Alanna Carey Receives NIH Blueprint and BRAIN Initiative D-SPAN Award
Alanna Carey, a PhD student in the Chen Lab, recently received the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Blueprint and BRAIN Initiative Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN) Award. The purpose of this award is to support a defined pathway across career stages for outstanding graduate students who are from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups that are underrepresented in neuroscience research. This two-phase award will facilitate the completion of the doctoral dissertation and transition of talented graduate students to strong neuroscience research postdoctoral positions and will provide career development opportunities relevant to their long-term career goal of becoming independent neuroscience researchers.
Alanna's current work utilizes a genetically diverse mouse model in an automated home-cage performing a goal-directed learning task to observe how genetic diversity influences learning capacity. Her dissertation aims to demonstrate that genetic variation related to learning can converge on specific neuronal cell types and investigate how molecular, anatomical, or functional properties of neuronal cell types vary to produce learning differences among individuals. Alanna’s long-term goal is to lead her own research laboratory studying how specific gene networks and cell-types mechanistically influence learning and memory in neurodevelopmental disorders, utilizing genetic diversity and environmental factors.
Congratulations, Alanna!
Congratulations to Soyoung Bae on American Crystallography Association Early Career Scientist Spotlight
We are thrilled to announce that Soyoung Bae, a PhD graduate student in the Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry (MCBB) program, has been featured in the American Crystallographic Association's (ACA) Early Career Scientist Spotlight for 2024. This Spotlight not only provides insight into Soyoung’s background and experience, but extolls the facilities and instruments at Boston University’s Chemistry Department used for her work. This honor stemmed from her participation in the ACA Meeting in Baltimore MD in the summer of 2023, in which she was awarded the Journal of Chemical Crystallography poster prize.
Since joining Professor Tolan’s Laboratory in 2021 in collaboration with the Karen Allen lab in Chemistry, Soyoung has made remarkable strides in structural biology, focusing on enzyme mechanisms and ligand interactions through advanced techniques such as X-ray crystallography, surface plasmon resonance, and ultra-fast X-ray/spectroscopy. Her innovative work on protein conformational changes, as well as her effort solving nearly a hundred enzyme structures in complex with various small molecules has been instrumental in informing structure/activity relationships for a drug development project in collaboration with a small pharmaceutical company. All of which underscores her significant contributions to the field. Soyoung’s success has been supported by exceptional resources and guidance, notably from Dr. Jeff Bacon, who has provided invaluable expertise with the advanced instrumentation at the BU-Chemistry Instrumentation Center (CIC).
Please join us in celebrating Soyoung's achievements and in wishing her the best as she advances her career in structural biology.
Congratulations to Soyoung Bae on winning a Stanford PULSE Scholarship
Soyoung Bae, a third-year graduate student in the Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry (MCBB) PhD Degree program, has been awarded the prestigious Stanford PULSE Scholarship for the Ultra-Fast X-ray Summer School (UXSS) in June 2024. The UXSS program, hosted by Stanford's PULSE Institute at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) National Accelerator Laboratory, is renowned for its cutting-edge training in ultrafast (atto–femto second) X-ray science, and Soyoung’s selection is a testament to her exceptional research and potential in the field of structural biology. The award covered her lodging at the Stanford workshop, allowing her to participate in this highly esteemed program.
Soyoung’s research in the laboratory of Biology Professor Dean Tolan, where she employs sophisticated techniques such as X-ray crystallography and surface plasmon resonance, aligns perfectly with the innovative focus of UXSS. Her participation in this program will undoubtedly enhance her skills and knowledge, further advancing her impactful research on enzyme structure and function.
Victoria Zdanowicz Receives 2024 Denton Award
Victoria Zdanowicz of the Knott and Scmitt Labs was selected as the winner of the 2024 Denton Award for her master’s research thesis in Biology titled “Local ecology and dietary selectivity at indicators of differing orangutan habitat quality within Gunung Palung National Park, Borneo, Indonesia.” This award is given for excellence in scholarship and research accomplishment during a master’s thesis under the mentorship of a faculty member of the Department of Biology.
Victoria conducted a challenging field study of how anthropogenic disturbance impacts the trees and lianas utilized by wild orangutans in Gunung Palung National Park, West Kalimantan (Borneo), Indonesia. Her research focused on understanding why orangutans utilize degraded secondary forest habitats, analyzing relationships between forest structure data, plant phenology data (fruiting and flowering patterns), dietary selectivity records, and nest survey data. She discovered that orangutan nests vide higher densities of preferred fruits than primary (undisturbed) forests. Her thesis illustrates that degraded habitats can safeguard wild populations of threatened and endangered species, advancing our understanding of anthropogenically altered habitat suitability for wildlife. Victoria now conducts outreach work at the Stone Zoo.
