M. Kiran, M.I. Love, H. Won, and D.H. Phanstiel (2023). Chromatin loop dynamics during cellular differentiation are associated with changes to both anchor and internal regulatory features. Genome Research 33 (8): 1258–68. doi:10.1101/gr.277397.122
Ana Berglind (Erin Heinzen Lab) is the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund 2023 Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program (GDEP) Award
Ana Berglind
Ana Berglind, a graduate student in Erin Heinzen’s Lab, is the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund 2023 Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program (GDEP) award. Selected from a pool of exceptionally talented applicants, Ana will receive financial support, mentorship opportunities, and access to invaluable resources throughout his academic journey via this award.
Benjamin Kornegay (Jill Dowen Lab) is the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund 2023 Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program (GDEP) Award
Benjamin Kornegay
Benjamin Kornegay, a graduate student in Jill Dowen’s Lab, is the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund 2023 Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program (GDEP) award. Selected from a pool of exceptionally talented applicants, Benjamin will receive financial support, mentorship opportunities, and access to invaluable resources throughout his academic journey via this award.
Mark Geisler (Bob Duronio lab) Awarded National Institute of Child Health & Human Development F31 Predoctoral Fellowship
Mark Geisler
Congratulations to Mark Geisler (Bob Duronio lab), who was awarded an F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development.
Mark’s project is titled “The Mute button: Turning down the volume of histone expression.”
GMB Graduate Student Ryan Mouery (Mike Emanuele Lab) Receives The 2023 Terry Magnuson Award
(Pictured Left to Right – Dan McKay, GMB DGS – Ryan Mouery – Terry Magnuson)
Congratulations to GMB Graduate Student Ryan Mouery (Mike Emanuele Lab) who received the 2023 Terry Magnuson Award at the 2023 GMB/Genetics/BCB Scientific Retreat in Asheville, NC.
This highly competitive award honors senior graduate students for their contributions to science and to the UNC Chapel Hill Genetics and Molecular Biology community. Nominations are submitted by faculty advisors and reviewed by members of the Genetics and Molecular Biology Executive Committee.
The award is named in honor of Terry Magnuson, Inaugural Chair of the UNC Chapel Hill Department of Genetics.
Jeff Sekelsky Honored for 10 Years of Leadership as GMB Director of Graduate Studies
Jeff Sekelsky honored for 10 years of leadership and excellence as the Genetics and Molecular Biology Director of Graduate Studies.
The Department of Genetics, the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology (GMB) and the Curriculum in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BCB) held a scientific retreat on Sept. 20-22, 2023, at Renaissance in Asheville, NC.
More than 220 faculty, postdocs, students and staff attended the annual Scientific Retreat hosted by the UNC Department of Genetics. 21 speakers gave talks across four sessions and more than 95 posters were presented.
Dr. Jeff Sekelsky was honored for 10 years of leadership and excellence as Director of Graduate Studies with the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology.
Thank you Dr. Sekelsky for the passion and hard work you have devoted to making UNC’s Genetics and Molecular Biology Graduate School Curriculum the outstanding program that it is today! Your leadership will be an example for others to strive to achieve!
Marielle Bond (Doug Phanstiel and Hyejung Won lab) Awarded National Institute on Aging F31 Predoctoral Fellowship
Marielle Bond
Congratulations to Marielle Bond for being awarded an NRSA F31 predoctral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging.
Marielle’s project is titled: “Cell-type Specific Interrogation of Variant Function in Alzheimer’s Disease.”
Oscar Arroyo named HHMI Gilliam Fellows with Mentor Dan McKay
Oscar Arroyo
UNC School of Medicine graduate student Oscar Arroyo from Daniel McKay’s lab was among 50 students across the United States named as Gilliam Fellows by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) announced the 2023 class of 50 Gilliam Fellows conducting outstanding research in their respective scientific fields and their advisers who are committed to building a more inclusive scientific environment. Each adviser-student pair will receive an annual award of $53,000 for up to three years.
The Gilliam Program invests in graduate students from populations historically excluded and underrepresented in science so that they are prepared to become scientific leaders.
“The Gilliam Fellowship not only supports incredibly talented graduate students who are poised to become future leaders in science,” says Joshua Hall, senior program officer for the Gilliam Fellows Program, “but it also engages thesis advisers and institutions in the work of creating training environments in which all students can thrive.”
The UNC School of Medicine has two Gilliam Fellows this year – Oscar Arroyo and Aleah Bailey.
Arroyo is a fourth-year PhD student in the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology and member of the lab of Daniel McKay, PhD, associate professor of genetics and biology. Arroyo’s research focuses on the mechanisms of epigenetic gene regulation during early development. He is a former UNC JEDI Fellow, during which time he worked to integrate current graduate students into the admissions review process in the biomedical sciences.
HHMI’s Gilliam Fellows Program recognizes that advisers play an integral role in helping their students realize their high potential. For this reason, Gilliam advisers participate in a year-long mentorship development course led by facilitator-scholars from HHMI’s Scientific Mentorship Initiative.
Read more about the HHMI and Gilliam Fellowships, including a full list of recipients, at the HHMI website.
Congratulations to Rachel DuMez-Kornegay (Rob Dowen lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health of the National Institutes of Health.
Rachel’s project is titled “Elucidating the Host Metabolic Response to Consumption of Kombucha-associated Microorganisms.”
Jack Sanford Receives Graduate Fellow Basic Science Award
Jack Sanford
Genetics and Molecular Biology recent graduate Jack Sanford, from the lab of Yanping Zhang, receives the Graduate Fellow Basic Science Award from UNC Chapel Hill’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The Graduate Fellow Awards in Basic Science is annual competitive $3,000 award for outstanding graduate students in the research programs of cancer center members who have active, peer-reviewed grant support. Recognition through this award is intended to encourage excellence in basic research, promote recruitment of high quality students, and stimulate cancer-related basic research.
There will be an award ceremony in late June to honor this accomplishment.
Congratulations Dr. Sanford!
Dr. Jeff Sekelsky Receives 2023 Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Student and Academic Program Support
Jeff Sekelsky, PhD
Jeff Sekelsky, PhD (Professor of Biology and Genetics) has been awarded the 2023 Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Student and Academic Program Support from the UNC Graduate School. This award recognizes graduate faculty currently in the Director of Graduate Studies role who provide outstanding support for graduate programs and their students. This award is student-nominated with the support of leadership and administration from the recipient’s home program. There are more than 160 Masters and PhD programs within UNC whose Directors of Graduate Studies are eligible for nomination.
The UNC Graduate School Dean will formally present Dr. Sekelsky with this award at the upcoming Graduate Student Recognition Celebration on Wednesday, April 12th from 4-5:30pm at The Carolina Club in the George Watts Hill Alumni Center. Join the Department of Genetics and the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology as we celebrate Dr. Sekelsky and this well-deserved honor!
Congratulations to Jeanne-Marie McPherson (Bob DuronioandDan McKay labs), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health.
Jeanne-Marie’s project is titled “Interrogating the roles of canonical versus variant histone H3 in genome function during aging.”
Emma Hinkle publishes paper in Communications Biology
Emma Hinkle(Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “Stretching muscle cells induces transcriptional and splicing transitions and changes in SR proteins” in Communications Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-03915-7). Image: Cartoon of how mechanosensitive targets might play a role in the MAPK signaling cascade (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Rachel Dumez Wins People’s Choice Award at Three Minute Thesis Competition
Congratulations to Genetics and Molecular Biology Graduate Student Rachel DuMez in the lab of Rob Dowen, UNC Departments of Biology and Cell Biology & Physiology for receiving the “People’s Choice Award” at the 2022 Three Minute Thesis Competition!
Sarah Brotman and Hannah Wiedner win Terry Magnuson Dissertation Award
Sarah Brotman (Karen Mohlke lab) and Hannah Wiedner (Jimena Giudice lab) were selected as winners of the Terry Magnuson Dissertation Award. This award, named in honor of the founding chair of the Department of Genetics at UNC, is given to one or two outstanding students in their final year of graduate study.
Nila Pazhayam awarded NRSA F31 Fellowship
Congratulations to Nila Pazhayam (Jeff Sekelsky lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. Nila’s project is titled “Preventing Age-Associated Oocyte Aneuploidy: Mechanisms Behind the Drosophila melanogaster Centromere Effect.”
GMB students participate in Shadow and Scientist program
GMB students Sarah Brotman (Karen Mohlke lab) and Nisitha Sengottuvel (Chad Pecot lab) participated in the Shadow a Scientist program. Shadow A Scientist is a graduate-student run organization that plans and conducts outreach visits for underserved communities in NC. Sarah and Saygin participated in a Q&A session with students from East Burke High School in Connelly Springs in March 2022 and Nisitha participated in a “Path in Science” panel with students from Duplin County Health Sciences Academy in April 2022. Photos can be found here.
Gabby Gentile publishes paper in FASEB Journal
Gabby Gentile(Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “The synaptosome-associated protein 23 (SNAP23) is necessary for proper myogenesis” in FASEB Journal (DOI: 10.1096/fj.202101627RR). GMB students Hannah Wiedner and Emma Hinkle are co-authors. Image: Reduced expression of the muscle differentiation marker MYH3 after siRNA knockdown of SNAP23 (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Elizabeth Abrash publishes Preview article Molecular Cell
Elizabeth Abrash(Mauro Calabrese lab) wrote a Preview piece titled “Oncogenic transcription factors and neogenes: New opportunities for cancer immunotherapy?” published in Molecular Cell (DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2022.06.006). Image: Outline of the neogene approach, with future directions and challenges(see article for details; click to enlarge).
Emma Hinkle andHannah Wiedner (Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “Alternative splicing regulation of membrane trafficking genes during myogenesis” in RNA (DOI: 10.1261/rna.078993.121). GMB student Gabrielle Gentile is a co-author. Image: Predicted motifs regulating alternative splicing of membrane trafficking genes.(see article for details; click to enlarge).
Kia Perez-Vale(Mark Peifer lab) published an article titled “Multivalent interactions make adherens junction-cytoskeletal linkage robust during morphogenesis” in Journal of Cell Biology (DOI:10.1083/jcb.202104087). Image: Mesoderm invagination defects in canoe mutants (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Emma Hinkle(Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “ViaFuse: Fiji macros to calculate skeletal muscle cell viability and fusion index” in Skeletal Muscle (DOI:10.1186/s13395-021-00284-3). GMB student Gabrielle Gentile is a co-author. Image: Summary of ViaFuse macro implementation steps (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Nate Diehl publishes paper in J. Biological Chemistry
Nate Diehl(Channing Der lab) published an article titled “The KRAS-regulated kinome identifies WEE1 and ERK coinhibition as a potential therapeutic strategy in KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancer” in Journal of Biological Chemistry(DOI:10.1016/j.jbc.2021.101335). . Image: Inhibition of WEE1 + ERK1/2 arrests growth of PDAC organoids (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Jack Sanford publishes paper in BMC Molecular and Cell Biology
Jack Sanford(Yanping Zhang lab) published an article titled “MDMX is essential for the regulation of p53 protein levels in the absence of a functional MDM2 C-terminal tail” in BMC Molecular and Cell Biology (DOI:10.1186/s12860-021-00385-3). Image: Protein blots showing that DNA damage inhibits MDMX suppression of p53 protein expression (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Spencer Nystrom publishes paper in PLOS Computational Biology
Spencer Nystrom(Dan McKay lab) published an article titled “Memes: A motif analysis environment in R using tools from the MEME Suite” in PLOS Computational Biology (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008991). Image: Representative plots generated by Memes. (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Black in Genetics holds their BIG Week Oct 4-10 (please click on the image for list of activities). BIG is an organization dedicated to amplifying voices and work by Black-identifying geneticists. See the Twitter hashtag #BlackInGenetics and the BlackinGenetics account for more.
Brea Hampton awarded F99/K00 transition grant from NIA
Congratulations to Brea Hampton (Mark Heise and Marty Ferris), who was awarded an F99/K00 transition fellowship from the National Institute on Aging. This award supports the transition to the postdoctoral phase by providing funding for the final 1-2 years of graduate studies (F99 phase) and the first two years of postdoctoral studies (K00 phase). Brea’s project is titled “Evaluating the role of cytomegalovirus and age on lung immune homeostasis and responses to respiratory infections.”
Congratulations to Carolyn Turcotte (Jeff Sekelsky lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. Carolyn’s project is titled “Mechanisms and regulation of meiotic recombination.”
Nila Pazhayam and Carolyn Turcotte publish review of meiotic crossover patterning
Nila Pazhayam and Carolyn Turcotte (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published a review of genome-wide meiotic crossover patterning processes in Fronteirs in Cell and Developmental Biology (DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2021.681123). Image: Suppression of crossovers in peri-centromeric regions (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Kandace Thomas publishes paper in Developmental Cell
Kandace Thomas(Michael Bressan lab) published a paper titled “Adherens junction engagement regulates functional patterning of the cardiac pacemaker cell lineage” in Developmental Cell (DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2021.04.004). Image: Graphical abstract summarizing key discoveries (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Hannah Wiedner published review in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology
Hannah Wiedner (Jimena Giudice lab) published a review titled “It’s not just a phase: function and characteristics of RNA-binding proteins in phase separation” in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s41594-021-00601-w). Image: Cellular condensates and their proposed functions (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Emma Hinkle writes about to make the genetics field more equitable
Emma Hinkle (Jimena Giudice lab), wrote a guest post for the Genes to Genomes blog of the Genetics Society of America, titled Three ways that the field genetics can be more equitable. She discusses this through the topics of genetics education, genetics research, and representation within the field.
Natalie Rittenhouse publishes paper in Genetics
Natalie Rittenhouse(Jill Dowen lab) published a paper titled “Functional impact of cancer-associated cohesin variants on gene expression and cellular identity” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1093/genetics/iyab025). Image: Summary of the impact of Cohesin variants on transcriptional insulation (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Juan Carvajal Garcia publishes article in PLOS Genetics
Juan Carvajal Garcia (Dale Ramsden lab and Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “DNA polymerase theta suppresses mitotic crossing over” in PLOS Genetics (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009267). Image: Disrupted abdominal patterning and cell death in mutants lacking Slx4 (Mus312) and PolQ; see article for details.
Congratulations to Sarah Brotman (Karen Mohlke lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Sarah’s project is titled “Analyzing gene expression in adipose tissue to identify candidate genes at cardiometabolic trait GWAS loci.”
Talia Hatkevich publishes article in Nucleic Acids Research
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “A pathway for error-free non-homologous end joining of resected meiotic double-strand breaks” in Nucleic Acids Research (DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkaa1205). Image: Model for error-free repair (click on image to enlarge; see article for details).
Michelle Potter-Birriel publishes paper in J. Cell Science
Michelle Potter-Birriel(Bill Marzluff lab) published an article titled “A region of SLBP outside the mRNA processing domain is essential for deposition of histone mRNA into the Drosophila egg” in Journal of Cell Science (DOI: 10.1242/jcs.251728). Image: SLBP (green; DNA in magenta) in Drosophila egg chambers of wild-type (top) and SLBP mutant (bottom) (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Matt Stevenson (Lori O’Brien lab) received an NRSA F31 grant from the National Cancer Institute. The title of Matt’s project is “Elucidating oncogenic mechanisms underlying Wilms tumor using kidney organoids.”
Kia Perez-Vale publishes review article in Development
Kia Perez-Vale(Mark Peifer lab) published a review article titled “Orchestrating morphogenesis: building the body plan by cell shape changes and movements” in Development (DOI:10.1242/dev.191049). Image: A Drosophila embryo during dorsal closure (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Matt Niederhuber publish paper in Current Opinion in Insect Science
Matt Niederhuber(Dan McKay lab) published a review article titled “Mechanisms underlying the control of dynamic regulatory element activity and chromatin accessibility during metamorphosis” in Current Opinion in Insect Science (DOI: 10.1016/j.cois.2020.08.007). Image: RNA-seq time course in Drosophila wings spanning from late-larval to adult stages. (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Patrick Havlik publishes paper in Journal of Virology
Patrick Havlik(Aravind Asokan lab) published a paper titled “Coevolution of adeno-associated virus capsid antigenicity and tropism through a structure-guided approach” in Journal of Virology (DOI:10.1128/JVI.00976-20). Image: Anti-AAV8 antibody virus complexes.; click to enlarge; see article for details).
Kaitlin Koreski publishes paper in Molecular Biology of the Cell
Kaitlin Koreski(Bob Duronio lab) published a paper titled “Drosophila histone locus body assembly and function involves multiple interactions” in Molecular Biology of the Cell (DOI:10.1091/mbc.E20-03-0176). Image: FLASH and GAF in polytene chromosomes with a 12x histone array transgene; click to enlarge; see article for details).
Alexis Stutzman graduate student in Dowen and McKay labs founds #BlackInGeneticsWeek
This week, August 17-23, 2020, follow #BlackInGeneticsWeek on Twitter. Founded by Alexis Stutzman @stutzman_alexis GMB graduate student in the Jill Dowen and Dan McKay labs. Co-organized by Markia Smith @MarkiaASmith of the Katie Hoadley Lab. Special thanks to a BIG volunteer, Tamara Vital (Ian Davis Lab) @tvital_science, and help from friends @BIPOCinCompGen, @ade_lady and Renée Fonseca @renee_fonseca.
Nicole Arruda publishes paper in Epigenetics and Chromatin
Nicole Arruda(Jill Dowen lab) published a paper titled “Distinct and overlapping roles of STAG1 and STAG2 in cohesin localization and gene expression in embryonic stem cells” in Epigenetics and Chromatin (DOI:10.1186/s13072-020-00353-9). GMB student Megan Justice is a co-author. Image: Heatmaps of expression changes in Stag1 and Stag2 mutant cells and of STAG1 and STAG2 ChIP-seq; see article for details).
Amanda Raimer publishes paper in Disease Models & Mech.
Rachel Cherney (Mauro Calabrese lab) received an NRSA F31 grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The title of Rachel’s project is “Regulation of Polycomb by long noncoding RNAs during pre-implantation development.”
Nisitha Sengottuvel (Chad Pecot lab) was awarded an NRSA F30 fellowship from NIH’s National Cancer Institute. Nisitha’s project is titled “The role of SPON1 expressing inflammatory monocytes in promoting lung cancer metastasis.”
GMB students recognized with Honorable Mention by NSF
Congratulations to the following GMB students who were recognized with Honorable Mention in the Graduate Research Fellowship competition from the National Science Foundation:
Meng Cheng publishes paper in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
Meng Cheng (Yue Xiong lab) published a paper titled “Discovery of potent and selective epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) bifunctional small-molecule degraders” in J. Medicinal Chemistry (DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.9b01566). Image: Hi-C maps showing signal in wild-type and Wiz deletion cells (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Megan Justice(Jill Dowen lab) published a paper titled “A WIZ/Cohesin/CTCF complex anchors DNA loops to define gene expression and cell identity” in Cell Reports (DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.03.067). Image: Hi-C maps showing signal in wild-type and Wiz deletion cells (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Spencer Nystrom and Matt Niederhuber publish paper in Development
Spencer Nystrom and Matt Niederhuber(Dan McKay lab) published a paper titled “Expression of E93 provides an instructive cue to control dynamic enhancer activity and chromatin accessibility during development” in Development (DOI: 10.1242/dev.181909). Image: Composite image of precocious activity of an enhancer in an imaginal disc and genomics data plotted in polar space (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Juan Carvajal Garcia (Dale Ramsden lab and Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Mechanistic basis for microhomology identification and genome scarring by polymerase theta” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1921791117). Image: Model for generation of templated insertions durng theta-mediated repair; see article for details.
Mental Health Resources for GMB Students and Faculty
The Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology is concerned about the well-being of our students and faculty during this time. We have compiled a list of mental health resources for you to use during this time. This list may be updated from time to time. If you should have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to Jeff Sekelsky or John Cornett in the Curriculum office for assistance.
Important Spring 2020 UNC Genetics and Molecular Biology Class Updates
All Spring 2020 UNC Genetics and Molecular Biology Curriculum courses will be held online effective Monday, March 23, 2020.
Contact your course instructor or teaching assistant immediately if you do not have access or have questions.
Contact Curriculum Director Jeff Sekelsky or Student Services Manager John Cornett if you should have any questions or concerns.
Kia Perez-Vale selected for Yale Ciencia Initiative
Kia Perez-Vale (Mark Peifer lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2020, Kia will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Adelaide Tovar selected for Yale Ciencia Initiative
Adelaide Tovar (Samir Kelada lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2020, Adelaide will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Kendall Lough publishes article in eLife
Kendall Lough (Scott Williams lab) published an article titled “Telophase correction refines division orientation in stratified epithelia” in eLife (DOI: 10.7554/eLife.49249). Image: Movie showing division of a basal cell that starts at an oblique angle but corrects; click for animatino; see article for details.
Ricardo Rivera-Soto publishes article in Journal of Virology
Ricardo Rivera-Soto (Blossom Damania lab) published an article titled “Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus viral interleukin 6 signaling upregulates Integrin Beta 3 Levels and is Dependent on STAT3” in Journal of Virology (DOI: 10.1128/JVI.01384-19). Image; Model of vIL-6 induction of ITGB3; see article for details.
