UT Southwestern in the News

Graduate Students in the News

Nicole Link and Kathleen Galindo, working in the laboratory of Dr. John Abrams, were co-authors of a Nature paper titled “Genome-wide silencing in Drosophila captures conserved apoptotic effectors”. Ms. Link is currently working on her Ph.D. in Genetics & Development. Ms. Galindo earned her Ph.D. in Genetics & Development in 2007 and is now a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. James Amatruda in the Department of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern. Read more

Two Biomedical Communications students, Laura Sesto and Derek Wu, have been awarded $500 research grants from the Vesalius Trust for Visual Communication in the Health Sciences, a professional group that supports education and research in this field. Only 15 grants were awarded nationwide. Read more

Faculty in the News

Dr. Joseph Takahashi, a pioneer in the study of circadian rhythms, has been named chairman of the neuroscience department. Read more

Dr. Luis Parada, chairman of developmental biology, has received the 2009 Friedrich von Recklinghausen Award from the Children’s Tumor Foundation.  Read more

Immunology researchers, Drs. Felix Yarovinsky and Lora Hooper, have found that bacteria present in the human gut help initiate the body’s defense mechanisms against Toxoplasma gondii, the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis.  Read more

Postdoctoral Scholars in the News

Drs. Chi-Tai Tong, Shaojie Li, and Joonseok Cha, postdoctoral scholars working with Dr. Yi Liu, found the Neurospora fungus marks time by a sequence of changes in the FRQ protein’s chemical structure. This new study which appeared online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, might someday help researches develop treatments for human sleep disorders.  Read more

In the August 7 issue of Cell, Dr. Yong Zhao, postdoctoral scholar in cell biology, was lead author on a report showing that a process which  limits the number of time a cell divides works much differently than had been thought.  The work was done in the lab of Drs. Jerry Shay and Woodring Wright.   Read more

Alumni in the News

Dr. Dara Burdette recently helped Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman test a myth for the Discovery Channel show, Mythbusters.  She earned her Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology in 2009 working with Dr. Kim Orth.  Dr. Burdette is currently a postdoctoral fellow at UC – Berkeley in Dr. Russell Vance’s lab.  The Vance lab has previously helped the Mythbusters with microbiological tests.

Dr. Ying Chen, who earned her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology in 2008, was one of the researchers who discovered the action of a small protein that is a major villain in Alzheimer’s disease can be counterbalanced with another brain protein.  The findings, available online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest a promising new tactic against the devastating illness.  The work was a collaboration between Drs. Joachim Herz and Ege Kavalali.  Read more

Undergraduate Prizes in the News

A Frank and Sara McKnight Undergraduate Prize in Biochemistry will be awarded for the first time in 2009, complementing the existing prizes in undergraduate chemistry and biophysics.  Winners of the 2009 Frank and Sara McKnight Undergraduate Prizes in Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Chemistry will be announced in November.

Andrew Hoover, a student at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, has won the 2008 Frank and Sara McKnight Prize in Undergraduate Chemistry. Mr. Hoover was awarded the $2,000 top prize for his work, titled “Lewis Base-Catalyzed Asymmetric Bromination of Alkenes.” The $1,000 second place award went to Jonathan Stefely, a student at Notre Dame, for his work on “Synthesis, Antitumor Activity, and Biological Evaluation of Novel 1,2,3-Triazole-Based Tubulin Polymerization Inhibitors.” Jacob Kanady, of the University of California at Irvine, received third place, and $500, for his research project, “Polychlorinated Sulfolipids as Inspiration for Organic Synthetic Development.”

Rathi Srinivas, a student at Columbia University, has won the 2008 Frank and Sara McKnight Prize in Undergraduate Biophysics.  Ms. Srinivas was awarded the $2,000 top prize for her work, titled “The Structural Dynamics of the Ribosomal L1 Stalk.” The $1,000 second place award went to Alex Augustyn, a student at the University of Chicago, for his work on “Development of a Novel Secondary Structure-Based Refinement Algorithm.” Molly Plovanich, of Johns Hopkins University, received third place, and $500, for her research project, “Enhancing the Stability of the Notch Ankyrin Domain through Consensus-Based Substitution.”