Congratulations, Victoria!
2024 Master’s Research Award Recipient
Charley Mitchell of the Novak and Finnerty Labs is the inaugural recipient of the Master’s Research Award. This award provides a one-semester Research Assistantship to a continuing MS student who stands out in their field of research.
During Charley's undergraduate career at Boston University, he looked at the effect of fish grazing on seagrass beds and its potential impact on carbon sequestration. For his master’s research, he is examining the potential microbial shift in seagrass that contains seagrass wasting disease (SWD) vs. those that don’t, as well as analyzing whether SWD impacts the plant's ability to sequester carbon. In his free time, Charley likes to play with his cat and run along the Charles River.
Congratulations, Charley!
Anna Berenson Receives 2024 Belamarich Award
Dr. Anna Berenson of the Fuxman Bass Lab was selected as the winner of the 2024 Belamarich Award for her doctoral dissertation in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology & Biochemistry titled “Paired Yeast One-Hybrid Assays to Detect DNA-Binding Cooperativity and Antagonism Across Transcription Factors.” The selection committee was impressed by the quality of Anna’s work, its combination of methods development, observational studies, and computational analyses, and its potential for informing future research in the field of gene regulation. More information about her research is below.
For her dissertation, Anna developed paired yeast one-hybrid (pY1H) assays to study interactions between pairs of transcription factor (TF) proteins and DNA regions of interest. In addition to identifying cooperative DNA binding of TF pairs, pY1H assays also revealed extensive DNA-binding antagonism between TFs, constituting a previously underappreciated mechanism to regulate TF-DNA binding. Anna further applied pY1H assays to study the role of TF-TF relationships in cytokine gene regulation, the effect of alternative TF isoform usage on these relationships, and the effect of viral proteins on human TF-DNA binding. This work contributes to our understanding of how TF-DNA interactions are specified and provides a useful method that can be applied to further elucidate TF-TF relationships and their role in transcriptional regulation.
Anna will be continuing her academic career as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Dr. Jef Boeke at the NYU Langone Health Institute for Systems Genetics.
As in previous years, there will be a Belamarich Award Night to celebrate our award winner. The night includes a seminar given by the awardee, a brief ceremony, and a reception. The Seminar will be held on Monday, October 28th at 4:30pm in BRB 113. The Award Ceremony will take place immediately after, with the Reception following down the hall in BRB 117, from ~5:30pm-6:30pm. We are honored to have the Belamarich family joining us again to celebrate this year’s award winner.
We look forward to seeing everyone at Belamarich Award Night!
More about the Belamarich Award:
Frank A. Belamarich joined the BU Biology Department in 1963 as an assistant professor where he quickly gained international recognition for his research in the field of comparative hemostasis, the process of blood clotting. Throughout his tenure at BU he was a popular teacher of a core course in cell biology which he developed. Belamarich maintained research laboratories in Boston as well as at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole in Falmouth, MA as part of the BU Marine Program.
Congratulations, Anna!
2024 Master’s Merit Scholarship Recipient
Ritika Sibal of the Knott Lab is this year’s recipient of the Master’s Merit Scholarship for continuing MS students. This scholarship is awarded to a current MS student who stands out in their studies.
Ritika is a second-year master’s student in the Knott Primate Ecology and Conservation Lab. During her undergraduate career at the University of Michigan, Ritika used machine learning to analyze and interpret bottlenose dolphin swimming patterns. For her Master’s research, she continues to study movement by using computer vision and thermal imaging to quantitatively characterize orangutan locomotion. This summer, she will be traveling to Indonesia to conduct her fieldwork. In her free time, Ritika enjoys taking long walks with her dog while sipping on Boba tea.
Congratulations, Ritika!
2024 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Recipients and Honorable Mentions
The awardees and honorable mentions for the 2024 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) competition were recently posted and several Biology students were recognized. MCBB PhD student Kristen Harder of the McCall Lab, Biology PhD student Dylan Mankel of the Marlow Lab, and Biology PhD student Elif Ozsen of the Chantranupong Lab were awarded with 3-year graduate research fellowships. Biology PhD students Catherine Gill of the Gilmore Lab and Victoria Guarino and Yu (Emily) Yang of the Wunderlich Lab received honorable mentions.