Adelaide Tovar publishes article in Toxicological Sciences
Adelaide Tovar (Samir Kelada lab) published an article titled “Transcriptional profiling of the murine airway response to acute ozone exposure” in Toxicological Sciences (DOI: 110.1093/toxsci/kfz219). Image; Partial heatmap of gene expression in airway macrophages; see article for details.
Talia Hatkevich publishes article in PLOS Genetics
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Centromeric SMC1 promotes centromere clustering and stabilizes meiotic homolog pairing” in PLOS Genetics (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1008412). Image:FISH on meiotic chromosomes showing lack of pairing (two foci) despite synaptonemal complex (magenta); click in image for 3D animation; see article for details.
A new module titled CRISPR-Based Genome Engineering (GNET 760) will be offered starting in Spring 2020. The module is being taught by Hector Franco, Assistant Professor of Genetics. It will include visits by a number of UNC experts in various CRISPR-based technologies. The course will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30-4:45, March 19 – April 23. Please see the GNET Courses page for more information.
Vicki Madigan publishes article in Journal of Virology
Vicki Madigan (Aravind Asokan lab) published an article titled “A CRISPR screen identifies the cell polarity determinant Crumbs 3 as an adeno-associated virus restriction factor in hepatocytes” in Journal of VIrology (DOI: 10.1128/JVI.00943-19). Image: Outline of the high-throughput CRISPR screen for AAV restriction factors; see article for details.
Rebekah Watkins-Schultz publishes article in Biomaterials
Rebekah Watkins-Schultz (Jenny Ting lab) published an article titled “A microparticle platform for STING-targeted immunotherapy enhances natural killer cell- and CD8+ T cell-mediated anti-tumor immunity” in Biomaterials (DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2019.03.011). Image: Flow cytometry to detect tumor-infiltrating leukocytes after microparticle injection; see article for details.
Kale Hartmann (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Centromere-proximal meiotic crossovers in Drosophila melanogaster are suppressed by both highly repetitive heterochromatin and proximity to the centromere” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.119.302509).The article was chosen for Highlights by the editors. Image:Relationship of genome features (gene and TE density) to crossover density near the centromere; see article for details.
Lauren Donoghue selected to attend Leena Peltonen School of Human Genomics program
Lauren Donoghue (Samir Kelada lab) has been selected to attend the Leena Peltonen School of Human Genomics program in Switzerland in August. Graduate and postdoctoral trainees gather with leading experts in the field for interactive discussions and presentations on cutting-edge topics in human genetics and genomics. Participants also receive one-to-one mentoring on areas of professional development in genomics.
Brea Hampton (co-mentored by Mark Heise and Marty Ferris) was selected to receive a Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The goal of the program is “to increase the diversity among scientists who are prepared to assume leadership roles in science, particularly as college and university faculty.”
Kia Perez-Vale (Mark Peifer lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from NIH’s National Institute for General Medical Sciences. Kia’s project is titled “Defining the molecular mechanisms underlying apical-basal polarity establishment and morphogenesis.” (Photo: Kia received the funding notification while participating in the Gordon Research Conference on Cell Contact and Adhesion in Switzerland.)
Kelsey Gray (recent graduate of Greg Matera lab) was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to do education research at Tibetan monasteries in India. After receiving her PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology in 2017, Kelsey did postdoctoral research with the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative. The Fulbright Fellowship allows her to continue and expand her educational research.
Megan Justice selected for Yale Ciencia Initiative
Megan Justice (Jill Dowen lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2019, Megan will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Tim Dinh publishes paper in Cell. Molec. Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Lauren Donoghue wins outstanding presentation award at Mammalian Genome Conference…TWICE!
Lauren Donoghue (Samir Kelada lab) received the Lorraine Flaherty Award for outstanding oral presentation in the Trainee Symposium at the 32nd International Mammalian Genome Conference in Puerto Rico. As winner of that award, Lauren was selected to give her presentation again in the main conference section, where she again was selected for the outstanding oral presentation. Lauren’s presentation was entitled “Pairing systems genetics and longitudinal analyses to identify regulators of complex lung disease phenotypes.”
Lauren Donoghue wins Jo Rae Wright Young Investigator Award
Lauren Donoghue (Samir Kelada lab) received the Jo Rae Wright Young Investigator of the Year Award at the FASEB Lung Epithelium in Health and Disease conference. This award is given to one trainee in recognition of outstanding work described in an oral presentation. Lauren’s presentation was entitled “Genetic Analysis of Secreted Airway Mucins in Mice Reveals a Novel Regulator of MUC5B.”
Adele Musicant (Tony Amelio lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Adele’s project is titled, “The Role of CRTC1/MAML2-Mediated Interactions with CREB and MYC in Defining the Cellular Heterogeneity of Salivary Tumors.
Talia Hatkevich gives talk at EMBO Meiosis conference in Croatia
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) gave a talk titled “A novel function for centromere-specific SMC1 in Drosophila prophase I” Image: Model for Blm helicase in Drosophila meiosis” at the EMBO Meiosis Conference held on the island of Hvar, Croatia. Talia was one of only two graduate students (and a similar number of postdoctoral fellows) to give an oral presentation.
Aleisha Smith publishes paper in Nature Communications
Aleisha Smith(William Kim lab) published a paper titled “MYC activation cooperates with Vhl and Ink4a/Arf loss to induce clear cell renal cell carcinoma” in Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15770). Former GMB student Sean Bailey is co-first author and Jordan Kardos is also an author. Image: Venn diagram of gene expression changes in different tumor types with and without Myc expression; see article for details.
Joe Durand publishes chapter in Adv. Protein Chemistry & Structural Biol.
Joe Durand (Al Baldwin lab) published a chapter titled “Targeting IKK and NF-κB for Therapy“ in Advances in Protein Chemistry and Structural Biology: Chromatin Proteins and Transcription Factors as Therapeutic Targets (DOI: 10.1016/bs.apcsb.2016.11.006). Image: Canonical and non-canonical NF-κB pathways; see article for details.
Talia Hatkevich inducted into Frank Porter Graham Honor Society
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) was inducted into the Frank Porter Graham Graduate and Professional Student Honor Society. This award recognizes “outstanding service provided to the University and community by graduate and professional students.” Professors Jeff Sekelsky and Greg Copenhaver were also inducted for “outstanding contributions to the development of graduate and professional education at the University.”
Mira Pronobis First Runner Up for Larry Sandler Award
Congratulations to Mira Pronobis (PhD 2016, Mark Peifer lab) who was named runner up for the Larry Sandler Award. This award is given annually by the Genetics Society of America for the most outstanding dissertation in any area of Drosophila research internationally.
Rowan Beck wins award for Society of Toxicology meeting
Congratulations to Rowan Beck (Praveen Sethupathy and Mirek Styblo labs), who was awarded 1st prize for the Metals Specialty Section Graduate Student Awards for the annual Society of Toxicology meeting. Rowan’s poster was on her research into microRNAs as potential mediators of the effects of arsenicals on pancreatic beta cell function.
Carrie Wilczewski awarded F31 fellowship
Carrie Wilczewski (Frank Conlon lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The title of her project is “Transcriptional repression by the Nucleosome Remodeling and Deacetylase (NuRD) complex in cardiac development and human disease.“
Mike Conlin (Dale Ramsden lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Cancer Institute. The title of his project is “Mechanism of Damage Tolerance by Nonhomologous End Joining.“
Congratulations to GMB faculty member Dr Amy Gladfelter (Department of Biology), who has been named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Faculty Scholar. This designation is awarded to early-career scientists who have great potential to make unique contributions to their field. Dr. Gladfelter’s research focuses on how multinucleate cells are organized in time and space and how cells perceive their shape and use geometry to inform signaling and decision-making. READ MORE >>
Catherine Fahey and Julia DiFiore publishes paper in Journal of Biological Chemistry
Nicole Tackmann receives Horizon Award Fellowship from DoD
Nicole Tackmann (Yanping Zhang lab) has received a Horizon Award fellowship from the Department of Defense for her project titled, “Characterizing the Role of Hep27 in Liver and Colorectal Cancer Stress Tolerance.”
Maren Cannon selected as finalist for the Charles J. Epstein Trainee Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Research
Congratulations to Maren Cannon (Karen Mohlke lab), who was selected as a finalist for the Charles J. Epstein Trainee Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Research. The American Society of Human Genetics honors excellence in trainee research through awards that recognize highly competitive abstracts submitted and presented at the ASHG annual meeting. Maren was honored for her abstract titled, “Cardiometabolic variants in adipose tissue ATAC-seq peaks at GWAS loci with coincident adipose tissue eQTLs.”
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) was awarded an F31 fellowship from the National Institute of Aging. The title of her project is “Preventing Aneuploidy in Aging Oocytes: Investigating the effects
and mechanisms of cohesion enrichment in Drosophila melanogaster.“
Lyndsay Wylie awarded American Heart Association fellowship
Congratulations to Lyndsay Wylie (Vicki Bautch lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “SMAD6 Function in Endothelial Cells.”
Jordan Kardos (William Kim lab) published an article titled “Claudin-low bladder tumors are immune infiltrated and actively immune suppressed” in JCI Insight. Image: Box plot of immune suppression gene signature z scores across the Pan-Cancer tumor types. See paper for details.
Claire Trincot awarded American Heart Association fellowship
Congratulations to Claire Trincot (Kathleen Caron lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “Cardioprotective effects of adrenomedullin in a model of myocardial infarction.”
Taylor Penke (Bob Duronio lab) was awarded an F31 fellowship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The title of his project is “Investigating the role of histone modifications in heterochromatin formation“.
Catherine Fahey (Kim Rathmell lab) was awarded an F30 fellowship from the National Cancer Institute. The title of her project is “The effect of cancer-associated SETD2 mutations on transcription and chromatin organization“.
Christian Parobek (Jon Juliano lab) was awarded an F30 fellowship from the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases. The title of his project is “Investigating the targets and strain specificity of antibodies against P. vivax”.
Diana Chong awarded American Heart Association fellowship
Congratulations to Diana Chong (Vicki Bautch lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “Analysis of Tortuous Vessel Formation and Sprouting”.
More than two dozen GMB students participated in the 9th Annual North Carolina DNA Day by visiting state high schools to talk to students about DNA and science. An article, featuring GMB student Maren Canon (Karen Mohlke lab), was published on the UNC Healthcare website.
Giri Murlidharan publishes paper in Journal of Virology
The NRSA T32 training grant that supports the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology was renewed by NIGMS. The proposal, submitted in January, 2014, received a priority score of 20 in the June study section. This grant, which has been funded since 1975, will continue to support training activities and contribute to the stipends of selected GMB students until 2020.
Congratulations to John Runge (Terry Magnuson lab), winner of the Bullit History of Medicine Club’s McClendon-Thomas Award. This award recognized scholarly excellence in the history of health sciences. John’s essay “Character Trials: Managing Epidemic Disease in the 19th Century American South” describes efforts to stop Yellow Fever from spreading across the South during Reconstruction, drawing parallels to the HIV/AIDS and Ebola outbreaks. John and his historical research were featured in the Vital Signs newsletter.
Christian Parobek awarded off-campus dissertation fellowship
Christian Parobek (Jon Juliano lab) was awarded an Off-Campus Dissertation Research Fellowship by The Graduate School. Christian will work in Cambodia during Spring 2015 collecting mRNA from the malaria vector P. vivax for his dissertation research.
Crystal Waters publishes paper in Nature Communications
David Wyatt awarded American Heart Association fellowship
Congratulations to David Wyatt (Dale Ramsden lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. His project is titled “Mechanisms and Requirements of Alternative End Joining”.
Seven students appointed to genetics training grant
Seven students were selected to appointment to the T32 training grant, now entering it’s 40th year of NIGMS funding. These students were chosen from 22 highly qualified applicants:
Salma Azam, lab of Chad Pecot
Mike Conlin, lab of Dale Ramsden
Philip Coryell, lab of Jeremy Purvis
Julia DiFiore, lab of Brian Strahl
Talia Hatkevich, lab of Jeff Sekelsky
David Lee, lab of Maura Calabrese
Katie Rehain, lab of Amy Shaub Maddox
Noelle Romero receives Royster Society Dissertation Completion Fellowship
Bob Duronio inducted into Frank Porter Graham Honor Society
Dr. Bob Duronio, Professor of Biology and Director of the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology from 2003 until 2012, was inducted into the Frank Porter Graham Honor Society, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to graduate education.
Casey Schmidt awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Congratulations to Kathryn Kohl (PhD 2013, Jeff Sekelsky lab) who was named runner up for the Larry Sandler Award. This award is given annually by the Genetics Society of America for the most outstanding dissertation in any area of Drosophila research. This year there were 23 nominations from around the world.
Tikvah Hayes awarded NRSA F31
Congratulations to Tikvah Hayes (Channing Der lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health. Tiki’s project is titled “Targeting K-RAS Effector Signaling for Pancreatic Cancer Treatment.”
Marta Charpentier and Laura Tollini win Kenan-Hobgood Award
Marta Charpentier (Frank Conlon lab) and Laura Tollini (Yanping Zhang lab) were awarded the 2013 Sarah Graham Kenan-Edwards Hobgood Award. This honor is awarded each year to one or two outstanding students in the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology.
Joy Meserve awarded NRSA F31 fellowship
Congratulations to Joy Meserve (Bob Duronio lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.
Esteban Terzo awarded NRSA F31 fellowship
Congratulations to Esteban Terzo (Bob Duronio lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.
Marta Charpentier gets cover of Developmental Cell
Congratulations to Marta Charpentier (lab of Frank Conlon), first author of a publication inDevelopmental Cell, titled “CASZ1 promotes vascular assembly and morphogenesis through the direct regulation of an EGFL7/RhoA-mediated pathway.” Marta’s work was featured as the cover image.
Nick Gomez receives travel award from AACR
Congratulations to Nick Gomez (lab of Ian Davis), recipient of a 2013 American Association of Cancer Research Minority Scholar in Cancer Research Award for participation in the AACR Special Conference on Chromatin and Epigenetics in Cancer.
Kelsey Gray awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Marta Charpentier receives Dissertation Completion Fellowship
Congratulations to Marta Charpentier (Frank Conlon lab), who was awarded a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the UNC Graduate School for 2013-2014.
Danielle Rogers awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Congratulations to Kate Coleman(Jean Cook lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.
Kathryn Kohl receives Harold Weintraub Award
Congratulations to Kathryn Kohl(Jeff Sekelsky lab) for winning the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement during graduate studies in the biological sciences. Recipients of this prestigious national award participate in a scientific symposium to be held this spring at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA.
GMB recognized by NIH for student diversity
The Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology is listed on a site at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for “NIGMS-Funded NRSA Training Programs with Notable Records of Diversity Recruitment and Retention“.
Rachel Dumez-Kornegay publishes paper in PLOS Genetics
Rachel Dumez-Kornegay
Rachel Dumez-Kornegay & Rob Dowen: Probiotics in kombucha found to mimic fasting and reduce fat stores in C. elegans model
“These findings are significant as they are consistent with purported human health benefits of kombucha tea, which include protection against metabolic diseases, improved liver function, and reduced fat accumulation.” — Rob Dowen, PhD
GMB Graduate Student Marielle Bond Wins People’s Choice Award at Three Minute Thesis Competition
First place: Kirsten Giesbrecht (Department of Mathematics; College of Arts and Sciences) Second place: Rebecca Radomsky (Department of Chemistry; College of Arts and Sciences) Peoples’ Choice: Marielle Bond (Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology)
Congratulations to Genetics and Molecular Biology Graduate Student Marielle Bond in the labs of Doug Phanstiel (Cell Biology and Physiology) and Hyejung Won (Genetics), for receiving the “People’s Choice Award” at the 2023 Three Minute Thesis Competition!
The Graduate School’s annual Three Minute Thesis competition final, an initiative of Professional Development, helps graduate students distill their research topics in only three minutes for a non-specialist audience in order to present their groundbreaking research in an easy-to-understand way.
Graduate students from many areas of campus, including in science and in the humanities, presented their research for a panel of judges to determine the top 10 participants who advanced to the final competition.
This year’s juried competition is one of nearly 900 similar competitions around the world and in 85 countries. The Three Minute Thesis is an initiative founded by the University of Queensland in Australia.
Congratulations to GMB Graduate Student Marielle Bond who is a Finalist in the 2023 UNC Three Minute Thesis Competition
Marielle Bond
Marielle Bond, a doctoral student in Genetics and Molecular Biology (Doug Phanstiel and Hyejung Won labs), is a finalist in the UNC Graduate School’s Three Minute Thesis competition. This achievement reflects her ability to present her research in an accessible and compelling way.
The final competition will be this Wednesday, October 25 in the UNC Freedom Forum Conference Center.
Increases in chromatin features correlate with increases in chromatin looping at the TBX3 locus.Marielle Bond
Marielle Bond (Doug Phanstiel and Hyejung Won labs) published an article titled “Chromatin loop dynamics during cellular differentiation are associated with changes to both anchor and internal regulatory features” in Genome Research (doi:10.1101/gr.277397.122).
M.L. Bond, E.S. Davis, I.Y. Quiroga, A. Dey, M. Kiran, M.I. Love, H. Won, and D.H. Phanstiel (2023). Chromatin loop dynamics during cellular differentiation are associated with changes to both anchor and internal regulatory features. Genome Research 33 (8): 1258–68. doi:10.1101/gr.277397.122
Ana Berglind (Erin Heinzen Lab) is the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund 2023 Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program (GDEP) Award
Ana Berglind
Ana Berglind, a graduate student in Erin Heinzen’s Lab, is the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund 2023 Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program (GDEP) award. Selected from a pool of exceptionally talented applicants, Ana will receive financial support, mentorship opportunities, and access to invaluable resources throughout his academic journey via this award.
Benjamin Kornegay (Jill Dowen Lab) is the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund 2023 Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program (GDEP) Award
Benjamin Kornegay
Benjamin Kornegay, a graduate student in Jill Dowen’s Lab, is the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund 2023 Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program (GDEP) award. Selected from a pool of exceptionally talented applicants, Benjamin will receive financial support, mentorship opportunities, and access to invaluable resources throughout his academic journey via this award.
Mark Geisler (Bob Duronio lab) Awarded National Institute of Child Health & Human Development F31 Predoctoral Fellowship
Mark Geisler
Congratulations to Mark Geisler (Bob Duronio lab), who was awarded an F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development.
Mark’s project is titled “The Mute button: Turning down the volume of histone expression.”
GMB Graduate Student Ryan Mouery (Mike Emanuele Lab) Receives The 2023 Terry Magnuson Award
(Pictured Left to Right – Dan McKay, GMB DGS – Ryan Mouery – Terry Magnuson)
Congratulations to GMB Graduate Student Ryan Mouery (Mike Emanuele Lab) who received the 2023 Terry Magnuson Award at the 2023 GMB/Genetics/BCB Scientific Retreat in Asheville, NC.
This highly competitive award honors senior graduate students for their contributions to science and to the UNC Chapel Hill Genetics and Molecular Biology community. Nominations are submitted by faculty advisors and reviewed by members of the Genetics and Molecular Biology Executive Committee.
The award is named in honor of Terry Magnuson, Inaugural Chair of the UNC Chapel Hill Department of Genetics.
Jeff Sekelsky Honored for 10 Years of Leadership as GMB Director of Graduate Studies
Jeff Sekelsky honored for 10 years of leadership and excellence as the Genetics and Molecular Biology Director of Graduate Studies.
The Department of Genetics, the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology (GMB) and the Curriculum in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BCB) held a scientific retreat on Sept. 20-22, 2023, at Renaissance in Asheville, NC.
More than 220 faculty, postdocs, students and staff attended the annual Scientific Retreat hosted by the UNC Department of Genetics. 21 speakers gave talks across four sessions and more than 95 posters were presented.
Dr. Jeff Sekelsky was honored for 10 years of leadership and excellence as Director of Graduate Studies with the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology.
Thank you Dr. Sekelsky for the passion and hard work you have devoted to making UNC’s Genetics and Molecular Biology Graduate School Curriculum the outstanding program that it is today! Your leadership will be an example for others to strive to achieve!
Marielle Bond (Doug Phanstiel and Hyejung Won lab) Awarded National Institute on Aging F31 Predoctoral Fellowship
Marielle Bond
Congratulations to Marielle Bond for being awarded an NRSA F31 predoctral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging.
Marielle’s project is titled: “Cell-type Specific Interrogation of Variant Function in Alzheimer’s Disease.”
Oscar Arroyo named HHMI Gilliam Fellows with Mentor Dan McKay
Oscar Arroyo
UNC School of Medicine graduate student Oscar Arroyo from Daniel McKay’s lab was among 50 students across the United States named as Gilliam Fellows by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) announced the 2023 class of 50 Gilliam Fellows conducting outstanding research in their respective scientific fields and their advisers who are committed to building a more inclusive scientific environment. Each adviser-student pair will receive an annual award of $53,000 for up to three years.
The Gilliam Program invests in graduate students from populations historically excluded and underrepresented in science so that they are prepared to become scientific leaders.
“The Gilliam Fellowship not only supports incredibly talented graduate students who are poised to become future leaders in science,” says Joshua Hall, senior program officer for the Gilliam Fellows Program, “but it also engages thesis advisers and institutions in the work of creating training environments in which all students can thrive.”