 Kristen’s research focuses on regulated cell death, a necessary process involved in development and disease. Using Drosophilaas a model organism, they will investigate phagocytic cell death in the brain. Phagocytosis involves a variety of “find me” and “eat-me” signals, proteins, and receptors, and Kristen aims to understand the mechanism of these various molecules and genes. In the brain, phagocytosis occurs when glial cells engulf dendritic spines and synapses during synaptic pruning. Understanding this mechanism will uncover more about neurological disease. |
 Dylan specializes in understanding microbial life within its physical, geochemical, and mineralogical context. His work focuses on extreme environments, places that are analogous to conditions on Mars and ocean worlds and resemble some of the earliest habitats here on Earth. By extension, the microorganisms living there provide a unique window into the physical and metabolic limits of life, and how life may have evolved and what it might look like today in these far-off places.Now supported by the NSF GRFP, he will continue his work on chimneys collected from some of the deepest and hottest hydrothermal systems currently known. He will be utilizing modern sequencing and microscopy approaches in order to derive the fundamental rules governing microbial community structure, activity, and biogeochemical impacts within these unique rock substrates.
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 Elif drew inspiration from her previous work at Rutgers University on neuronal microtubules. She proposed to elucidate the mechanisms by which microglia—the immune cells of the brain—alter their shape upon activation. To define this process, she focused on Golgi outposts—satellite organelles that are critical for microtubule organization and driving changes in cellular morphology, but whose function in microglia remains unknown. As a graduate student, Elif will build upon her interest in neuronal cell biology to study how signaling pathways and organelles are remodeled across the unique cellular architecture of neurons. She will focus on nutrient sensing, an evolutionarily conserved and lysosomal-dependent process that is poorly understood in the brain. She will develop high-resolution imaging methods to reveal the spatiotemporal dynamics of nutrient sensing and define how these dynamics are coupled to lysosomal state at a subcellular scale. Her work will advance our understanding of how neurons sense nutrients to maintain health and how this process goes awry in diseases such as neurodegeneration and epilepsy.
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 Catherine is a first-year Cell & Molecular Biology PhD student in the Gilmore lab, which applies molecular, genetic, cellular and biochemical techniques to study a family of transcription factors called the Rel/NF-kB family. |
 Victoria recently joined the Wunderlich Lab which investigates the tasks, architecture, robustness, and adaptability of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) using the Drosophila early embryonic patterning system. Victoria's research project aims to further understand how shadow enhancers function by developing both synthetic transcription factors and enhancers to measure mRNA dynamics in transgenic flies. Her work will hopefully impact the fields of gene regulation, developmental biology, and human disease. |
 Emily is studying non-genetic factors of immune activation using fruit flies. Immune activation is a tightly controlled process, as over-activation leads to autoimmunity, while under-activation lets bacteria proliferate unchecked. However, even genetically identical organisms react differently to an infection leading to survival or death. Using bioluminescent bacteria she can track infection progress within the fly. In addition, fluorescently tagging the host immune response will report back on the exact time of immune activation. These results generate a new visual tracking method for studying immunity. |
Congratulations to the awardees and honorable mentions on your hard work and this well-deserved honor.
Abigail Robinson Receives BU Women’s Council Award
Abigail Robinson, a Biology PhD student in the Mullen Lab, received the BU Women’s Council Award.
The BU Women’s Council was founded and dedicated to helping the talented young women who have chosen to pursue graduate degrees at BU.
Abby studies how predator avoidance strategies, like mimicry, shape communities. Batesian mimicry occurs when palatable mimics gain protection from predators by evolving phenotypic resemblance to a chemically defended model species. Using a tri-trophic community ecology approach, her work aims to understand factors that maintain Batesian mimicry in native North American butterfly populations. Understanding how mimicry impacts community dynamics will give valuable insight into how mimetic species may respond to changing environments.
Congratulations Abby!
2024 Marion R. Kramer Scholarship Recipients
Jillian Ness, an MCBB PhD student in the Wunderlich Lab, and Kathryn Atherton, a PhD candidate in the Bioinformatics program and a BU URBAN program trainee working in the Bhatnagar Lab, received the 2024 Marion R. Kramer Scholarship.
In Jillian's research, she and her team studied how enhancers work in development, focusing on redundant enhancers, or "shadow enhancers," linked to developmental genes. These enhancers are remarkably abundant in animals and can compensate under conditions of stress to drive normal development.
She is exploring how these enhancers function, as well as how they are created and maintained in animal genomes. Her work involves creating simplified enhancer models in Drosophila and analyzing how they work. In parallel, she performs evolutionary studies on shadow enhancer sequences to understand genomic events from which the sequences originate. Ultimately, she aims to understand enhancer sequences to improve predictions of perturbations that lead to developmental disease in embryos.
Kathryn's research focuses on how urbanization impacts tree health via the microbes that live on tree leaves and roots and in soil. She aims to understand how these microbes interact with each other and trees by predicting their genetic functions and building networks of their interactions. This summer, she is working with Speak for the Trees Boston to identify places where their tree planting and giveaway initiatives on private land can intersect with the City of Boston’s aims to expand Boston’s tree canopy.
Congratulations Jillian and Kathryn!