The UNC School of Medicine has two Gilliam Fellows this year – Oscar Arroyo and Aleah Bailey.
Arroyo is a fourth-year PhD student in the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology and member of the lab of Daniel McKay, PhD, associate professor of genetics and biology. Arroyo’s research focuses on the mechanisms of epigenetic gene regulation during early development. He is a former UNC JEDI Fellow, during which time he worked to integrate current graduate students into the admissions review process in the biomedical sciences.
HHMI’s Gilliam Fellows Program recognizes that advisers play an integral role in helping their students realize their high potential. For this reason, Gilliam advisers participate in a year-long mentorship development course led by facilitator-scholars from HHMI’s Scientific Mentorship Initiative.
Read more about the HHMI and Gilliam Fellowships, including a full list of recipients, at the HHMI website.
Congratulations to Rachel DuMez-Kornegay (Rob Dowen lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health of the National Institutes of Health.
Rachel’s project is titled “Elucidating the Host Metabolic Response to Consumption of Kombucha-associated Microorganisms.”
Jack Sanford Receives Graduate Fellow Basic Science Award
Jack Sanford
Genetics and Molecular Biology recent graduate Jack Sanford, from the lab of Yanping Zhang, receives the Graduate Fellow Basic Science Award from UNC Chapel Hill’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The Graduate Fellow Awards in Basic Science is annual competitive $3,000 award for outstanding graduate students in the research programs of cancer center members who have active, peer-reviewed grant support. Recognition through this award is intended to encourage excellence in basic research, promote recruitment of high quality students, and stimulate cancer-related basic research.
There will be an award ceremony in late June to honor this accomplishment.
Congratulations Dr. Sanford!
Dr. Jeff Sekelsky Receives 2023 Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Student and Academic Program Support
Jeff Sekelsky, PhD
Jeff Sekelsky, PhD (Professor of Biology and Genetics) has been awarded the 2023 Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Student and Academic Program Support from the UNC Graduate School. This award recognizes graduate faculty currently in the Director of Graduate Studies role who provide outstanding support for graduate programs and their students. This award is student-nominated with the support of leadership and administration from the recipient’s home program. There are more than 160 Masters and PhD programs within UNC whose Directors of Graduate Studies are eligible for nomination.
The UNC Graduate School Dean will formally present Dr. Sekelsky with this award at the upcoming Graduate Student Recognition Celebration on Wednesday, April 12th from 4-5:30pm at The Carolina Club in the George Watts Hill Alumni Center. Join the Department of Genetics and the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology as we celebrate Dr. Sekelsky and this well-deserved honor!
Congratulations to Jeanne-Marie McPherson (Bob DuronioandDan McKay labs), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health.
Jeanne-Marie’s project is titled “Interrogating the roles of canonical versus variant histone H3 in genome function during aging.”
Emma Hinkle publishes paper in Communications Biology
Emma Hinkle(Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “Stretching muscle cells induces transcriptional and splicing transitions and changes in SR proteins” in Communications Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-03915-7). Image: Cartoon of how mechanosensitive targets might play a role in the MAPK signaling cascade (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Rachel Dumez Wins People’s Choice Award at Three Minute Thesis Competition
Congratulations to Genetics and Molecular Biology Graduate Student Rachel DuMez in the lab of Rob Dowen, UNC Departments of Biology and Cell Biology & Physiology for receiving the “People’s Choice Award” at the 2022 Three Minute Thesis Competition!
Sarah Brotman and Hannah Wiedner win Terry Magnuson Dissertation Award
Sarah Brotman (Karen Mohlke lab) and Hannah Wiedner (Jimena Giudice lab) were selected as winners of the Terry Magnuson Dissertation Award. This award, named in honor of the founding chair of the Department of Genetics at UNC, is given to one or two outstanding students in their final year of graduate study.
Nila Pazhayam awarded NRSA F31 Fellowship
Congratulations to Nila Pazhayam (Jeff Sekelsky lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. Nila’s project is titled “Preventing Age-Associated Oocyte Aneuploidy: Mechanisms Behind the Drosophila melanogaster Centromere Effect.”
GMB students participate in Shadow and Scientist program
GMB students Sarah Brotman (Karen Mohlke lab) and Nisitha Sengottuvel (Chad Pecot lab) participated in the Shadow a Scientist program. Shadow A Scientist is a graduate-student run organization that plans and conducts outreach visits for underserved communities in NC. Sarah and Saygin participated in a Q&A session with students from East Burke High School in Connelly Springs in March 2022 and Nisitha participated in a “Path in Science” panel with students from Duplin County Health Sciences Academy in April 2022. Photos can be found here.
Gabby Gentile publishes paper in FASEB Journal
Gabby Gentile(Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “The synaptosome-associated protein 23 (SNAP23) is necessary for proper myogenesis” in FASEB Journal (DOI: 10.1096/fj.202101627RR). GMB students Hannah Wiedner and Emma Hinkle are co-authors. Image: Reduced expression of the muscle differentiation marker MYH3 after siRNA knockdown of SNAP23 (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Elizabeth Abrash publishes Preview article Molecular Cell
Elizabeth Abrash(Mauro Calabrese lab) wrote a Preview piece titled “Oncogenic transcription factors and neogenes: New opportunities for cancer immunotherapy?” published in Molecular Cell (DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2022.06.006). Image: Outline of the neogene approach, with future directions and challenges(see article for details; click to enlarge).
Emma Hinkle andHannah Wiedner (Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “Alternative splicing regulation of membrane trafficking genes during myogenesis” in RNA (DOI: 10.1261/rna.078993.121). GMB student Gabrielle Gentile is a co-author. Image: Predicted motifs regulating alternative splicing of membrane trafficking genes.(see article for details; click to enlarge).
Kia Perez-Vale(Mark Peifer lab) published an article titled “Multivalent interactions make adherens junction-cytoskeletal linkage robust during morphogenesis” in Journal of Cell Biology (DOI:10.1083/jcb.202104087). Image: Mesoderm invagination defects in canoe mutants (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Emma Hinkle(Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “ViaFuse: Fiji macros to calculate skeletal muscle cell viability and fusion index” in Skeletal Muscle (DOI:10.1186/s13395-021-00284-3). GMB student Gabrielle Gentile is a co-author. Image: Summary of ViaFuse macro implementation steps (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Nate Diehl publishes paper in J. Biological Chemistry
Nate Diehl(Channing Der lab) published an article titled “The KRAS-regulated kinome identifies WEE1 and ERK coinhibition as a potential therapeutic strategy in KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancer” in Journal of Biological Chemistry(DOI:10.1016/j.jbc.2021.101335). . Image: Inhibition of WEE1 + ERK1/2 arrests growth of PDAC organoids (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Jack Sanford publishes paper in BMC Molecular and Cell Biology
Jack Sanford(Yanping Zhang lab) published an article titled “MDMX is essential for the regulation of p53 protein levels in the absence of a functional MDM2 C-terminal tail” in BMC Molecular and Cell Biology (DOI:10.1186/s12860-021-00385-3). Image: Protein blots showing that DNA damage inhibits MDMX suppression of p53 protein expression (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Spencer Nystrom publishes paper in PLOS Computational Biology
Spencer Nystrom(Dan McKay lab) published an article titled “Memes: A motif analysis environment in R using tools from the MEME Suite” in PLOS Computational Biology (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008991). Image: Representative plots generated by Memes. (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Black in Genetics holds their BIG Week Oct 4-10 (please click on the image for list of activities). BIG is an organization dedicated to amplifying voices and work by Black-identifying geneticists. See the Twitter hashtag #BlackInGenetics and the BlackinGenetics account for more.
Brea Hampton awarded F99/K00 transition grant from NIA
Congratulations to Brea Hampton (Mark Heise and Marty Ferris), who was awarded an F99/K00 transition fellowship from the National Institute on Aging. This award supports the transition to the postdoctoral phase by providing funding for the final 1-2 years of graduate studies (F99 phase) and the first two years of postdoctoral studies (K00 phase). Brea’s project is titled “Evaluating the role of cytomegalovirus and age on lung immune homeostasis and responses to respiratory infections.”
Congratulations to Carolyn Turcotte (Jeff Sekelsky lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. Carolyn’s project is titled “Mechanisms and regulation of meiotic recombination.”
Nila Pazhayam and Carolyn Turcotte publish review of meiotic crossover patterning
Nila Pazhayam and Carolyn Turcotte (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published a review of genome-wide meiotic crossover patterning processes in Fronteirs in Cell and Developmental Biology (DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2021.681123). Image: Suppression of crossovers in peri-centromeric regions (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Kandace Thomas publishes paper in Developmental Cell
Kandace Thomas(Michael Bressan lab) published a paper titled “Adherens junction engagement regulates functional patterning of the cardiac pacemaker cell lineage” in Developmental Cell (DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2021.04.004). Image: Graphical abstract summarizing key discoveries (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Hannah Wiedner published review in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology
Hannah Wiedner (Jimena Giudice lab) published a review titled “It’s not just a phase: function and characteristics of RNA-binding proteins in phase separation” in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s41594-021-00601-w). Image: Cellular condensates and their proposed functions (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Emma Hinkle writes about to make the genetics field more equitable
Emma Hinkle (Jimena Giudice lab), wrote a guest post for the Genes to Genomes blog of the Genetics Society of America, titled Three ways that the field genetics can be more equitable. She discusses this through the topics of genetics education, genetics research, and representation within the field.
Natalie Rittenhouse publishes paper in Genetics
Natalie Rittenhouse(Jill Dowen lab) published a paper titled “Functional impact of cancer-associated cohesin variants on gene expression and cellular identity” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1093/genetics/iyab025). Image: Summary of the impact of Cohesin variants on transcriptional insulation (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Juan Carvajal Garcia publishes article in PLOS Genetics
Juan Carvajal Garcia (Dale Ramsden lab and Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “DNA polymerase theta suppresses mitotic crossing over” in PLOS Genetics (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009267). Image: Disrupted abdominal patterning and cell death in mutants lacking Slx4 (Mus312) and PolQ; see article for details.
Congratulations to Sarah Brotman (Karen Mohlke lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Sarah’s project is titled “Analyzing gene expression in adipose tissue to identify candidate genes at cardiometabolic trait GWAS loci.”
Talia Hatkevich publishes article in Nucleic Acids Research
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “A pathway for error-free non-homologous end joining of resected meiotic double-strand breaks” in Nucleic Acids Research (DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkaa1205). Image: Model for error-free repair (click on image to enlarge; see article for details).
Michelle Potter-Birriel publishes paper in J. Cell Science
Michelle Potter-Birriel(Bill Marzluff lab) published an article titled “A region of SLBP outside the mRNA processing domain is essential for deposition of histone mRNA into the Drosophila egg” in Journal of Cell Science (DOI: 10.1242/jcs.251728). Image: SLBP (green; DNA in magenta) in Drosophila egg chambers of wild-type (top) and SLBP mutant (bottom) (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Matt Stevenson (Lori O’Brien lab) received an NRSA F31 grant from the National Cancer Institute. The title of Matt’s project is “Elucidating oncogenic mechanisms underlying Wilms tumor using kidney organoids.”
Kia Perez-Vale publishes review article in Development
Kia Perez-Vale(Mark Peifer lab) published a review article titled “Orchestrating morphogenesis: building the body plan by cell shape changes and movements” in Development (DOI:10.1242/dev.191049). Image: A Drosophila embryo during dorsal closure (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Matt Niederhuber publish paper in Current Opinion in Insect Science
Matt Niederhuber(Dan McKay lab) published a review article titled “Mechanisms underlying the control of dynamic regulatory element activity and chromatin accessibility during metamorphosis” in Current Opinion in Insect Science (DOI: 10.1016/j.cois.2020.08.007). Image: RNA-seq time course in Drosophila wings spanning from late-larval to adult stages. (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Patrick Havlik publishes paper in Journal of Virology
Patrick Havlik(Aravind Asokan lab) published a paper titled “Coevolution of adeno-associated virus capsid antigenicity and tropism through a structure-guided approach” in Journal of Virology (DOI:10.1128/JVI.00976-20). Image: Anti-AAV8 antibody virus complexes.; click to enlarge; see article for details).
Kaitlin Koreski publishes paper in Molecular Biology of the Cell
Kaitlin Koreski(Bob Duronio lab) published a paper titled “Drosophila histone locus body assembly and function involves multiple interactions” in Molecular Biology of the Cell (DOI:10.1091/mbc.E20-03-0176). Image: FLASH and GAF in polytene chromosomes with a 12x histone array transgene; click to enlarge; see article for details).
Alexis Stutzman graduate student in Dowen and McKay labs founds #BlackInGeneticsWeek
This week, August 17-23, 2020, follow #BlackInGeneticsWeek on Twitter. Founded by Alexis Stutzman @stutzman_alexis GMB graduate student in the Jill Dowen and Dan McKay labs. Co-organized by Markia Smith @MarkiaASmith of the Katie Hoadley Lab. Special thanks to a BIG volunteer, Tamara Vital (Ian Davis Lab) @tvital_science, and help from friends @BIPOCinCompGen, @ade_lady and Renée Fonseca @renee_fonseca.
Nicole Arruda publishes paper in Epigenetics and Chromatin
Nicole Arruda(Jill Dowen lab) published a paper titled “Distinct and overlapping roles of STAG1 and STAG2 in cohesin localization and gene expression in embryonic stem cells” in Epigenetics and Chromatin (DOI:10.1186/s13072-020-00353-9). GMB student Megan Justice is a co-author. Image: Heatmaps of expression changes in Stag1 and Stag2 mutant cells and of STAG1 and STAG2 ChIP-seq; see article for details).
Amanda Raimer publishes paper in Disease Models & Mech.
Rachel Cherney (Mauro Calabrese lab) received an NRSA F31 grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The title of Rachel’s project is “Regulation of Polycomb by long noncoding RNAs during pre-implantation development.”
Nisitha Sengottuvel (Chad Pecot lab) was awarded an NRSA F30 fellowship from NIH’s National Cancer Institute. Nisitha’s project is titled “The role of SPON1 expressing inflammatory monocytes in promoting lung cancer metastasis.”
GMB students recognized with Honorable Mention by NSF
Congratulations to the following GMB students who were recognized with Honorable Mention in the Graduate Research Fellowship competition from the National Science Foundation:
Meng Cheng publishes paper in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
Meng Cheng (Yue Xiong lab) published a paper titled “Discovery of potent and selective epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) bifunctional small-molecule degraders” in J. Medicinal Chemistry (DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.9b01566). Image: Hi-C maps showing signal in wild-type and Wiz deletion cells (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Megan Justice(Jill Dowen lab) published a paper titled “A WIZ/Cohesin/CTCF complex anchors DNA loops to define gene expression and cell identity” in Cell Reports (DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.03.067). Image: Hi-C maps showing signal in wild-type and Wiz deletion cells (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Spencer Nystrom and Matt Niederhuber publish paper in Development
Spencer Nystrom and Matt Niederhuber(Dan McKay lab) published a paper titled “Expression of E93 provides an instructive cue to control dynamic enhancer activity and chromatin accessibility during development” in Development (DOI: 10.1242/dev.181909). Image: Composite image of precocious activity of an enhancer in an imaginal disc and genomics data plotted in polar space (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Juan Carvajal Garcia (Dale Ramsden lab and Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Mechanistic basis for microhomology identification and genome scarring by polymerase theta” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1921791117). Image: Model for generation of templated insertions durng theta-mediated repair; see article for details.
Mental Health Resources for GMB Students and Faculty
The Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology is concerned about the well-being of our students and faculty during this time. We have compiled a list of mental health resources for you to use during this time. This list may be updated from time to time. If you should have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to Jeff Sekelsky or John Cornett in the Curriculum office for assistance.
Important Spring 2020 UNC Genetics and Molecular Biology Class Updates
All Spring 2020 UNC Genetics and Molecular Biology Curriculum courses will be held online effective Monday, March 23, 2020.
Contact your course instructor or teaching assistant immediately if you do not have access or have questions.
Contact Curriculum Director Jeff Sekelsky or Student Services Manager John Cornett if you should have any questions or concerns.
Kia Perez-Vale selected for Yale Ciencia Initiative
Kia Perez-Vale (Mark Peifer lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2020, Kia will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Adelaide Tovar selected for Yale Ciencia Initiative
Adelaide Tovar (Samir Kelada lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2020, Adelaide will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Kendall Lough publishes article in eLife
Kendall Lough (Scott Williams lab) published an article titled “Telophase correction refines division orientation in stratified epithelia” in eLife (DOI: 10.7554/eLife.49249). Image: Movie showing division of a basal cell that starts at an oblique angle but corrects; click for animatino; see article for details.
Ricardo Rivera-Soto publishes article in Journal of Virology
Ricardo Rivera-Soto (Blossom Damania lab) published an article titled “Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus viral interleukin 6 signaling upregulates Integrin Beta 3 Levels and is Dependent on STAT3” in Journal of Virology (DOI: 10.1128/JVI.01384-19). Image; Model of vIL-6 induction of ITGB3; see article for details.
Adelaide Tovar publishes article in Toxicological Sciences
Adelaide Tovar (Samir Kelada lab) published an article titled “Transcriptional profiling of the murine airway response to acute ozone exposure” in Toxicological Sciences (DOI: 110.1093/toxsci/kfz219). Image; Partial heatmap of gene expression in airway macrophages; see article for details.
Talia Hatkevich publishes article in PLOS Genetics
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Centromeric SMC1 promotes centromere clustering and stabilizes meiotic homolog pairing” in PLOS Genetics (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1008412). Image:FISH on meiotic chromosomes showing lack of pairing (two foci) despite synaptonemal complex (magenta); click in image for 3D animation; see article for details.
A new module titled CRISPR-Based Genome Engineering (GNET 760) will be offered starting in Spring 2020. The module is being taught by Hector Franco, Assistant Professor of Genetics. It will include visits by a number of UNC experts in various CRISPR-based technologies. The course will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30-4:45, March 19 – April 23. Please see the GNET Courses page for more information.
Vicki Madigan publishes article in Journal of Virology
Vicki Madigan (Aravind Asokan lab) published an article titled “A CRISPR screen identifies the cell polarity determinant Crumbs 3 as an adeno-associated virus restriction factor in hepatocytes” in Journal of VIrology (DOI: 10.1128/JVI.00943-19). Image: Outline of the high-throughput CRISPR screen for AAV restriction factors; see article for details.
Rebekah Watkins-Schultz publishes article in Biomaterials
Rebekah Watkins-Schultz (Jenny Ting lab) published an article titled “A microparticle platform for STING-targeted immunotherapy enhances natural killer cell- and CD8+ T cell-mediated anti-tumor immunity” in Biomaterials (DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2019.03.011). Image: Flow cytometry to detect tumor-infiltrating leukocytes after microparticle injection; see article for details.
Kale Hartmann (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Centromere-proximal meiotic crossovers in Drosophila melanogaster are suppressed by both highly repetitive heterochromatin and proximity to the centromere” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.119.302509).The article was chosen for Highlights by the editors. Image:Relationship of genome features (gene and TE density) to crossover density near the centromere; see article for details.
Lauren Donoghue selected to attend Leena Peltonen School of Human Genomics program
Lauren Donoghue (Samir Kelada lab) has been selected to attend the Leena Peltonen School of Human Genomics program in Switzerland in August. Graduate and postdoctoral trainees gather with leading experts in the field for interactive discussions and presentations on cutting-edge topics in human genetics and genomics. Participants also receive one-to-one mentoring on areas of professional development in genomics.
Brea Hampton (co-mentored by Mark Heise and Marty Ferris) was selected to receive a Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The goal of the program is “to increase the diversity among scientists who are prepared to assume leadership roles in science, particularly as college and university faculty.”
Kia Perez-Vale (Mark Peifer lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from NIH’s National Institute for General Medical Sciences. Kia’s project is titled “Defining the molecular mechanisms underlying apical-basal polarity establishment and morphogenesis.” (Photo: Kia received the funding notification while participating in the Gordon Research Conference on Cell Contact and Adhesion in Switzerland.)
Kelsey Gray (recent graduate of Greg Matera lab) was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to do education research at Tibetan monasteries in India. After receiving her PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology in 2017, Kelsey did postdoctoral research with the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative. The Fulbright Fellowship allows her to continue and expand her educational research.
Megan Justice selected for Yale Ciencia Initiative
Megan Justice (Jill Dowen lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2019, Megan will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Tim Dinh publishes paper in Cell. Molec. Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Lauren Donoghue wins outstanding presentation award at Mammalian Genome Conference…TWICE!
Lauren Donoghue (Samir Kelada lab) received the Lorraine Flaherty Award for outstanding oral presentation in the Trainee Symposium at the 32nd International Mammalian Genome Conference in Puerto Rico. As winner of that award, Lauren was selected to give her presentation again in the main conference section, where she again was selected for the outstanding oral presentation. Lauren’s presentation was entitled “Pairing systems genetics and longitudinal analyses to identify regulators of complex lung disease phenotypes.”
Lauren Donoghue wins Jo Rae Wright Young Investigator Award
Lauren Donoghue (Samir Kelada lab) received the Jo Rae Wright Young Investigator of the Year Award at the FASEB Lung Epithelium in Health and Disease conference. This award is given to one trainee in recognition of outstanding work described in an oral presentation. Lauren’s presentation was entitled “Genetic Analysis of Secreted Airway Mucins in Mice Reveals a Novel Regulator of MUC5B.”
Adele Musicant (Tony Amelio lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Adele’s project is titled, “The Role of CRTC1/MAML2-Mediated Interactions with CREB and MYC in Defining the Cellular Heterogeneity of Salivary Tumors.
Talia Hatkevich gives talk at EMBO Meiosis conference in Croatia
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) gave a talk titled “A novel function for centromere-specific SMC1 in Drosophila prophase I” Image: Model for Blm helicase in Drosophila meiosis” at the EMBO Meiosis Conference held on the island of Hvar, Croatia. Talia was one of only two graduate students (and a similar number of postdoctoral fellows) to give an oral presentation.
Aleisha Smith publishes paper in Nature Communications
Aleisha Smith(William Kim lab) published a paper titled “MYC activation cooperates with Vhl and Ink4a/Arf loss to induce clear cell renal cell carcinoma” in Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15770). Former GMB student Sean Bailey is co-first author and Jordan Kardos is also an author. Image: Venn diagram of gene expression changes in different tumor types with and without Myc expression; see article for details.
Joe Durand publishes chapter in Adv. Protein Chemistry & Structural Biol.
Joe Durand (Al Baldwin lab) published a chapter titled “Targeting IKK and NF-κB for Therapy“ in Advances in Protein Chemistry and Structural Biology: Chromatin Proteins and Transcription Factors as Therapeutic Targets (DOI: 10.1016/bs.apcsb.2016.11.006). Image: Canonical and non-canonical NF-κB pathways; see article for details.
Talia Hatkevich inducted into Frank Porter Graham Honor Society
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) was inducted into the Frank Porter Graham Graduate and Professional Student Honor Society. This award recognizes “outstanding service provided to the University and community by graduate and professional students.” Professors Jeff Sekelsky and Greg Copenhaver were also inducted for “outstanding contributions to the development of graduate and professional education at the University.”
Mira Pronobis First Runner Up for Larry Sandler Award
Congratulations to Mira Pronobis (PhD 2016, Mark Peifer lab) who was named runner up for the Larry Sandler Award. This award is given annually by the Genetics Society of America for the most outstanding dissertation in any area of Drosophila research internationally.
Rowan Beck wins award for Society of Toxicology meeting
Congratulations to Rowan Beck (Praveen Sethupathy and Mirek Styblo labs), who was awarded 1st prize for the Metals Specialty Section Graduate Student Awards for the annual Society of Toxicology meeting. Rowan’s poster was on her research into microRNAs as potential mediators of the effects of arsenicals on pancreatic beta cell function.
Carrie Wilczewski awarded F31 fellowship
Carrie Wilczewski (Frank Conlon lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The title of her project is “Transcriptional repression by the Nucleosome Remodeling and Deacetylase (NuRD) complex in cardiac development and human disease.“
Mike Conlin (Dale Ramsden lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Cancer Institute. The title of his project is “Mechanism of Damage Tolerance by Nonhomologous End Joining.“
Congratulations to GMB faculty member Dr Amy Gladfelter (Department of Biology), who has been named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Faculty Scholar. This designation is awarded to early-career scientists who have great potential to make unique contributions to their field. Dr. Gladfelter’s research focuses on how multinucleate cells are organized in time and space and how cells perceive their shape and use geometry to inform signaling and decision-making. READ MORE >>
Catherine Fahey and Julia DiFiore publishes paper in Journal of Biological Chemistry
Nicole Tackmann receives Horizon Award Fellowship from DoD
Nicole Tackmann (Yanping Zhang lab) has received a Horizon Award fellowship from the Department of Defense for her project titled, “Characterizing the Role of Hep27 in Liver and Colorectal Cancer Stress Tolerance.”
Maren Cannon selected as finalist for the Charles J. Epstein Trainee Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Research
Congratulations to Maren Cannon (Karen Mohlke lab), who was selected as a finalist for the Charles J. Epstein Trainee Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Research. The American Society of Human Genetics honors excellence in trainee research through awards that recognize highly competitive abstracts submitted and presented at the ASHG annual meeting. Maren was honored for her abstract titled, “Cardiometabolic variants in adipose tissue ATAC-seq peaks at GWAS loci with coincident adipose tissue eQTLs.”
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) was awarded an F31 fellowship from the National Institute of Aging. The title of her project is “Preventing Aneuploidy in Aging Oocytes: Investigating the effects
and mechanisms of cohesion enrichment in Drosophila melanogaster.“
Lyndsay Wylie awarded American Heart Association fellowship
Congratulations to Lyndsay Wylie (Vicki Bautch lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “SMAD6 Function in Endothelial Cells.”
Jordan Kardos (William Kim lab) published an article titled “Claudin-low bladder tumors are immune infiltrated and actively immune suppressed” in JCI Insight. Image: Box plot of immune suppression gene signature z scores across the Pan-Cancer tumor types. See paper for details.
Claire Trincot awarded American Heart Association fellowship
Congratulations to Claire Trincot (Kathleen Caron lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “Cardioprotective effects of adrenomedullin in a model of myocardial infarction.”
Taylor Penke (Bob Duronio lab) was awarded an F31 fellowship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The title of his project is “Investigating the role of histone modifications in heterochromatin formation“.
Catherine Fahey (Kim Rathmell lab) was awarded an F30 fellowship from the National Cancer Institute. The title of her project is “The effect of cancer-associated SETD2 mutations on transcription and chromatin organization“.
Christian Parobek (Jon Juliano lab) was awarded an F30 fellowship from the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases. The title of his project is “Investigating the targets and strain specificity of antibodies against P. vivax”.
Diana Chong awarded American Heart Association fellowship
Congratulations to Diana Chong (Vicki Bautch lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “Analysis of Tortuous Vessel Formation and Sprouting”.
More than two dozen GMB students participated in the 9th Annual North Carolina DNA Day by visiting state high schools to talk to students about DNA and science. An article, featuring GMB student Maren Canon (Karen Mohlke lab), was published on the UNC Healthcare website.
Giri Murlidharan publishes paper in Journal of Virology
The NRSA T32 training grant that supports the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology was renewed by NIGMS. The proposal, submitted in January, 2014, received a priority score of 20 in the June study section. This grant, which has been funded since 1975, will continue to support training activities and contribute to the stipends of selected GMB students until 2020.
Congratulations to John Runge (Terry Magnuson lab), winner of the Bullit History of Medicine Club’s McClendon-Thomas Award. This award recognized scholarly excellence in the history of health sciences. John’s essay “Character Trials: Managing Epidemic Disease in the 19th Century American South” describes efforts to stop Yellow Fever from spreading across the South during Reconstruction, drawing parallels to the HIV/AIDS and Ebola outbreaks. John and his historical research were featured in the Vital Signs newsletter.
Christian Parobek awarded off-campus dissertation fellowship
Christian Parobek (Jon Juliano lab) was awarded an Off-Campus Dissertation Research Fellowship by The Graduate School. Christian will work in Cambodia during Spring 2015 collecting mRNA from the malaria vector P. vivax for his dissertation research.
Crystal Waters publishes paper in Nature Communications
David Wyatt awarded American Heart Association fellowship
Congratulations to David Wyatt (Dale Ramsden lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. His project is titled “Mechanisms and Requirements of Alternative End Joining”.
Seven students appointed to genetics training grant
Seven students were selected to appointment to the T32 training grant, now entering it’s 40th year of NIGMS funding. These students were chosen from 22 highly qualified applicants:
Salma Azam, lab of Chad Pecot
Mike Conlin, lab of Dale Ramsden
Philip Coryell, lab of Jeremy Purvis
Julia DiFiore, lab of Brian Strahl
Talia Hatkevich, lab of Jeff Sekelsky
David Lee, lab of Maura Calabrese
Katie Rehain, lab of Amy Shaub Maddox
Noelle Romero receives Royster Society Dissertation Completion Fellowship
Bob Duronio inducted into Frank Porter Graham Honor Society
Dr. Bob Duronio, Professor of Biology and Director of the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology from 2003 until 2012, was inducted into the Frank Porter Graham Honor Society, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to graduate education.
Casey Schmidt awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Congratulations to Kathryn Kohl (PhD 2013, Jeff Sekelsky lab) who was named runner up for the Larry Sandler Award. This award is given annually by the Genetics Society of America for the most outstanding dissertation in any area of Drosophila research. This year there were 23 nominations from around the world.
Tikvah Hayes awarded NRSA F31
Congratulations to Tikvah Hayes (Channing Der lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health. Tiki’s project is titled “Targeting K-RAS Effector Signaling for Pancreatic Cancer Treatment.”
Marta Charpentier and Laura Tollini win Kenan-Hobgood Award
Marta Charpentier (Frank Conlon lab) and Laura Tollini (Yanping Zhang lab) were awarded the 2013 Sarah Graham Kenan-Edwards Hobgood Award. This honor is awarded each year to one or two outstanding students in the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology.
Joy Meserve awarded NRSA F31 fellowship
Congratulations to Joy Meserve (Bob Duronio lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.
Esteban Terzo awarded NRSA F31 fellowship
Congratulations to Esteban Terzo (Bob Duronio lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.
Marta Charpentier gets cover of Developmental Cell
Congratulations to Marta Charpentier (lab of Frank Conlon), first author of a publication inDevelopmental Cell, titled “CASZ1 promotes vascular assembly and morphogenesis through the direct regulation of an EGFL7/RhoA-mediated pathway.” Marta’s work was featured as the cover image.
Nick Gomez receives travel award from AACR
Congratulations to Nick Gomez (lab of Ian Davis), recipient of a 2013 American Association of Cancer Research Minority Scholar in Cancer Research Award for participation in the AACR Special Conference on Chromatin and Epigenetics in Cancer.
Kelsey Gray awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Marta Charpentier receives Dissertation Completion Fellowship
Congratulations to Marta Charpentier (Frank Conlon lab), who was awarded a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the UNC Graduate School for 2013-2014.
Danielle Rogers awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Congratulations to Kate Coleman(Jean Cook lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.
Kathryn Kohl receives Harold Weintraub Award
Congratulations to Kathryn Kohl(Jeff Sekelsky lab) for winning the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, which recognizes outstanding achievement during graduate studies in the biological sciences. Recipients of this prestigious national award participate in a scientific symposium to be held this spring at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA.
GMB recognized by NIH for student diversity
The Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology is listed on a site at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for “NIGMS-Funded NRSA Training Programs with Notable Records of Diversity Recruitment and Retention“.
Emma Hinkle (Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “Stretching muscle cells induces transcriptional and splicing transitions and changes in SR proteins” in Communications Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-03915-7). Image: Cartoon of how mechanosensitive targets might play a role in the MAPK signaling cascade (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Congratulations to Genetics and Molecular Biology Graduate Student Rachel DuMez in the lab of Rob Dowen, UNC Departments of Biology and Cell Biology & Physiology for receiving the “People’s Choice Award” at the 2022 Three Minute Thesis Competition!
Winners of awards at the Genetics Retreat were:
Congratulations to Nila Pazhayam (Jeff Sekelsky lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. Nila’s project is titled “Preventing Age-Associated Oocyte Aneuploidy: Mechanisms Behind the Drosophila melanogaster Centromere Effect.”
GMB students Sarah Brotman (Karen Mohlke lab) and Nisitha Sengottuvel (Chad Pecot lab) participated in the Shadow a Scientist program. Shadow A Scientist is a graduate-student run organization that plans and conducts outreach visits for underserved communities in NC. Sarah and Saygin participated in a Q&A session with students from East Burke High School in Connelly Springs in March 2022 and Nisitha participated in a “Path in Science” panel with students from Duplin County Health Sciences Academy in April 2022. Photos can be found here.
Gabby Gentile (Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “The synaptosome-associated protein 23 (SNAP23) is necessary for proper myogenesis” in FASEB Journal (DOI: 10.1096/fj.202101627RR). GMB students Hannah Wiedner and Emma Hinkle are co-authors. Image: Reduced expression of the muscle differentiation marker MYH3 after siRNA knockdown of SNAP23 (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Kia Perez-Vale (Mark Peifer lab) published an article titled “Multivalent interactions make adherens junction-cytoskeletal linkage robust during morphogenesis” in Journal of Cell Biology (DOI:10.1083/jcb.202104087). Image: Mesoderm invagination defects in canoe mutants (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Nate Diehl (Channing Der lab) published an article titled “The KRAS-regulated kinome identifies WEE1 and ERK coinhibition as a potential therapeutic strategy in KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancer” in Journal of Biological Chemistry (DOI:10.1016/j.jbc.2021.101335). . Image: Inhibition of WEE1 + ERK1/2 arrests growth of PDAC organoids (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Jack Sanford (Yanping Zhang lab) published an article titled “MDMX is essential for the regulation of p53 protein levels in the absence of a functional MDM2 C-terminal tail” in BMC Molecular and Cell Biology (DOI:10.1186/s12860-021-00385-3). Image: Protein blots showing that DNA damage inhibits MDMX suppression of p53 protein expression (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Spencer Nystrom (Dan McKay lab) published an article titled “Memes: A motif analysis environment in R using tools from the MEME Suite” in PLOS Computational Biology (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008991). Image: Representative plots generated by Memes. (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Congratulations to Marta Cruz Cisneros (Mark Heise lab) on being awarded Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program grant from Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The GDEP is a two-year grant to underrepresented minority PhD students enrolled in NC Institutions of Higher Education.
Congratulations to Elyssa Vogt (Amy Gladfelter lab) on being awarded Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program grant from Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The GDEP is a two-year grant to underrepresented minority PhD students enrolled in NC Institutions of Higher Education.
Black in Genetics holds their BIG Week Oct 4-10 (please click on the image for list of activities). BIG is an organization dedicated to amplifying voices and work by Black-identifying geneticists. See the Twitter hashtag #BlackInGenetics and the BlackinGenetics account for more.
Congratulations to Brea Hampton (Mark Heise and Marty Ferris), who was awarded an F99/K00 transition fellowship from the National Institute on Aging. This award supports the transition to the postdoctoral phase by providing funding for the final 1-2 years of graduate studies (F99 phase) and the first two years of postdoctoral studies (K00 phase). Brea’s project is titled “Evaluating the role of cytomegalovirus and age on lung immune homeostasis and responses to respiratory infections.”
Congratulations to Carolyn Turcotte (Jeff Sekelsky lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. Carolyn’s project is titled “Mechanisms and regulation of meiotic recombination.”
Nila Pazhayam and Carolyn Turcotte (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published a review of genome-wide meiotic crossover patterning processes in Fronteirs in Cell and Developmental Biology (DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2021.681123). Image: Suppression of crossovers in peri-centromeric regions (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Kandace Thomas (Michael Bressan lab) published a paper titled “Adherens junction engagement regulates functional patterning of the cardiac pacemaker cell lineage” in Developmental Cell (DOI: ). Image: Graphical abstract summarizing key discoveries (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Hannah Wiedner (Jimena Giudice lab) published a review titled “It’s not just a phase: function and characteristics of RNA-binding proteins in phase separation” in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s41594-021-00601-w). Image: Cellular condensates and their proposed functions (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Emma Hinkle (Jimena Giudice lab), wrote a guest post for the Genes to Genomes blog of the Genetics Society of America, titled Three ways that the field genetics can be more equitable. She discusses this through the topics of genetics education, genetics research, and representation within the field.
Natalie Rittenhouse (Jill Dowen lab) published a paper titled “Functional impact of cancer-associated cohesin variants on gene expression and cellular identity” in Genetics (DOI: ). Image: Summary of the impact of Cohesin variants on transcriptional insulation (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Juan Carvajal Garcia (Dale Ramsden lab and Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “DNA polymerase theta suppresses mitotic crossing over” in PLOS Genetics (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009267). Image: Disrupted abdominal patterning and cell death in mutants lacking Slx4 (Mus312) and PolQ; see article for details.
Congratulations to Sarah Brotman (Karen Mohlke lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Sarah’s project is titled “Analyzing gene expression in adipose tissue to identify candidate genes at cardiometabolic trait GWAS loci.”
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “A pathway for error-free non-homologous end joining of resected meiotic double-strand breaks” in Nucleic Acids Research (DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkaa1205). Image: Model for error-free repair (click on image to enlarge; see article for details).
Michelle Potter-Birriel (Bill Marzluff lab) published an article titled “A region of SLBP outside the mRNA processing domain is essential for deposition of histone mRNA into the Drosophila egg” in Journal of Cell Science (DOI: 10.1242/jcs.251728). Image: SLBP (green; DNA in magenta) in Drosophila egg chambers of wild-type (top) and SLBP mutant (bottom) (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Matt Stevenson (Lori O’Brien lab) received an NRSA F31 grant from the National Cancer Institute. The title of Matt’s project is “Elucidating oncogenic mechanisms underlying Wilms tumor using kidney organoids.”
Kia Perez-Vale (Mark Peifer lab) published a review article titled “Orchestrating morphogenesis: building the body plan by cell shape changes and movements” in Development (DOI:10.1242/dev.191049). Image: A Drosophila embryo during dorsal closure (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Matt Niederhuber (Dan McKay lab) published a review article titled “Mechanisms underlying the control of dynamic regulatory element activity and chromatin accessibility during metamorphosis” in Current Opinion in Insect Science (DOI: ). Image: RNA-seq time course in Drosophila wings spanning from late-larval to adult stages. (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Patrick Havlik (Aravind Asokan lab) published a paper titled “Coevolution of adeno-associated virus capsid antigenicity and tropism through a structure-guided approach” in Journal of Virology (DOI:10.1128/JVI.00976-20). Image: Anti-AAV8 antibody virus complexes.; click to enlarge; see article for details).
Koreski (Bob Duronio lab) published a paper titled “Drosophila histone locus body assembly and function involves multiple interactions” in Molecular Biology of the Cell (DOI:10.1091/mbc.E20-03-0176). Image: FLASH and GAF in polytene chromosomes with a 12x histone array transgene; click to enlarge; see article for details).
This week, August 17-23, 2020, follow #BlackInGeneticsWeek on Twitter. Founded by Alexis Stutzman @stutzman_alexis GMB graduate student in the Jill Dowen and Dan McKay labs. Co-organized by Markia Smith @MarkiaASmith of the Katie Hoadley Lab. Special thanks to a BIG volunteer, Tamara Vital (Ian Davis Lab) @tvital_science, and help from friends @BIPOCinCompGen, @ade_lady and Renée Fonseca @renee_fonseca.
Nicole Arruda (Jill Dowen lab) published a paper titled “Distinct and overlapping roles of STAG1 and STAG2 in cohesin localization and gene expression in embryonic stem cells” in Epigenetics and Chromatin (DOI:10.1186/s13072-020-00353-9). GMB student Megan Justice is a co-author. Image: Heatmaps of expression changes in Stag1 and Stag2 mutant cells and of STAG1 and STAG2 ChIP-seq; see article for details).
nda Raimer (Greg Matera lab) published an article titled “Temperature-sensitive spinal muscular atrophy-causing point mutations lead to SMN instability, locomotor defects and premature lethality in Drosophila” in Disease Models and Mechanisms. (DOI: ) Image: Temperature-sensitive protein stability in SMN Tudor domain mutants.
Rachel Cherney (Mauro Calabrese lab) received an NRSA F31 grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The title of Rachel’s project is “Regulation of Polycomb by long noncoding RNAs during pre-implantation development.”
Nisitha Sengottuvel (Chad Pecot lab) was awarded an NRSA F30 fellowship from NIH’s National Cancer Institute. Nisitha’s project is titled “The role of SPON1 expressing inflammatory monocytes in promoting lung cancer metastasis.”
Congratulations to Gabby Gentile (Jimena Giudice lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
Meng Cheng (Yue Xiong lab) published a paper titled “Discovery of potent and selective epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) bifunctional small-molecule degraders” in J. Medicinal Chemistry (DOI: ). Image: Hi-C maps showing signal in wild-type and Wiz deletion cells (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Megan Justice (Jill Dowen lab) published a paper titled “A WIZ/Cohesin/CTCF complex anchors DNA loops to define gene expression and cell identity” in Cell Reports (DOI: ). Image: Hi-C maps showing signal in wild-type and Wiz deletion cells (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Spencer Nystrom and Matt Niederhuber (Dan McKay lab) published a paper titled “Expression of E93 provides an instructive cue to control dynamic enhancer activity and chromatin accessibility during development” in Development (DOI: ). Image: Composite image of precocious activity of an enhancer in an imaginal disc and genomics data plotted in polar space (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Juan Carvajal Garcia (Dale Ramsden lab and Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Mechanistic basis for microhomology identification and genome scarring by polymerase theta” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1921791117). Image: Model for generation of templated insertions durng theta-mediated repair; see article for details.
The Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology is concerned about the well-being of our students and faculty during this time. We have compiled a list of mental health resources for you to use during this time. This list may be updated from time to time. If you should have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to Jeff Sekelsky or John Cornett in the Curriculum office for assistance.
Vale (Mark Peifer lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2020, Kia will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Adelaide Tovar (Samir Kelada lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2020, Adelaide will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Kendall Lough (Scott Williams lab) published an article titled “Telophase correction refines division orientation in stratified epithelia” in eLife (DOI: 10.7554/eLife.49249). Image: Movie showing division of a basal cell that starts at an oblique angle but corrects; click for animatino; see article for details.
Ricardo Rivera-Soto (Blossom Damania lab) published an article titled “Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus viral interleukin 6 signaling upregulates Integrin Beta 3 Levels and is Dependent on STAT3” in Journal of Virology (DOI: 10.1128/JVI.01384-19). Image; Model of vIL-6 induction of ITGB3; see article for details.
Adelaide Tovar (Samir Kelada lab) published an article titled “Transcriptional profiling of the murine airway response to acute ozone exposure” in Toxicological Sciences (DOI: 110.1093/toxsci/kfz219). Image; Partial heatmap of gene expression in airway macrophages; see article for details.
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Centromeric SMC1 promotes centromere clustering and stabilizes meiotic homolog pairing” in PLOS Genetics (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1008412). Image:FISH on meiotic chromosomes showing lack of pairing (two foci) despite synaptonemal complex (magenta); click in image for 3D animation; see article for details.
Vicki Madigan (Aravind Asokan lab) published an article titled “A CRISPR screen identifies the cell polarity determinant Crumbs 3 as an adeno-associated virus restriction factor in hepatocytes” in Journal of VIrology (DOI: 10.1128/JVI.00943-19). Image: Outline of the high-throughput CRISPR screen for AAV restriction factors; see article for details.
Rebekah Watkins-Schultz (Jenny Ting lab) published an article titled “A microparticle platform for STING-targeted immunotherapy enhances natural killer cell- and CD8+ T cell-mediated anti-tumor immunity” in Biomaterials (DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2019.03.011). Image: Flow cytometry to detect tumor-infiltrating leukocytes after microparticle injection; see article for details.
Kale Hartmann (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Centromere-proximal meiotic crossovers in Drosophila melanogaster are suppressed by both highly repetitive heterochromatin and proximity to the centromere” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.119.302509).The article was chosen for Highlights by the editors. Image:Relationship of genome features (gene and TE density) to crossover density near the centromere; see article for details.
David Lee (Mauro Calabrese lab) published a paper titled “A 5′ fragment of Xist can sequester RNA produced from adjacent genes on chromatin“ in Nucleic Acids Research (DOI:10.1093/nar/gkz432). GMB students Rachel Cherney and Megan Schertzer are co-authors. Image: The TETRIS reporter demonstrates that Xist-2kb represses luciferase at the post-transcriptional level; see article for details.
Claire Trincot (Kathleen Caron lab) published a paper titled “Adrenomedullin induces cardiac lymphangiogenesis after myocardial infarction and regulates cardiac edema via connexin 43“ in Circulation Research (DOI:10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.118.313835). Image: Immunohistochemistry of cardiac sections in infarcted adult Adm+/+ and Admhi/hi mice; see article for details.
Lauren Donoghue (Samir Kelada lab) has been selected to attend the Leena Peltonen School of Human Genomics program in Switzerland in August. Graduate and postdoctoral trainees gather with leading experts in the field for interactive discussions and presentations on cutting-edge topics in human genetics and genomics. Participants also receive one-to-one mentoring on areas of professional development in genomics.
Kale Hartmann and Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Meiotic MCM proteins promote and inhibit crossovers during meiotic recombination.” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.119.302221). Image:Schematic of meiotic MCM protein structures; see article for details.
Brea Hampton (co-mentored by Mark Heise and Marty Ferris) was selected to receive a Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The goal of the program is “to increase the diversity among scientists who are prepared to assume leadership roles in science, particularly as college and university faculty.”
Kia Perez-Vale (Mark Peifer lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from NIH’s National Institute for General Medical Sciences. Kia’s project is titled “Defining the molecular mechanisms underlying apical-basal polarity establishment and morphogenesis.” (Photo: Kia received the funding notification while participating in the Gordon Research Conference on Cell Contact and Adhesion in Switzerland.)
Katie Headley (Nate Hathaway lab) published a paper titled “Chemical screen for epigenetic barriers to single allele activation of Oct4“ in Stem Cell Research (DOI: 10.1016/j.scr.2019.101470). Image: Results of a small molecule screen for chemical facilitators of CiA:Oct4 activation; see article for details.
Congratulations to Eliza Thulson (Doug Phanstiel lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
Congratulations to Hannah Wiedner (Jimena Giudice lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
Salma Azam (Chad Pecot lab) published an article titled “Quaking orchestrates a post-transcriptional regulatory network of endothelial cell cycle progression critical to angiogenesis and metastasis” in Oncogene. (DOI: 10.1038/s41388-019-0786-6) Image:Perturbation of the Quaking/miR-200 pathway inhibits endothelial sprouting; click to enlarge; see article for details.
Chris Uyehara (Dan McKay lab) published a paper titled “Direct and widespread role for the nuclear receptor EcR in mediating the response to ecdysone in Drosophila” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900343116). Image: Expression of the broad gene without and with expression of an ecdysone receptor; click to enlarge; see article for details.
Casey Schmidt (Greg Matera lab) published an article titled “Molecular determinants of metazoan tricRNA biogenesis” in Nucleic Acids Research. (DOI: 110.1093/nar/gkz311) Image: tRNA splicing pathways; click to enlarge; see article for details.
Kelsey Gray (recent graduate of Greg Matera lab) was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to do education research at Tibetan monasteries in India. After receiving her PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology in 2017, Kelsey did postdoctoral research with the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative. The Fulbright Fellowship allows her to continue and expand her educational research.
Megan Justice (Jill Dowen lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2019, Megan will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Tim Dinh (Praveen Sethupathy lab) published an article titled “MicroRNA-375 Suppresses the Growth and Invasion of Fibrolamellar Carcinoma” in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Image: miR-375 is a candidate master regulator of cancer pathways in FLC; click to enlarge; see article for details.)
Kristi Schaefer (recent graduate of Mark Peifer lab) published a review article titled “Wnt/Beta-Catenin Signaling Regulation and a Role for Biomolecular Condensates” in Developmental Cell (DOI:10.1016/j.devcell.2019.01.025). Image: textbook model of Wnt signalling; click to enlarge; see article for details.)
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) was selected for a DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics from the Genetics Society of America. Talia will use the award to travel to the Drosophila Research Conference where she has been selected to give a talk.
Pedro Pozo (Jean Cook lab) published an review article titled, “Cdt1 variants reveal unanticipated aspects of interactions with Cyclin/CDK and MCM important for normal genome replication” in Molcular Biology of the Cell (DOI: 10.1091/mbc.E18-04-0242). Image: Flow cytometry profiles of cells with Ctd1 mutations; see paper for details.
Robin Armstrong and Taylor Penke (Bob Duronio lab) published a paper titled “Chromatin conformation and transcriptional activity are permissive regulators of DNA replication initiation in Drosophila“ in Genome Research (DOI: 10.1101/gr.239913.118). Image: Replication timing in a 5 Mb region of pericentric heterochromatin in wild-type and Histone H3K9R mutants; see article for details.
Rowan Beck (Praveen Sethupathy and Mirek Styblo labs) published an article titled, “Circulating miRNAs Associated with Arsenic Exposure” in Environmental Science and Technology (DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b06457). Image: Outline of experimental strategy. See paper for details.
Matt Tegowski (Al Baldwin lab) published a paper titled “Thioridazine inhibits self-renewal in breast cancer cells via DRD2-dependent STAT3 inhibition, but induces a G1 arrest independent of DRD2s“ in Journal of Biological Chemistry (DOI: 10.1074/jbc.RA118.003719). Image: Model describing mechanism of thioridazine effects on triple-negative breast cancer cell lines; see article for details.
Carrie Wilczewski (Frank Conlon lab) published a paper titled “CHD4 and the NuRD complex directly control cardiac sarcomere formation“ in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1722219115). Image: Scanning electron micrographs of Chd4Δflox/Δflox and control hearts; see article for details.
Anna Chiarella (Nate Hathaway lab) published a paper titled “Cavitation enhancement increases the efficiency and consistency of chromatin fragmentation from fixed cells for downstream quantitative applications“ in Biochemistry (DOI: 10.1021/acs.biochem.8b00075). Image: 16-fold increase in efficiency of sonication when nanodroplets are used; see article for details.
Ricky Antonia (Al Baldwin lab) published a paper titled “IKK promotes cytokine-induced and cancer-associated AMPK activity and attenuates phenformin-induced cell death in LKB1-deficient cells“ in Science Signaling (DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.aan5850). Image: IKK regulates basal AMPK Thr172 phosphorylation in cell lines; see article for details.
Kristi Schaefer (Mark Peifer lab) published an article titled “Supramolecular assembly of the beta-catenin destruction complex and the effect of Wnt signaling on its localization, molecular size, and activity in vivo” in PLOS Genetics (DOI:10.1371/journal.pgen.1007339). Image: Accumulation of Arm, axin, and Wg in Drosophila embryos; click to enlarge; see article for details and complete figure.)
Congratulations to Nicole Arruda (Jill Dowen lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Nicole’s project is titled, “Cis-Regulatory Elements Connect Gene Expression and Genome Organization.”
Congratulations to Allyson Roberts (Bob Goldstein lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Allyson’s project is titled, “Investigating the relationship between cell fate specification and shape change during development.”
Congratulations to Matt Niederhuber (Dan McKay lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Matt’s project is titled, “Temporal Control of Enhancer Decommissioning.”
ner (Shehzad Sheikh lab) and Dean Nehama (Barbara Savoldo lab) were inducted into the Frank Porter Graham Graduate and Professional Student Honor Society. This award recognizes “outstanding service provided to the University and community by graduate and professional students.”
Kelsey Gray (Greg Matera lab) published a paper titled “Self-oligomerization regulates stability of survival motor neuron protein isoforms by sequestering an SCFSlmb degron“ in Molecular Biology of the Cell (DOI: 10.1091/mbc.E17-11-0627). Image: Proposed model of SMN as a substrate of SCFSlmb E3 ubiquitin ligase; see article for details.
Blake Albright (Aravind Asokan lab) published an article titled “Mapping the Structural Determinants Required for AAVrh.10 Transport across the Blood-Brain Barrier” in Molecular Therapy (DOI: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2017.10.017). Image: Mapping a minimal AAVrh.10 footprint for crossing the blood-brain barrier; see article for details.
Morgan Brady (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Loss of Drosophila Mei-41/ATR Alters Meiotic Crossover Patterning” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.117.300634). Image: Changes in crossover interference in ATR mutants; see article for details.
Tamara Roman (Karen Mohlke lab) published a review titled “Functional genomics and assays of regulatory activity detect mechanisms at loci for lipid traits and coronary artery disease” in Current Opinion in Genetics and Development (DOI: 10.1016/j.gde.2018.02.004). Image: Chromatin regulatory annotations predict rs10872142 is located within an enhancer; see article for details.
Luke Laudermilk (Samir Kelada lab) published a paper titled “Differential regulation of Zfp30 expression in murine airway epithelia through altered binding of ZFP148 to rs51434084” in G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/g3.117.300507). Image: Differential ZFP148 binding demonstrated by electrophoretic mobility supershift assay super-shifting (click to enlarge); see article for details.
Adele Musicant (Tony Amelio lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Adele’s project is titled, “The Role of CRTC1/MAML2-Mediated Interactions with CREB and MYC in Defining the Cellular Heterogeneity of Salivary Tumors.
Katy Koreski (Bob Duronio lab) published a paper titled “Histone locus regulation by the Drosophila dosage compensation adaptor protein CLAMP“ in Genes and Development (DOI: 10.1101/gad.300855.117). Image (click to enlarge): Polytene chromosomes from Drosophila virilis showing localization of CLAMP and Gaga factor (see article for details).
Mike Conlin (Dale Ramsden lab) published a paper titled “DNA ligase IV guides end-processing xhoice during nonhomologous end joining” in Cell Reports (DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.08.091). Image: Alignment of DNA Ligase IV to Lig I crystal structure, showing Lig IV region deleted by CRISPR/Cas9 (see article for details).
Taylor Penke (Bob Duronio lab) published a paper titled “Functional redundancy of variant and canonical histone H3 lysine 9 modification in Drosophila“ in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.117.300480). Image: Heterochromatin marks in polytene chromosomes from wild-type and Histone H3.3 mutants (null and K9R missense (see article for details).
Charlie Hodgens (Joe Keiber lab) published a paper titled “indCAPS: A tool for designing screening primers for CRISPR/Cas9 mutagenesis events” in PLOS One (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188406). Image: A. thaliana seedlings imaged at 2.5 weeks of growth, showing phenotypes of CRISPR mutations in the cytokine gene AHK3 designed using the indCAPS tool.
Lauren Donoghue (Samir Kelada lab) published a paper titled “Identification of trans protein QTL for secreted airway mucins in mice and a causal role for Bpifb1” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.117.300211). Image: AB-PAS and MUC5B in airways of naïve or sensitized and challenged mice (click to enlarge); see article for details.
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) gave a talk titled “A novel function for centromere-specific SMC1 in Drosophila prophase I” Image: Model for Blm helicase in Drosophila meiosis” at the EMBO Meiosis Conference held on the island of Hvar, Croatia. Talia was one of only two graduate students (and a similar number of postdoctoral fellows) to give an oral presentation.
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published a Problems and Paradigms review titled “Bloom syndrome helicase in meiosis: Pro-crossover functions of an anti-crossover protein” in Bioessays (DOI: 10.1002/bies.201700073). Image: Model for Blm helicase in Drosophila meiosis. click to magnify; see article for details.
Jordan Kardos (William Kim lab) published a paper titled “Comprehensive molecular characterization of urachal adenocarcinoma reveals commonalities with colorectal cancer, including a hypermutable phenotype” in JCO Precision Oncology (DOI: 10.1200/PO.17.00027). Image: Comparison of mutations per Mb in bladder, colorectal, and urachal cancers; see article for details.
Aleisha Smith (William Kim lab) published a paper titled “MYC activation cooperates with Vhl and Ink4a/Arf loss to induce clear cell renal cell carcinoma” in Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15770). Former GMB student Sean Bailey is co-first author and Jordan Kardos is also an author. Image: Venn diagram of gene expression changes in different tumor types with and without Myc expression; see article for details.
Chris Uyehara and Spencer Nystrom (Dan McKay lab) published a paper titled “Hormone-dependent control of developmental timing through regulation of chromatin accessibility” in Genes and Development (DOI: 10.1101/gad.298182.117). Matt Niederhuber was also an author. Image: Expression of nub in the developing wing; see article for details.
Josh Lawrimore (Kerry Bloom lab) published a paper titled “Microtubule dynamics drive enhanced chromatin motion and mobilize telomeres in response to DNA damage” in Molecular Biology fo the Cell (DOI: 10.1091/mbc.E16-12-0846). Image: Positioning of the telomere (green) within the nucleus; see paper for details.
John Noto (Greg Matera lab) published a review titled “Engineering and expressing circular RNAs via tRNA splicing“ in RNA Biology (DOI: 10.1080/15476286.2017.1317911). Image: In vivo RNA circularization pathways; see article for details.
Sarah Renner (Jay Brenman lab) published a paper titled “Carbonic anhydrase III (Car3) is not required for fatty acid synthesis and does not protect against high-fat diet induced obesity in mice“ in PLOS One (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176502). Image: Alignment of cytosolic anhydrase sequences; see paper for details.
Joe Durand (Al Baldwin lab) published a chapter titled “Targeting IKK and NF-κB for Therapy“ in Advances in Protein Chemistry and Structural Biology: Chromatin Proteins and Transcription Factors as Therapeutic Targets (DOI: 10.1016/bs.apcsb.2016.11.006). Image: Canonical and non-canonical NF-κB pathways; see article for details.
Michaelyn Hartmann (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “The absence of crossovers on chromosome 4 in Drosophila melanogaster: Imperfection or interesting exception?“ in Fly (DOI: 10.1080/19336934.2017.1321181). Image: Comparison of crossover rates on proximal 2L and 4; see article for details.
phanie Bellendir (Jeff Sekelsky lab) and Danielle Rognstad (Jeff Sekelsky and Dorothy Erie labs) published an article titled “Substrate preference of Gen endonucleases highlights the importance of branched structures as DNA damage repair intermediates.” in Nucleic Acids Research (DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkx214). Image: Model for cleavage of Holliday junctions and flap substrates; see article for details.
s (Greg Matera lab) published an article titled “Histone gene replacement reveals a post-transcriptional role for H3K36 in maintaining metazoan transcriptome fidelity” in eLife. (DOI: 10.7554/eLife.23249) Image: Hex-plot heatmap plotting novel, unannotated transcription start sites by their location relative to the boundaries of the nearest gene and change in K36R; see article for details.
Becky Bigler (Anne Taylor lab) published an article titled “Messenger RNAs localized to distal projections of human stem cell derived neurons” in Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-00676-w) Image: Micrographs of somatic, axon, and dendritic compartments of neurons cultured within a microfluidic chambers during maturation; see article for details.
Congratulations to Mira Pronobis (PhD 2016, Mark Peifer lab) who was named runner up for the Larry Sandler Award. This award is given annually by the Genetics Society of America for the most outstanding dissertation in any area of Drosophila research internationally.
Kendall Lough (Scott Williams lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Kendall is researching the role of nectin adhesion proteins and their downstream effector afadin in palate closure.
Tim Dinh (Praveen Sethupathy lab) published an article titled “Comprehensive analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas reveals a unique gene and non-coding RNA signature of fibrolamellar carcinoma” in Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/srep44653) Image: Hierarchical clustering of fibrolamellar carcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, and cholangiocarcinoma samples in TCGA.; see article for details.
Julie Korda Holsclaw (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Annealing of Complementary DNA Sequences During Double-Strand Break Repair in Drosophila Is Mediated by the Ortholog of SMARCAL1″ in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.117.200238). Image: Reduction in SDSA in Marcal1 and BRCA2 mutants; see article for details.
Rowan Beck (Praveen Sethupathy and Mirek Styblo labs) published a review article titled, “Arsenic exposure and type 2 diabetes: MicroRNAs as mechanistic links?” in Current Diabetes Reports (DOI: 10.1007/s11892-017-0845-8).
Carrie Wilczewski (Frank Conlon lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The title of her project is “Transcriptional repression by the Nucleosome Remodeling and Deacetylase (NuRD) complex in cardiac development and human disease.“
Ann Emery (Ron Swanstrom lab) published an article titled “Characterizing HIV-1 splicing using next generation sequencing” in Journal of Virology (DOI:10.1128/JVI.02515-16). Image: Splicing in founder and transmittend HIV-1 (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Greg Zapotoczny (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Human cell assays for synthesis-dependent strand annealing and crossing over during double-strand break repair” in G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics (DOI:10.1534/g3.116.037390). Image: U2OS cells expression GFP (crossover) or GFP and mCherry (non-crossover) after double-strand break repair; see article for details.
Mira Pronobis (Mark Peifer lab) published an article titled “Reconstituting regulation of the canonical Wnt pathway by engineering a minimal β-catenin destruction machine” in Molecular Biology of the Cell (DOI:10.1091/mbc.E16-07-0557). Image: Superesolution microscopy (SIM) showing assembly into supermolecular puncta of Axin alone, Axin plus APC or the a designed chimera; click to enlarge; see article for details.)
Bailey Peck (Praveen Sethupathy lab) published an article titled “Functional transcriptomics in diverse intestinal epithelial cell types reveals robust microRNA sensitivity in intestinal stem cells to microbial status” in Journal of Biological Chemistry (DOI:10.1074/jbc.M116.770099). Bailey’s paper was featured in an article from the UNC Newsroom. Image: Model of miR-375-3p-mediated effects of microbiota on intestinal epithelial stem cell proliferation; see article for details.
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) and Kathryn Kohl (former GMB student, currently Assistant Professor at Winthrop University) published an article titled “Bloom syndrome helicase promotes meiotic crossover patterning and homolog disjunction” in Current Biology (DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.055), highlighted in a Dispatch. GMB student Michaelyn Hartmann was a co-author. Image: Graphical abstract showing effects of Blm mutation on meiotic crossover patterning; click to magnify; see article for details.
Mike Conlin (Dale Ramsden lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Cancer Institute. The title of his project is “Mechanism of Damage Tolerance by Nonhomologous End Joining.“
Christian Parobek (Jonathon Juliano lab) published an article titled “Selective sweep suggests transcriptional regulation may underlie Plasmodium vivax resilience to malaria control measures in Cambodia” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Early Edition). Image: Manhattan plot of sites under strong selection; see article for details.
Christian Parobek (Jonathon Juliano lab) published an article titled “skelesim: an extensible, general framework for population genetic simulation in R” in Molecular Ecology Resources. Image: Output from skelesim simulations. See article for details.
s to GMB faculty member Dr Amy Gladfelter (Department of Biology), who has been named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Faculty Scholar. This designation is awarded to early-career scientists who have great potential to make unique contributions to their field. Dr. Gladfelter’s research focuses on how multinucleate cells are organized in time and space and how cells perceive their shape and use geometry to inform signaling and decision-making. READ MORE >>
atherine Fahey (Kim Rathmell and Ian Davis labs) and Julia DiFiore (Brian Strahl lab) published an article titled “Structure/function analysis of recurrent mutations in SETD2 reveals a critical and conserved role for a SET domain residue in maintaining protein stability and H3K36 trimethylation” in Journal of Biology Chemistry (online ahead of print). (Image: γH2AX foci after irradiation of HKC cells carrying wild-type or mutant SETD2; see article for details.)
Taylor Penke (Bob Duronio lab) published an article titled “Direct interrogation of the role of H3K9 in metazoan heterochromatin function” in Genes and Development 30: 1866-1880. (Image: Cover showing Drosophila polytene chromosome from an H3K9R mutant stained with antibody for H3K9me3; see article for details.)
Aminah Wali (Ian Davis lab) published an article titled “High-throughput small molecule screen identifies inhibitors of aberrant chromatin accessibility” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113: 3018-23. (Image: Heat map of normalized FAIRE enrichment; see article for details.)
Nicole Tackmann (Yanping Zhang lab) published an article titled “RPL23 links oncogenic RAS signaling to p53-mediated tumor suppression” in Cancer Research (online ahead of print). (Image: Ki-67 staining of skin tumors in mice, showing the effect of Mdm2m/m genotype; see article for details.)
Nicole Tackmann (Yanping Zhang lab) has received a Horizon Award fellowship from the Department of Defense for her project titled, “Characterizing the Role of Hep27 in Liver and Colorectal Cancer Stress Tolerance.”
Congratulations to Tamara Roman (Karen Mohlke lab), whose was selected as a winner of the Cotterman Award. This award is given annually by the American Society of Human Genetics, which selects two articles published in the American Journal of Human Genetics in the previous year that best represent outstanding scientific contributions to the field of human genetics. Tamara was honored for her paper titled “Multiple hepatic regulatory variants at the GALNT2 GWAS locus associated with high density lipoprotein cholesterol.” (American Journal of Human Genetics 97: 801-815).
Congratulations to Maren Cannon (Karen Mohlke lab), who was selected as a finalist for the Charles J. Epstein Trainee Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Research. The American Society of Human Genetics honors excellence in trainee research through awards that recognize highly competitive abstracts submitted and presented at the ASHG annual meeting. Maren was honored for her abstract titled, “Cardiometabolic variants in adipose tissue ATAC-seq peaks at GWAS loci with coincident adipose tissue eQTLs.”
David Wyatt (Dale Ramsden lab) published an article titled “Essential roles for polymerase θ-mediated end joining in the repair of chromosome breaks” in Molecular Cell (online ahead of print). (Image: Schematic showing when theta-mediated end joining is important.)
Noelle Romero (Steve Matson lab and Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Biochemical activities and genetic functions of the Drosophila melanogaster Fancm helicase in DNA repair” in Genetics (online ahead of print). (Image: Mitotic crossovers in different Fancm mutants.)
Steven McDaniel (Brian Strahl lab) published an article titled “Combinatorial histone readout by the dual plant homeodomain (PHD) fingers of Rco1 mediates Rpd3S chromatin recruitment and the maintenance of transcriptional fidelity” in Journal of Biological Chemistry 291: 14796-802. (Image: Model for how the PHD fingers in Rpd3S and Rpd3L engage chromatin.)
Pedro Pozo (Jean Cook lab) was awarded an F31 fellowship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The title of his project is “Elucidating Cdt1 function using naturally occurring disease-associated mutations.“
(Praveen Sethupathy lab) published an article titled “miR-30 family controls proliferation and differentiation of intestinal epithelial cell models by directing a broad gene expression program that includes SOX9 and the ubiquitin ligase pathway” in Journal of Biological Chemistry (online ahead of print). (Image: Conservation of predicted miR-30 binding sites in SOX9 3′ UTR.)
Congratulations to Lyndsay Wylie (Vicki Bautch lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “SMAD6 Function in Endothelial Cells.”
Jordan Kardos (William Kim lab) published an article titled “Claudin-low bladder tumors are immune infiltrated and actively immune suppressed” in JCI Insight. Image: Box plot of immune suppression gene signature z scores across the Pan-Cancer tumor types. See paper for details.
Li-Chung Tsao (Lishan Su lab) published an article titled “CCR5 interaction with HIV-1 Env contributes to Env-induced depletion of CD4 T cells in vitro and in vivo” in Retrovirology 13: 22. Image: FACS plots of CD4 and CD8 staining live CD3(+) T cells infected with a highly pathogenic HIV-1 isolate. See paper for details.
Lauren Waldron Wasson (Frank Conlon lab) published an article titled “The cardiac TBX5 interactome reveals a chromatin remodeling network essential for cardiac septation” in Developmental Cell 36: 262-275. Image: Low-magnification transverse section of a developing Xenopus heart; see article for complete figure and details.
Josh Lawrimore’s (Kerry Bloom lab) interdisciplinary research was described in an article on The Pipettepen titled “Biology and Physics Meet in the Middle.”
Tiki Hayes (Channing Der lab) published an article titled “Long-term ERK inhibition in KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancer is associated with MYC degradation and senescence-like growth suppression” in Cancer Cell 29: 75-89. Image: Treated PANC253 tumors; see article for details.
Dan Serber (Terry Magnuson lab) published an article titled “The mouse INO80 chromatin remodeling complex is an essential meiotic factor for spermatogenesis” in Biology of Reproduction (epub ahead of print). Image: unrepaired DNA breaks in Ino80cKO spermatocytes; see article for details.
Christian Parobek (Jonathon Juliano lab) published an article titled “Next-Generation sequencing and comparative analysis of sequential outbreaks caused by multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii at a large academic burn center” in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (online ahead of print). Image: Reconstruction of transmission chains for multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii outbreak isolates. See article for details.
Tamara Roman (Karen Mohlke lab) published an article titled “Multiple hepatic regulatory variants at the GALNT2 GWAS locus associated with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol” in American Journal of Human Genetics 97: 801-15. Image: Transcription factor CEBPB binds differentially to the alleles of regulatory variant rs4846913; see article for details.
Erin Borchardt (Aravind Asokan lab) published an article titled “Controlling mRNA stability and translation with the CRISPR endoribonuclease Csy4” in RNA 21: 1921-30. Image: effects of wild-type (top) and mutant (bottom) Csy4 on gene expression; see article for details.
Marni Siegel (Carey Anders and Chuck Perou labs) published an article titled “Efficacy of carboplatin alone and in combination with ABT888 in intracranial murine models of BRCA-mutated and BRCA-wild-type triple-negative breast cancer” in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics 14: 920-30. (Image: expression patterns of tumors treated within the BRCA-mutant models; see article for details.)
Congratulations to Tiki Hayes (Channing Der lab), who won the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Graduate Fellow Award in Basic Sciences.
atulations to Kate Coleman (Jean Cook lab), who won the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Graduate Fellow Award in Basic Sciences.
Congratulations to Aziz Sancar, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Aziz shares the award with Paul Modrich and Thomas Lindahl for groundbreaking studies of DNA repair mechanisms. Read more on the UNC website.
Congratulations to Claire Trincot (Kathleen Caron lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “Cardioprotective effects of adrenomedullin in a model of myocardial infarction.”
Mira Pronobis (Mark Peifer lab) published an article titled “A novel GSK3-regulated APC:Axin interaction regulates Wnt signaling by driving a catalytic cycle of efficient β-catenin destruction” in eLife doi: 10.7554/eLife.08022. (Image: Superesolution microscopy (SIM) showing macromolecular complex between axin (magenta) and APC2 (green); see article for details.)
Taylor Penke (Bob Duronio lab) was awarded an F31 fellowship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The title of his project is “Investigating the role of histone modifications in heterochromatin formation“.
Catherine Fahey (Kim Rathmell lab) was awarded an F30 fellowship from the National Cancer Institute. The title of her project is “The effect of cancer-associated SETD2 mutations on transcription and chromatin organization“.
oy Meserve (Bob Duronio lab) published an article titled “Scalloped and Yorkie are required for cell cycle re-entry of quiescent cells after tissue damage.” in Development 142: :2740-2751 (Image: Compensatory proliferation after induced cell death in the eye; see article for details.)
Christian Parobek (Jon Juliano lab) was awarded an F30 fellowship from the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases. The title of his project is “Investigating the targets and strain specificity of antibodies against P. vivax”.
Bailey Peck (Praveen Sethupathy lab) published an article titled “MicroRNAs classify different disease behavior phenotypes of Crohn’s disease and may have prognostic utility.” in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (online ahead of print). (Image: Average miRNA expression in B3/penetrating class patient biopsies; see paper for full image and legend.)
Kerry Dorr (Frank Conlon lab) published an article titled “Casz1 is required for cardiomyocyte G1-to-S phase progression during mammalian cardiac development.” in Development 142: 2037-2047 (Image: Caz1 expression in the developing heart; see paper for full image and legend.)
Luciana Leopold (Shawn Ahmed lab) published an article titled “Lack of pairing during meiosis triggers multigenerational transgene silencing in Caenorhabditis elegans.” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 112: E2667-76. (Image: effects of mutations on transgenerational RNAe; see paper for full image and legend.)
Congratulations to Diana Chong (Vicki Bautch lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “Analysis of Tortuous Vessel Formation and Sprouting”.
Congratulations to Ann Emery (Ron Swanstrom lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health. Ann’s project is titled “Quantification of HIV-1 splicing phenotypes and the role of RNA structure and splice regulator elements“.
Congratulations to Kathryn Headley (Nate Hathaway lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Kathryn’s project is titled, “Enhancing reactivation of stem cell factor Oct4 with novel small molecules“.
More than two dozen GMB students participated in the 9th Annual North Carolina DNA Day by visiting state high schools to talk to students about DNA and science. An article, featuring GMB student Maren Canon (Karen Mohlke lab), was published on the UNC Healthcare website.
Giri Murlidharan (Aravind Asokan lab) published an article titled “Unique glycan signatures regulate adeno-associated virus tropism in the developing brain” in Journal of Virology 89:3976-87. (Image: localization of CBA protein introduced by AAV in primary astrocytes; see paper for full image and legend.)
Esteban Terzo (Bob Duronio lab) published an article titled “Distinct self-interaction domains promote Multi Sex Combs accumulation in and formation of the Drosophila histone locus body” in Molecular Biology of the Cell 26:1559-74. (Image: co-localization of GFP-MXC and FLASH at the histone locus body; see paper for full image and legend.)
RSA T32 training grant that supports the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology was renewed by NIGMS. The proposal, submitted in January, 2014, received a priority score of 20 in the June study section. This grant, which has been funded since 1975, will continue to support training activities and contribute to the stipends of selected GMB students until 2020.
Congratulations to Bailey Peck (Praveen Sethupathy lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health. Bailey’s project is titled “Whole transcriptome analysis of distinct populations of the intestinal epithelium and its response to microbial presence“.
Tangi Smallwood (Brian Bennett lab) published an article titled “High-resolution genetic mapping in the diversity outbred mouse population identifies Apobec1 as a candidate gene for atherosclerosis” published in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics 4: 2353-2363. (Image: Mapping of significant hits on Chromosome 9 for plasma triglyceride levels; see paper for full image and legend.)
Congratulations to John Runge (Terry Magnuson lab), winner of the Bullit History of Medicine Club’s McClendon-Thomas Award. This award recognized scholarly excellence in the history of health sciences. John’s essay “Character Trials: Managing Epidemic Disease in the 19th Century American South” describes efforts to stop Yellow Fever from spreading across the South during Reconstruction, drawing parallels to the HIV/AIDS and Ebola outbreaks. John and his historical research were featured in the Vital Signs newsletter.
Congratulations to Julie Holsclaw (Jeff Sekelsky lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. Her project is titled “Determining the role of Blm and Marcal1 helicases in replication fork remodeling and progression“.
al Waters (Dale Ramsden lab) published an article titled “The fidelity of the ligation step determines how ends are resolved during nonhomologous end joining” published in Nature Communications 5: 4286. (Image: Model for organization of enzymatic steps during NHEJ.)
Congratulations to Jennifer Kulzer (Karen Mohlke lab), whose was selected as a winner of the Cotterman Award. This award is given annually by the American Society of Human Genetics, which selects two articles published in the American Journal of Human Genetics in the previous year that best represent outstanding scientific contributions to the field of human genetics. Jennifer was honored for her paper titled “A common functional regulatory variant at a type 2 diabetes locus upregulates ARAP1 expression in the pancreatic beta cell” (Amer J Human Genetics 94: 186-97.
Laura Tollini (Yanping Zhang lab) published an article titled “Regulation of p53 by Mdm2 E3 ligase function is dispensable in embryogenesis and development, but essential in response to DNA damage” published in Cancer Cell 26: 235-247. (Image: Mdm2:MdmX heterodimer regulation of p53.)
niak (Brian Strahl lab) published an article titled “Catalysis-dependent stabilization of Bre1 fine-tunes Histone H2B ubiquitylation to regulation gene transcription” published in Genes and Development 28: 1647-1652. (Image: Model for Bre1 function.)
), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Her project is titled “Targeting trans-lesion synthesis (TLS) for cancer therapy”.
Matt Simon (Shawn Ahmed lab) published an article titled “Reduced insulin/IGF-1 signaling restores germ cell immortality to Caenorhabditis elegans Piwi mutants.” published in Cell Reports 7: 762-773. (Image: Changes in expression of tandem repeat loci, genome-wide.)
Congratulations to David Wyatt (Dale Ramsden lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. His project is titled “Mechanisms and Requirements of Alternative End Joining”.
Congratulations to Noelle Romero (labs of Steve Matson and Jeff Sekelsky), who was awarded a Royster Society of Fellows Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the UNC Graduate School for 2014-2015.
Congratulations to Lauren Wasson (Frank Conlon lab), who was awarded a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the UNC Graduate School for 2014-2015.
Bailey Peck (Praveen Sethupathy lab) is co-first author on an article titled “microRNA-29 fine-tunes the expression of key FOXA2-activated lipid metabolism genes and is dysregulated in animal models of insulin resistance and diabetes” published in Diabetes (published online ahead of print, April 2014). (Image: Schematic of the FOXA2:miR-29 regulatory circuit in the liver; see article for details.)
Dr. Bob Duronio, Professor of Biology and Director of the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology from 2003 until 2012, was inducted into the Frank Porter Graham Honor Society, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to graduate education.
Congratulations to Casey Schmidt (Greg Matera lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Casey’s project is titled, “Analyzing transcriptome changes in response to the loss of transcriptional regulators.”
Jennifer Kulzer(Karen Mohlke lab) published a paper titled “A common functional regulatory variant at a type 2 diabetes locus upregulates ARAP1 expression in the pancreatic beta cell” in American Journal of Human Genetics (v. 94, pp 186-197). (Image: Association of SNPs with fasting proinsulin levels; see article for details.)
Christian Parobek (Jon Juliano lab) published a paper titled “A multilocus microsatellite genotyping array to investigate the genetic epidemiology of Pneumocystis jirovecii” in Journal of Clinical Microbiology (published ahead of print Feb 12). (Image: Potential mutational paths from haplotypes from Uganda, Spain, and San Francisco.)
Kate Hacker (Kim Rathmell lab) is co-first author on a paper titled “Variation in chromatin accessibility in human kidney cancer links H3K36 methyltransferase loss with widespread RNA processing defects” in Genome Research (v. 24, pp 241-250). (Image: H3K36me3 staining in clear cell renal carcinoma – normal kidney pairs; see article for details.)
frey Damrauer (Billy Kim lab) published a paper titled “Intrinsic subtypes of high-grade bladder cancer reflect the hallmarks of breast cancer biology” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (v. 111, pp 3110-3115). (Image: proposed model of urothelial tumorigenesis; see article for details.)
Congratulations to Mike Meers (Greg Matera lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. His project is titled “Studying the role of H3K36 methylation in development and gene expression”.
Congratulations to Kathryn Kohl (PhD 2013, Jeff Sekelsky lab) who was named runner up for the Larry Sandler Award. This award is given annually by the Genetics Society of America for the most outstanding dissertation in any area of Drosophila research. This year there were 23 nominations from around the world.
Congratulations to Tikvah Hayes (Channing Der lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health. Tiki’s project is titled “Targeting K-RAS Effector Signaling for Pancreatic Cancer Treatment.”
Congratulations to Joy Meserve (Bob Duronio lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.
Congratulations to Esteban Terzo (Bob Duronio lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.
Congratulations to Marta Charpentier (lab of Frank Conlon), first author of a publication in Developmental Cell, titled “CASZ1 promotes vascular assembly and morphogenesis through the direct regulation of an EGFL7/RhoA-mediated pathway.” Marta’s work was featured as the cover image.
Congratulations to Nick Gomez (lab of Ian Davis), recipient of a 2013 American Association of Cancer Research Minority Scholar in Cancer Research Award for participation in the AACR Special Conference on Chromatin and Epigenetics in Cancer. 
Congratulations to Kelsey Gray (Greg Matera lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
Congratulations to Marta Charpentier (Frank Conlon lab), who was awarded a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the UNC Graduate School for 2013-2014.
Congratulations to Danielle Rogers (labs ofJeff Sekelsky and Dorothy Erie), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Danielle’s project is Crossover formation in Drosophila: Elucidating the Structural Role of Meiotic Resolvases.”
Congratulations to Kathryn Kohl for the recent publication of their paper in Science entitled “Evolution of an MCM Complex in Flies That Promotes Meiotic Crossovers by Blocking BLM Helicase”.
Emma Hinkle (Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “Stretching muscle cells induces transcriptional and splicing transitions and changes in SR proteins” in Communications Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-03915-7). Image: Cartoon of how mechanosensitive targets might play a role in the MAPK signaling cascade (see article for details; click to enlarge).
GMB students Sarah Brotman (Karen Mohlke lab) and Nisitha Sengottuvel (Chad Pecot lab) participated in the Shadow a Scientist program. Shadow A Scientist is a graduate-student run organization that plans and conducts outreach visits for underserved communities in NC. Sarah and Saygin participated in a Q&A session with students from East Burke High School in Connelly Springs in March 2022 and Nisitha participated in a “Path in Science” panel with students from Duplin County Health Sciences Academy in April 2022. Photos can be found here.
Gabby Gentile (Jimena Giudice lab) published an article titled “The synaptosome-associated protein 23 (SNAP23) is necessary for proper myogenesis” in FASEB Journal (DOI: 10.1096/fj.202101627RR). GMB students Hannah Wiedner and Emma Hinkle are co-authors. Image: Reduced expression of the muscle differentiation marker MYH3 after siRNA knockdown of SNAP23 (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Kia Perez-Vale (Mark Peifer lab) published an article titled “Multivalent interactions make adherens junction-cytoskeletal linkage robust during morphogenesis” in Journal of Cell Biology (DOI:10.1083/jcb.202104087). Image: Mesoderm invagination defects in canoe mutants (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Nate Diehl (Channing Der lab) published an article titled “The KRAS-regulated kinome identifies WEE1 and ERK coinhibition as a potential therapeutic strategy in KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancer” in Journal of Biological Chemistry (DOI:10.1016/j.jbc.2021.101335). . Image: Inhibition of WEE1 + ERK1/2 arrests growth of PDAC organoids (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Jack Sanford (Yanping Zhang lab) published an article titled “MDMX is essential for the regulation of p53 protein levels in the absence of a functional MDM2 C-terminal tail” in BMC Molecular and Cell Biology (DOI:10.1186/s12860-021-00385-3). Image: Protein blots showing that DNA damage inhibits MDMX suppression of p53 protein expression (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Spencer Nystrom (Dan McKay lab) published an article titled “Memes: A motif analysis environment in R using tools from the MEME Suite” in PLOS Computational Biology (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008991). Image: Representative plots generated by Memes. (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Congratulations to Marta Cruz Cisneros (Mark Heise lab) on being awarded Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program grant from Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The GDEP is a two-year grant to underrepresented minority PhD students enrolled in NC Institutions of Higher Education.
Black in Genetics holds their BIG Week Oct 4-10 (please click on the image for list of activities). BIG is an organization dedicated to amplifying voices and work by Black-identifying geneticists. See the Twitter hashtag #BlackInGenetics and the BlackinGenetics account for more.
Congratulations to Brea Hampton (Mark Heise and Marty Ferris), who was awarded an F99/K00 transition fellowship from the National Institute on Aging. This award supports the transition to the postdoctoral phase by providing funding for the final 1-2 years of graduate studies (F99 phase) and the first two years of postdoctoral studies (K00 phase). Brea’s project is titled “Evaluating the role of cytomegalovirus and age on lung immune homeostasis and responses to respiratory infections.”
Congratulations to Carolyn Turcotte (Jeff Sekelsky lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. Carolyn’s project is titled “Mechanisms and regulation of meiotic recombination.”
Nila Pazhayam and Carolyn Turcotte (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published a review of genome-wide meiotic crossover patterning processes in Fronteirs in Cell and Developmental Biology (DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2021.681123). Image: Suppression of crossovers in peri-centromeric regions (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Kandace Thomas (Michael Bressan lab) published a paper titled “Adherens junction engagement regulates functional patterning of the cardiac pacemaker cell lineage” in Developmental Cell (DOI: ). Image: Graphical abstract summarizing key discoveries (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Hannah Wiedner (Jimena Giudice lab) published a review titled “It’s not just a phase: function and characteristics of RNA-binding proteins in phase separation” in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s41594-021-00601-w). Image: Cellular condensates and their proposed functions (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “A pathway for error-free non-homologous end joining of resected meiotic double-strand breaks” in Nucleic Acids Research (DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkaa1205). Image: Model for error-free repair (click on image to enlarge; see article for details).
Michelle Potter-Birriel (Bill Marzluff lab) published an article titled “A region of SLBP outside the mRNA processing domain is essential for deposition of histone mRNA into the Drosophila egg” in Journal of Cell Science (DOI: 10.1242/jcs.251728). Image: SLBP (green; DNA in magenta) in Drosophila egg chambers of wild-type (top) and SLBP mutant (bottom) (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Kia Perez-Vale (Mark Peifer lab) published a review article titled “Orchestrating morphogenesis: building the body plan by cell shape changes and movements” in Development (DOI:10.1242/dev.191049). Image: A Drosophila embryo during dorsal closure (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Matt Niederhuber (Dan McKay lab) published a review article titled “Mechanisms underlying the control of dynamic regulatory element activity and chromatin accessibility during metamorphosis” in Current Opinion in Insect Science (DOI: ). Image: RNA-seq time course in Drosophila wings spanning from late-larval to adult stages. (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Patrick Havlik (Aravind Asokan lab) published a paper titled “Coevolution of adeno-associated virus capsid antigenicity and tropism through a structure-guided approach” in Journal of Virology (DOI:10.1128/JVI.00976-20). Image: Anti-AAV8 antibody virus complexes.; click to enlarge; see article for details).
Koreski (Bob Duronio lab) published a paper titled “Drosophila histone locus body assembly and function involves multiple interactions” in Molecular Biology of the Cell (DOI:10.1091/mbc.E20-03-0176). Image: FLASH and GAF in polytene chromosomes with a 12x histone array transgene; click to enlarge; see article for details).
This week, August 17-23, 2020, follow #BlackInGeneticsWeek on Twitter. Founded by Alexis Stutzman @stutzman_alexis GMB graduate student in the Jill Dowen and Dan McKay labs. Co-organized by Markia Smith @MarkiaASmith of the Katie Hoadley Lab. Special thanks to a BIG volunteer, Tamara Vital (Ian Davis Lab) @tvital_science, and help from friends @BIPOCinCompGen, @ade_lady and Renée Fonseca @renee_fonseca.
Nicole Arruda (Jill Dowen lab) published a paper titled “Distinct and overlapping roles of STAG1 and STAG2 in cohesin localization and gene expression in embryonic stem cells” in Epigenetics and Chromatin (DOI:10.1186/s13072-020-00353-9). GMB student Megan Justice is a co-author. Image: Heatmaps of expression changes in Stag1 and Stag2 mutant cells and of STAG1 and STAG2 ChIP-seq; see article for details).
nda Raimer (Greg Matera lab) published an article titled “Temperature-sensitive spinal muscular atrophy-causing point mutations lead to SMN instability, locomotor defects and premature lethality in Drosophila” in Disease Models and Mechanisms. (DOI: ) Image: Temperature-sensitive protein stability in SMN Tudor domain mutants.
Rachel Cherney (Mauro Calabrese lab) received an NRSA F31 grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The title of Rachel’s project is “Regulation of Polycomb by long noncoding RNAs during pre-implantation development.”
Nisitha Sengottuvel (Chad Pecot lab) was awarded an NRSA F30 fellowship from NIH’s National Cancer Institute. Nisitha’s project is titled “The role of SPON1 expressing inflammatory monocytes in promoting lung cancer metastasis.”
Congratulations to Gabby Gentile (Jimena Giudice lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
Meng Cheng (Yue Xiong lab) published a paper titled “Discovery of potent and selective epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) bifunctional small-molecule degraders” in J. Medicinal Chemistry (DOI: ). Image: Hi-C maps showing signal in wild-type and Wiz deletion cells (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Megan Justice (Jill Dowen lab) published a paper titled “A WIZ/Cohesin/CTCF complex anchors DNA loops to define gene expression and cell identity” in Cell Reports (DOI: ). Image: Hi-C maps showing signal in wild-type and Wiz deletion cells (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Spencer Nystrom and Matt Niederhuber (Dan McKay lab) published a paper titled “Expression of E93 provides an instructive cue to control dynamic enhancer activity and chromatin accessibility during development” in Development (DOI: ). Image: Composite image of precocious activity of an enhancer in an imaginal disc and genomics data plotted in polar space (see article for details; click to enlarge).
Juan Carvajal Garcia (Dale Ramsden lab and Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Mechanistic basis for microhomology identification and genome scarring by polymerase theta” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1921791117). Image: Model for generation of templated insertions durng theta-mediated repair; see article for details.
The Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology is concerned about the well-being of our students and faculty during this time. We have compiled a list of mental health resources for you to use during this time. This list may be updated from time to time. If you should have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to Jeff Sekelsky or John Cornett in the Curriculum office for assistance.
Vale (Mark Peifer lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2020, Kia will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Adelaide Tovar (Samir Kelada lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2020, Adelaide will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Kendall Lough (Scott Williams lab) published an article titled “Telophase correction refines division orientation in stratified epithelia” in eLife (DOI: 10.7554/eLife.49249). Image: Movie showing division of a basal cell that starts at an oblique angle but corrects; click for animatino; see article for details.
Ricardo Rivera-Soto (Blossom Damania lab) published an article titled “Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus viral interleukin 6 signaling upregulates Integrin Beta 3 Levels and is Dependent on STAT3” in Journal of Virology (DOI: 10.1128/JVI.01384-19). Image; Model of vIL-6 induction of ITGB3; see article for details.
Adelaide Tovar (Samir Kelada lab) published an article titled “Transcriptional profiling of the murine airway response to acute ozone exposure” in Toxicological Sciences (DOI: 110.1093/toxsci/kfz219). Image; Partial heatmap of gene expression in airway macrophages; see article for details.
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Centromeric SMC1 promotes centromere clustering and stabilizes meiotic homolog pairing” in PLOS Genetics (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1008412). Image:FISH on meiotic chromosomes showing lack of pairing (two foci) despite synaptonemal complex (magenta); click in image for 3D animation; see article for details.
Vicki Madigan (Aravind Asokan lab) published an article titled “A CRISPR screen identifies the cell polarity determinant Crumbs 3 as an adeno-associated virus restriction factor in hepatocytes” in Journal of VIrology (DOI: 10.1128/JVI.00943-19). Image: Outline of the high-throughput CRISPR screen for AAV restriction factors; see article for details.
Rebekah Watkins-Schultz (Jenny Ting lab) published an article titled “A microparticle platform for STING-targeted immunotherapy enhances natural killer cell- and CD8+ T cell-mediated anti-tumor immunity” in Biomaterials (DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2019.03.011). Image: Flow cytometry to detect tumor-infiltrating leukocytes after microparticle injection; see article for details.
Kale Hartmann (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Centromere-proximal meiotic crossovers in Drosophila melanogaster are suppressed by both highly repetitive heterochromatin and proximity to the centromere” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.119.302509).The article was chosen for Highlights by the editors. Image:Relationship of genome features (gene and TE density) to crossover density near the centromere; see article for details.
David Lee (Mauro Calabrese lab) published a paper titled “A 5′ fragment of Xist can sequester RNA produced from adjacent genes on chromatin“ in Nucleic Acids Research (DOI:10.1093/nar/gkz432). GMB students Rachel Cherney and Megan Schertzer are co-authors. Image: The TETRIS reporter demonstrates that Xist-2kb represses luciferase at the post-transcriptional level; see article for details.
Claire Trincot (Kathleen Caron lab) published a paper titled “Adrenomedullin induces cardiac lymphangiogenesis after myocardial infarction and regulates cardiac edema via connexin 43“ in Circulation Research (DOI:10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.118.313835). Image: Immunohistochemistry of cardiac sections in infarcted adult Adm+/+ and Admhi/hi mice; see article for details.
Lauren Donoghue (Samir Kelada lab) has been selected to attend the Leena Peltonen School of Human Genomics program in Switzerland in August. Graduate and postdoctoral trainees gather with leading experts in the field for interactive discussions and presentations on cutting-edge topics in human genetics and genomics. Participants also receive one-to-one mentoring on areas of professional development in genomics.
Kale Hartmann and Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Meiotic MCM proteins promote and inhibit crossovers during meiotic recombination.” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.119.302221). Image:Schematic of meiotic MCM protein structures; see article for details.
Brea Hampton (co-mentored by Mark Heise and Marty Ferris) was selected to receive a Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The goal of the program is “to increase the diversity among scientists who are prepared to assume leadership roles in science, particularly as college and university faculty.”
Kia Perez-Vale (Mark Peifer lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from NIH’s National Institute for General Medical Sciences. Kia’s project is titled “Defining the molecular mechanisms underlying apical-basal polarity establishment and morphogenesis.” (Photo: Kia received the funding notification while participating in the Gordon Research Conference on Cell Contact and Adhesion in Switzerland.)
Katie Headley (Nate Hathaway lab) published a paper titled “Chemical screen for epigenetic barriers to single allele activation of Oct4“ in Stem Cell Research (DOI: 10.1016/j.scr.2019.101470). Image: Results of a small molecule screen for chemical facilitators of CiA:Oct4 activation; see article for details.
Congratulations to Eliza Thulson (Doug Phanstiel lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
Congratulations to Hannah Wiedner (Jimena Giudice lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
Salma Azam (Chad Pecot lab) published an article titled “Quaking orchestrates a post-transcriptional regulatory network of endothelial cell cycle progression critical to angiogenesis and metastasis” in Oncogene. (DOI: 10.1038/s41388-019-0786-6) Image:Perturbation of the Quaking/miR-200 pathway inhibits endothelial sprouting; click to enlarge; see article for details.
Chris Uyehara (Dan McKay lab) published a paper titled “Direct and widespread role for the nuclear receptor EcR in mediating the response to ecdysone in Drosophila” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900343116). Image: Expression of the broad gene without and with expression of an ecdysone receptor; click to enlarge; see article for details.
Casey Schmidt (Greg Matera lab) published an article titled “Molecular determinants of metazoan tricRNA biogenesis” in Nucleic Acids Research. (DOI: 110.1093/nar/gkz311) Image: tRNA splicing pathways; click to enlarge; see article for details.
Kelsey Gray (recent graduate of Greg Matera lab) was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to do education research at Tibetan monasteries in India. After receiving her PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology in 2017, Kelsey did postdoctoral research with the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative. The Fulbright Fellowship allows her to continue and expand her educational research.
Megan Justice (Jill Dowen lab) was selected to participate in the Yale University Ciencia Initiative. Throughout 2019, Megan will participate in a program designed “to expand access to scientific knowledge, experiences, and careers among communities or populations traditionally underrepresented in, or underserved by, the scientific enterprise.”
Tim Dinh (Praveen Sethupathy lab) published an article titled “MicroRNA-375 Suppresses the Growth and Invasion of Fibrolamellar Carcinoma” in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Image: miR-375 is a candidate master regulator of cancer pathways in FLC; click to enlarge; see article for details.)
Kristi Schaefer (recent graduate of Mark Peifer lab) published a review article titled “Wnt/Beta-Catenin Signaling Regulation and a Role for Biomolecular Condensates” in Developmental Cell (DOI:10.1016/j.devcell.2019.01.025). Image: textbook model of Wnt signalling; click to enlarge; see article for details.)
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) was selected for a DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics from the Genetics Society of America. Talia will use the award to travel to the Drosophila Research Conference where she has been selected to give a talk.
Pedro Pozo (Jean Cook lab) published an review article titled, “Cdt1 variants reveal unanticipated aspects of interactions with Cyclin/CDK and MCM important for normal genome replication” in Molcular Biology of the Cell (DOI: 10.1091/mbc.E18-04-0242). Image: Flow cytometry profiles of cells with Ctd1 mutations; see paper for details.
Robin Armstrong and Taylor Penke (Bob Duronio lab) published a paper titled “Chromatin conformation and transcriptional activity are permissive regulators of DNA replication initiation in Drosophila“ in Genome Research (DOI: 10.1101/gr.239913.118). Image: Replication timing in a 5 Mb region of pericentric heterochromatin in wild-type and Histone H3K9R mutants; see article for details.
Rowan Beck (Praveen Sethupathy and Mirek Styblo labs) published an article titled, “Circulating miRNAs Associated with Arsenic Exposure” in Environmental Science and Technology (DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b06457). Image: Outline of experimental strategy. See paper for details.
Matt Tegowski (Al Baldwin lab) published a paper titled “Thioridazine inhibits self-renewal in breast cancer cells via DRD2-dependent STAT3 inhibition, but induces a G1 arrest independent of DRD2s“ in Journal of Biological Chemistry (DOI: 10.1074/jbc.RA118.003719). Image: Model describing mechanism of thioridazine effects on triple-negative breast cancer cell lines; see article for details.
Carrie Wilczewski (Frank Conlon lab) published a paper titled “CHD4 and the NuRD complex directly control cardiac sarcomere formation“ in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1722219115). Image: Scanning electron micrographs of Chd4Δflox/Δflox and control hearts; see article for details.
Anna Chiarella (Nate Hathaway lab) published a paper titled “Cavitation enhancement increases the efficiency and consistency of chromatin fragmentation from fixed cells for downstream quantitative applications“ in Biochemistry (DOI: 10.1021/acs.biochem.8b00075). Image: 16-fold increase in efficiency of sonication when nanodroplets are used; see article for details.
Ricky Antonia (Al Baldwin lab) published a paper titled “IKK promotes cytokine-induced and cancer-associated AMPK activity and attenuates phenformin-induced cell death in LKB1-deficient cells“ in Science Signaling (DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.aan5850). Image: IKK regulates basal AMPK Thr172 phosphorylation in cell lines; see article for details.
Kristi Schaefer (Mark Peifer lab) published an article titled “Supramolecular assembly of the beta-catenin destruction complex and the effect of Wnt signaling on its localization, molecular size, and activity in vivo” in PLOS Genetics (DOI:10.1371/journal.pgen.1007339). Image: Accumulation of Arm, axin, and Wg in Drosophila embryos; click to enlarge; see article for details and complete figure.)
Congratulations to Nicole Arruda (Jill Dowen lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Nicole’s project is titled, “Cis-Regulatory Elements Connect Gene Expression and Genome Organization.”
Congratulations to Allyson Roberts (Bob Goldstein lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Allyson’s project is titled, “Investigating the relationship between cell fate specification and shape change during development.”
Congratulations to Matt Niederhuber (Dan McKay lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Matt’s project is titled, “Temporal Control of Enhancer Decommissioning.”
ner (Shehzad Sheikh lab) and Dean Nehama (Barbara Savoldo lab) were inducted into the Frank Porter Graham Graduate and Professional Student Honor Society. This award recognizes “outstanding service provided to the University and community by graduate and professional students.”
Kelsey Gray (Greg Matera lab) published a paper titled “Self-oligomerization regulates stability of survival motor neuron protein isoforms by sequestering an SCFSlmb degron“ in Molecular Biology of the Cell (DOI: 10.1091/mbc.E17-11-0627). Image: Proposed model of SMN as a substrate of SCFSlmb E3 ubiquitin ligase; see article for details.
Blake Albright (Aravind Asokan lab) published an article titled “Mapping the Structural Determinants Required for AAVrh.10 Transport across the Blood-Brain Barrier” in Molecular Therapy (DOI: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2017.10.017). Image: Mapping a minimal AAVrh.10 footprint for crossing the blood-brain barrier; see article for details.
Morgan Brady (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Loss of Drosophila Mei-41/ATR Alters Meiotic Crossover Patterning” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.117.300634). Image: Changes in crossover interference in ATR mutants; see article for details.
Tamara Roman (Karen Mohlke lab) published a review titled “Functional genomics and assays of regulatory activity detect mechanisms at loci for lipid traits and coronary artery disease” in Current Opinion in Genetics and Development (DOI: 10.1016/j.gde.2018.02.004). Image: Chromatin regulatory annotations predict rs10872142 is located within an enhancer; see article for details.
Luke Laudermilk (Samir Kelada lab) published a paper titled “Differential regulation of Zfp30 expression in murine airway epithelia through altered binding of ZFP148 to rs51434084” in G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/g3.117.300507). Image: Differential ZFP148 binding demonstrated by electrophoretic mobility supershift assay super-shifting (click to enlarge); see article for details.
Adele Musicant (Tony Amelio lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Adele’s project is titled, “The Role of CRTC1/MAML2-Mediated Interactions with CREB and MYC in Defining the Cellular Heterogeneity of Salivary Tumors.
Katy Koreski (Bob Duronio lab) published a paper titled “Histone locus regulation by the Drosophila dosage compensation adaptor protein CLAMP“ in Genes and Development (DOI: 10.1101/gad.300855.117). Image (click to enlarge): Polytene chromosomes from Drosophila virilis showing localization of CLAMP and Gaga factor (see article for details).
Mike Conlin (Dale Ramsden lab) published a paper titled “DNA ligase IV guides end-processing xhoice during nonhomologous end joining” in Cell Reports (DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.08.091). Image: Alignment of DNA Ligase IV to Lig I crystal structure, showing Lig IV region deleted by CRISPR/Cas9 (see article for details).
Taylor Penke (Bob Duronio lab) published a paper titled “Functional redundancy of variant and canonical histone H3 lysine 9 modification in Drosophila“ in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.117.300480). Image: Heterochromatin marks in polytene chromosomes from wild-type and Histone H3.3 mutants (null and K9R missense (see article for details).
Charlie Hodgens (Joe Keiber lab) published a paper titled “indCAPS: A tool for designing screening primers for CRISPR/Cas9 mutagenesis events” in PLOS One (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188406). Image: A. thaliana seedlings imaged at 2.5 weeks of growth, showing phenotypes of CRISPR mutations in the cytokine gene AHK3 designed using the indCAPS tool.
Lauren Donoghue (Samir Kelada lab) published a paper titled “Identification of trans protein QTL for secreted airway mucins in mice and a causal role for Bpifb1” in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.117.300211). Image: AB-PAS and MUC5B in airways of naïve or sensitized and challenged mice (click to enlarge); see article for details.
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) gave a talk titled “A novel function for centromere-specific SMC1 in Drosophila prophase I” Image: Model for Blm helicase in Drosophila meiosis” at the EMBO Meiosis Conference held on the island of Hvar, Croatia. Talia was one of only two graduate students (and a similar number of postdoctoral fellows) to give an oral presentation.
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published a Problems and Paradigms review titled “Bloom syndrome helicase in meiosis: Pro-crossover functions of an anti-crossover protein” in Bioessays (DOI: 10.1002/bies.201700073). Image: Model for Blm helicase in Drosophila meiosis. click to magnify; see article for details.
Jordan Kardos (William Kim lab) published a paper titled “Comprehensive molecular characterization of urachal adenocarcinoma reveals commonalities with colorectal cancer, including a hypermutable phenotype” in JCO Precision Oncology (DOI: 10.1200/PO.17.00027). Image: Comparison of mutations per Mb in bladder, colorectal, and urachal cancers; see article for details.
Aleisha Smith (William Kim lab) published a paper titled “MYC activation cooperates with Vhl and Ink4a/Arf loss to induce clear cell renal cell carcinoma” in Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15770). Former GMB student Sean Bailey is co-first author and Jordan Kardos is also an author. Image: Venn diagram of gene expression changes in different tumor types with and without Myc expression; see article for details.
Chris Uyehara and Spencer Nystrom (Dan McKay lab) published a paper titled “Hormone-dependent control of developmental timing through regulation of chromatin accessibility” in Genes and Development (DOI: 10.1101/gad.298182.117). Matt Niederhuber was also an author. Image: Expression of nub in the developing wing; see article for details.
Josh Lawrimore (Kerry Bloom lab) published a paper titled “Microtubule dynamics drive enhanced chromatin motion and mobilize telomeres in response to DNA damage” in Molecular Biology fo the Cell (DOI: 10.1091/mbc.E16-12-0846). Image: Positioning of the telomere (green) within the nucleus; see paper for details.
John Noto (Greg Matera lab) published a review titled “Engineering and expressing circular RNAs via tRNA splicing“ in RNA Biology (DOI: 10.1080/15476286.2017.1317911). Image: In vivo RNA circularization pathways; see article for details.
Sarah Renner (Jay Brenman lab) published a paper titled “Carbonic anhydrase III (Car3) is not required for fatty acid synthesis and does not protect against high-fat diet induced obesity in mice“ in PLOS One (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176502). Image: Alignment of cytosolic anhydrase sequences; see paper for details.
Joe Durand (Al Baldwin lab) published a chapter titled “Targeting IKK and NF-κB for Therapy“ in Advances in Protein Chemistry and Structural Biology: Chromatin Proteins and Transcription Factors as Therapeutic Targets (DOI: 10.1016/bs.apcsb.2016.11.006). Image: Canonical and non-canonical NF-κB pathways; see article for details.
Michaelyn Hartmann (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “The absence of crossovers on chromosome 4 in Drosophila melanogaster: Imperfection or interesting exception?“ in Fly (DOI: 10.1080/19336934.2017.1321181). Image: Comparison of crossover rates on proximal 2L and 4; see article for details.
phanie Bellendir (Jeff Sekelsky lab) and Danielle Rognstad (Jeff Sekelsky and Dorothy Erie labs) published an article titled “Substrate preference of Gen endonucleases highlights the importance of branched structures as DNA damage repair intermediates.” in Nucleic Acids Research (DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkx214). Image: Model for cleavage of Holliday junctions and flap substrates; see article for details.
s (Greg Matera lab) published an article titled “Histone gene replacement reveals a post-transcriptional role for H3K36 in maintaining metazoan transcriptome fidelity” in eLife. (DOI: 10.7554/eLife.23249) Image: Hex-plot heatmap plotting novel, unannotated transcription start sites by their location relative to the boundaries of the nearest gene and change in K36R; see article for details.
Becky Bigler (Anne Taylor lab) published an article titled “Messenger RNAs localized to distal projections of human stem cell derived neurons” in Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-00676-w) Image: Micrographs of somatic, axon, and dendritic compartments of neurons cultured within a microfluidic chambers during maturation; see article for details.
Congratulations to Mira Pronobis (PhD 2016, Mark Peifer lab) who was named runner up for the Larry Sandler Award. This award is given annually by the Genetics Society of America for the most outstanding dissertation in any area of Drosophila research internationally.
Kendall Lough (Scott Williams lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Kendall is researching the role of nectin adhesion proteins and their downstream effector afadin in palate closure.
Tim Dinh (Praveen Sethupathy lab) published an article titled “Comprehensive analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas reveals a unique gene and non-coding RNA signature of fibrolamellar carcinoma” in Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/srep44653) Image: Hierarchical clustering of fibrolamellar carcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, and cholangiocarcinoma samples in TCGA.; see article for details.
Julie Korda Holsclaw (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Annealing of Complementary DNA Sequences During Double-Strand Break Repair in Drosophila Is Mediated by the Ortholog of SMARCAL1″ in Genetics (DOI: 10.1534/genetics.117.200238). Image: Reduction in SDSA in Marcal1 and BRCA2 mutants; see article for details.
Rowan Beck (Praveen Sethupathy and Mirek Styblo labs) published a review article titled, “Arsenic exposure and type 2 diabetes: MicroRNAs as mechanistic links?” in Current Diabetes Reports (DOI: 10.1007/s11892-017-0845-8).
Carrie Wilczewski (Frank Conlon lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The title of her project is “Transcriptional repression by the Nucleosome Remodeling and Deacetylase (NuRD) complex in cardiac development and human disease.“
Ann Emery (Ron Swanstrom lab) published an article titled “Characterizing HIV-1 splicing using next generation sequencing” in Journal of Virology (DOI:10.1128/JVI.02515-16). Image: Splicing in founder and transmittend HIV-1 (click to enlarge; see article for details).
Greg Zapotoczny (Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Human cell assays for synthesis-dependent strand annealing and crossing over during double-strand break repair” in G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics (DOI:10.1534/g3.116.037390). Image: U2OS cells expression GFP (crossover) or GFP and mCherry (non-crossover) after double-strand break repair; see article for details.
Mira Pronobis (Mark Peifer lab) published an article titled “Reconstituting regulation of the canonical Wnt pathway by engineering a minimal β-catenin destruction machine” in Molecular Biology of the Cell (DOI:10.1091/mbc.E16-07-0557). Image: Superesolution microscopy (SIM) showing assembly into supermolecular puncta of Axin alone, Axin plus APC or the a designed chimera; click to enlarge; see article for details.)
Bailey Peck (Praveen Sethupathy lab) published an article titled “Functional transcriptomics in diverse intestinal epithelial cell types reveals robust microRNA sensitivity in intestinal stem cells to microbial status” in Journal of Biological Chemistry (DOI:10.1074/jbc.M116.770099). Bailey’s paper was featured in an article from the UNC Newsroom. Image: Model of miR-375-3p-mediated effects of microbiota on intestinal epithelial stem cell proliferation; see article for details.
Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky lab) and Kathryn Kohl (former GMB student, currently Assistant Professor at Winthrop University) published an article titled “Bloom syndrome helicase promotes meiotic crossover patterning and homolog disjunction” in Current Biology (DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.055), highlighted in a Dispatch. GMB student Michaelyn Hartmann was a co-author. Image: Graphical abstract showing effects of Blm mutation on meiotic crossover patterning; click to magnify; see article for details.
Mike Conlin (Dale Ramsden lab) was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Cancer Institute. The title of his project is “Mechanism of Damage Tolerance by Nonhomologous End Joining.“
Christian Parobek (Jonathon Juliano lab) published an article titled “Selective sweep suggests transcriptional regulation may underlie Plasmodium vivax resilience to malaria control measures in Cambodia” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Early Edition). Image: Manhattan plot of sites under strong selection; see article for details.
Christian Parobek (Jonathon Juliano lab) published an article titled “skelesim: an extensible, general framework for population genetic simulation in R” in Molecular Ecology Resources. Image: Output from skelesim simulations. See article for details.
s to GMB faculty member Dr Amy Gladfelter (Department of Biology), who has been named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Faculty Scholar. This designation is awarded to early-career scientists who have great potential to make unique contributions to their field. Dr. Gladfelter’s research focuses on how multinucleate cells are organized in time and space and how cells perceive their shape and use geometry to inform signaling and decision-making. READ MORE >>
Taylor Penke (Bob Duronio lab) published an article titled “Direct interrogation of the role of H3K9 in metazoan heterochromatin function” in Genes and Development 30: 1866-1880. (Image: Cover showing Drosophila polytene chromosome from an H3K9R mutant stained with antibody for H3K9me3; see article for details.)
Aminah Wali (Ian Davis lab) published an article titled “High-throughput small molecule screen identifies inhibitors of aberrant chromatin accessibility” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113: 3018-23. (Image: Heat map of normalized FAIRE enrichment; see article for details.)
Nicole Tackmann (Yanping Zhang lab) published an article titled “RPL23 links oncogenic RAS signaling to p53-mediated tumor suppression” in Cancer Research (online ahead of print). (Image: Ki-67 staining of skin tumors in mice, showing the effect of Mdm2m/m genotype; see article for details.)
Nicole Tackmann (Yanping Zhang lab) has received a Horizon Award fellowship from the Department of Defense for her project titled, “Characterizing the Role of Hep27 in Liver and Colorectal Cancer Stress Tolerance.”
Congratulations to Tamara Roman (Karen Mohlke lab), whose was selected as a winner of the Cotterman Award. This award is given annually by the American Society of Human Genetics, which selects two articles published in the American Journal of Human Genetics in the previous year that best represent outstanding scientific contributions to the field of human genetics. Tamara was honored for her paper titled “Multiple hepatic regulatory variants at the GALNT2 GWAS locus associated with high density lipoprotein cholesterol.” (American Journal of Human Genetics 97: 801-815).
Congratulations to Maren Cannon (Karen Mohlke lab), who was selected as a finalist for the Charles J. Epstein Trainee Award for Excellence in Human Genetics Research. The American Society of Human Genetics honors excellence in trainee research through awards that recognize highly competitive abstracts submitted and presented at the ASHG annual meeting. Maren was honored for her abstract titled, “Cardiometabolic variants in adipose tissue ATAC-seq peaks at GWAS loci with coincident adipose tissue eQTLs.”
David Wyatt (Dale Ramsden lab) published an article titled “Essential roles for polymerase θ-mediated end joining in the repair of chromosome breaks” in Molecular Cell (online ahead of print). (Image: Schematic showing when theta-mediated end joining is important.)
Noelle Romero (Steve Matson lab and Jeff Sekelsky lab) published an article titled “Biochemical activities and genetic functions of the Drosophila melanogaster Fancm helicase in DNA repair” in Genetics (online ahead of print). (Image: Mitotic crossovers in different Fancm mutants.)
Steven McDaniel (Brian Strahl lab) published an article titled “Combinatorial histone readout by the dual plant homeodomain (PHD) fingers of Rco1 mediates Rpd3S chromatin recruitment and the maintenance of transcriptional fidelity” in Journal of Biological Chemistry 291: 14796-802. (Image: Model for how the PHD fingers in Rpd3S and Rpd3L engage chromatin.)
Pedro Pozo (Jean Cook lab) was awarded an F31 fellowship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The title of his project is “Elucidating Cdt1 function using naturally occurring disease-associated mutations.“
(Praveen Sethupathy lab) published an article titled “miR-30 family controls proliferation and differentiation of intestinal epithelial cell models by directing a broad gene expression program that includes SOX9 and the ubiquitin ligase pathway” in Journal of Biological Chemistry (online ahead of print). (Image: Conservation of predicted miR-30 binding sites in SOX9 3′ UTR.)
Congratulations to Lyndsay Wylie (Vicki Bautch lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “SMAD6 Function in Endothelial Cells.”
Jordan Kardos (William Kim lab) published an article titled “Claudin-low bladder tumors are immune infiltrated and actively immune suppressed” in JCI Insight. Image: Box plot of immune suppression gene signature z scores across the Pan-Cancer tumor types. See paper for details.
Li-Chung Tsao (Lishan Su lab) published an article titled “CCR5 interaction with HIV-1 Env contributes to Env-induced depletion of CD4 T cells in vitro and in vivo” in Retrovirology 13: 22. Image: FACS plots of CD4 and CD8 staining live CD3(+) T cells infected with a highly pathogenic HIV-1 isolate. See paper for details.
Lauren Waldron Wasson (Frank Conlon lab) published an article titled “The cardiac TBX5 interactome reveals a chromatin remodeling network essential for cardiac septation” in Developmental Cell 36: 262-275. Image: Low-magnification transverse section of a developing Xenopus heart; see article for complete figure and details.
Josh Lawrimore’s (Kerry Bloom lab) interdisciplinary research was described in an article on The Pipettepen titled “Biology and Physics Meet in the Middle.”
Tiki Hayes (Channing Der lab) published an article titled “Long-term ERK inhibition in KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancer is associated with MYC degradation and senescence-like growth suppression” in Cancer Cell 29: 75-89. Image: Treated PANC253 tumors; see article for details.
Dan Serber (Terry Magnuson lab) published an article titled “The mouse INO80 chromatin remodeling complex is an essential meiotic factor for spermatogenesis” in Biology of Reproduction (epub ahead of print). Image: unrepaired DNA breaks in Ino80cKO spermatocytes; see article for details.
Christian Parobek (Jonathon Juliano lab) published an article titled “Next-Generation sequencing and comparative analysis of sequential outbreaks caused by multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii at a large academic burn center” in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (online ahead of print). Image: Reconstruction of transmission chains for multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii outbreak isolates. See article for details.
Tamara Roman (Karen Mohlke lab) published an article titled “Multiple hepatic regulatory variants at the GALNT2 GWAS locus associated with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol” in American Journal of Human Genetics 97: 801-15. Image: Transcription factor CEBPB binds differentially to the alleles of regulatory variant rs4846913; see article for details.
Erin Borchardt (Aravind Asokan lab) published an article titled “Controlling mRNA stability and translation with the CRISPR endoribonuclease Csy4” in RNA 21: 1921-30. Image: effects of wild-type (top) and mutant (bottom) Csy4 on gene expression; see article for details.
Marni Siegel (Carey Anders and Chuck Perou labs) published an article titled “Efficacy of carboplatin alone and in combination with ABT888 in intracranial murine models of BRCA-mutated and BRCA-wild-type triple-negative breast cancer” in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics 14: 920-30. (Image: expression patterns of tumors treated within the BRCA-mutant models; see article for details.)
Congratulations to Tiki Hayes (Channing Der lab), who won the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Graduate Fellow Award in Basic Sciences.
Congratulations to Aziz Sancar, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Aziz shares the award with Paul Modrich and Thomas Lindahl for groundbreaking studies of DNA repair mechanisms. Read more on the UNC website.
Congratulations to Claire Trincot (Kathleen Caron lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “Cardioprotective effects of adrenomedullin in a model of myocardial infarction.”
Mira Pronobis (Mark Peifer lab) published an article titled “A novel GSK3-regulated APC:Axin interaction regulates Wnt signaling by driving a catalytic cycle of efficient β-catenin destruction” in eLife doi: 10.7554/eLife.08022. (Image: Superesolution microscopy (SIM) showing macromolecular complex between axin (magenta) and APC2 (green); see article for details.)
Taylor Penke (Bob Duronio lab) was awarded an F31 fellowship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The title of his project is “Investigating the role of histone modifications in heterochromatin formation“.
Catherine Fahey (Kim Rathmell lab) was awarded an F30 fellowship from the National Cancer Institute. The title of her project is “The effect of cancer-associated SETD2 mutations on transcription and chromatin organization“.
oy Meserve (Bob Duronio lab) published an article titled “Scalloped and Yorkie are required for cell cycle re-entry of quiescent cells after tissue damage.” in Development 142: :2740-2751 (Image: Compensatory proliferation after induced cell death in the eye; see article for details.)
Christian Parobek (Jon Juliano lab) was awarded an F30 fellowship from the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases. The title of his project is “Investigating the targets and strain specificity of antibodies against P. vivax”.
Bailey Peck (Praveen Sethupathy lab) published an article titled “MicroRNAs classify different disease behavior phenotypes of Crohn’s disease and may have prognostic utility.” in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (online ahead of print). (Image: Average miRNA expression in B3/penetrating class patient biopsies; see paper for full image and legend.)
Kerry Dorr (Frank Conlon lab) published an article titled “Casz1 is required for cardiomyocyte G1-to-S phase progression during mammalian cardiac development.” in Development 142: 2037-2047 (Image: Caz1 expression in the developing heart; see paper for full image and legend.)
Luciana Leopold (Shawn Ahmed lab) published an article titled “Lack of pairing during meiosis triggers multigenerational transgene silencing in Caenorhabditis elegans.” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 112: E2667-76. (Image: effects of mutations on transgenerational RNAe; see paper for full image and legend.)
Congratulations to Diana Chong (Vicki Bautch lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. Her project is titled “Analysis of Tortuous Vessel Formation and Sprouting”.
Congratulations to Ann Emery (Ron Swanstrom lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health. Ann’s project is titled “Quantification of HIV-1 splicing phenotypes and the role of RNA structure and splice regulator elements“.
Congratulations to Kathryn Headley (Nate Hathaway lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Kathryn’s project is titled, “Enhancing reactivation of stem cell factor Oct4 with novel small molecules“.
More than two dozen GMB students participated in the 9th Annual North Carolina DNA Day by visiting state high schools to talk to students about DNA and science. An article, featuring GMB student Maren Canon (Karen Mohlke lab), was published on the UNC Healthcare website.
Giri Murlidharan (Aravind Asokan lab) published an article titled “Unique glycan signatures regulate adeno-associated virus tropism in the developing brain” in Journal of Virology 89:3976-87. (Image: localization of CBA protein introduced by AAV in primary astrocytes; see paper for full image and legend.)
Esteban Terzo (Bob Duronio lab) published an article titled “Distinct self-interaction domains promote Multi Sex Combs accumulation in and formation of the Drosophila histone locus body” in Molecular Biology of the Cell 26:1559-74. (Image: co-localization of GFP-MXC and FLASH at the histone locus body; see paper for full image and legend.)
RSA T32 training grant that supports the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology was renewed by NIGMS. The proposal, submitted in January, 2014, received a priority score of 20 in the June study section. This grant, which has been funded since 1975, will continue to support training activities and contribute to the stipends of selected GMB students until 2020.
Congratulations to Bailey Peck (Praveen Sethupathy lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health. Bailey’s project is titled “Whole transcriptome analysis of distinct populations of the intestinal epithelium and its response to microbial presence“.
Tangi Smallwood (Brian Bennett lab) published an article titled “High-resolution genetic mapping in the diversity outbred mouse population identifies Apobec1 as a candidate gene for atherosclerosis” published in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics 4: 2353-2363. (Image: Mapping of significant hits on Chromosome 9 for plasma triglyceride levels; see paper for full image and legend.)
Congratulations to John Runge (Terry Magnuson lab), winner of the Bullit History of Medicine Club’s McClendon-Thomas Award. This award recognized scholarly excellence in the history of health sciences. John’s essay “Character Trials: Managing Epidemic Disease in the 19th Century American South” describes efforts to stop Yellow Fever from spreading across the South during Reconstruction, drawing parallels to the HIV/AIDS and Ebola outbreaks. John and his historical research were featured in the Vital Signs newsletter.
Congratulations to Julie Holsclaw (Jeff Sekelsky lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. Her project is titled “Determining the role of Blm and Marcal1 helicases in replication fork remodeling and progression“.
Congratulations to Jennifer Kulzer (Karen Mohlke lab), whose was selected as a winner of the Cotterman Award. This award is given annually by the American Society of Human Genetics, which selects two articles published in the American Journal of Human Genetics in the previous year that best represent outstanding scientific contributions to the field of human genetics. Jennifer was honored for her paper titled “A common functional regulatory variant at a type 2 diabetes locus upregulates ARAP1 expression in the pancreatic beta cell” (Amer J Human Genetics 94: 186-97.
Laura Tollini (Yanping Zhang lab) published an article titled “Regulation of p53 by Mdm2 E3 ligase function is dispensable in embryogenesis and development, but essential in response to DNA damage” published in Cancer Cell 26: 235-247. (Image: Mdm2:MdmX heterodimer regulation of p53.)
Matt Simon (Shawn Ahmed lab) published an article titled “Reduced insulin/IGF-1 signaling restores germ cell immortality to Caenorhabditis elegans Piwi mutants.” published in Cell Reports 7: 762-773. (Image: Changes in expression of tandem repeat loci, genome-wide.)
Congratulations to David Wyatt (Dale Ramsden lab), who was awarded a grant from the American Heart Association. His project is titled “Mechanisms and Requirements of Alternative End Joining”.
Congratulations to Noelle Romero (labs of Steve Matson and Jeff Sekelsky), who was awarded a Royster Society of Fellows Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the UNC Graduate School for 2014-2015.
Congratulations to Lauren Wasson (Frank Conlon lab), who was awarded a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the UNC Graduate School for 2014-2015.
Bailey Peck (Praveen Sethupathy lab) is co-first author on an article titled “microRNA-29 fine-tunes the expression of key FOXA2-activated lipid metabolism genes and is dysregulated in animal models of insulin resistance and diabetes” published in Diabetes (published online ahead of print, April 2014). (Image: Schematic of the FOXA2:miR-29 regulatory circuit in the liver; see article for details.)
Dr. Bob Duronio, Professor of Biology and Director of the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology from 2003 until 2012, was inducted into the Frank Porter Graham Honor Society, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to graduate education.
Congratulations to Casey Schmidt (Greg Matera lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Casey’s project is titled, “Analyzing transcriptome changes in response to the loss of transcriptional regulators.”
Jennifer Kulzer(Karen Mohlke lab) published a paper titled “A common functional regulatory variant at a type 2 diabetes locus upregulates ARAP1 expression in the pancreatic beta cell” in American Journal of Human Genetics (v. 94, pp 186-197). (Image: Association of SNPs with fasting proinsulin levels; see article for details.)
Christian Parobek (Jon Juliano lab) published a paper titled “A multilocus microsatellite genotyping array to investigate the genetic epidemiology of Pneumocystis jirovecii” in Journal of Clinical Microbiology (published ahead of print Feb 12). (Image: Potential mutational paths from haplotypes from Uganda, Spain, and San Francisco.)
Kate Hacker (Kim Rathmell lab) is co-first author on a paper titled “Variation in chromatin accessibility in human kidney cancer links H3K36 methyltransferase loss with widespread RNA processing defects” in Genome Research (v. 24, pp 241-250). (Image: H3K36me3 staining in clear cell renal carcinoma – normal kidney pairs; see article for details.)
frey Damrauer (Billy Kim lab) published a paper titled “Intrinsic subtypes of high-grade bladder cancer reflect the hallmarks of breast cancer biology” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (v. 111, pp 3110-3115). (Image: proposed model of urothelial tumorigenesis; see article for details.)
Congratulations to Mike Meers (Greg Matera lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. His project is titled “Studying the role of H3K36 methylation in development and gene expression”.
Congratulations to Tikvah Hayes (Channing Der lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health. Tiki’s project is titled “Targeting K-RAS Effector Signaling for Pancreatic Cancer Treatment.”
Congratulations to Joy Meserve (Bob Duronio lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.
Congratulations to Esteban Terzo (Bob Duronio lab), who was awarded an NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health.
Congratulations to Marta Charpentier (lab of Frank Conlon), first author of a publication in Developmental Cell, titled “CASZ1 promotes vascular assembly and morphogenesis through the direct regulation of an EGFL7/RhoA-mediated pathway.” Marta’s work was featured as the cover image.
Congratulations to Nick Gomez (lab of Ian Davis), recipient of a 2013 American Association of Cancer Research Minority Scholar in Cancer Research Award for participation in the AACR Special Conference on Chromatin and Epigenetics in Cancer. 
Congratulations to Kelsey Gray (Greg Matera lab), who was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
Congratulations to Marta Charpentier (Frank Conlon lab), who was awarded a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the UNC Graduate School for 2013-2014.