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ANNOUNCING THE 2023 RITA ALLEN FOUNDATION SCHOLARS

 August 24, 2023 at 10:30am ET

Pioneering early-career biomedical scientists selected for $3.15 million in research investments.

The Rita Allen Foundation has selected its 2023 class of Rita Allen Foundation Scholars, celebrating nine early-career leaders in the biomedical sciences whose research holds exceptional promise for revealing new pathways to advance human health. The selected Scholars will receive grants of up to $110,000 annually for a maximum of five years to conduct innovative research on critical topics in cancer, immunology, neuroscience, and pain. Scholars in the Class of 2023 are investigating gene expression regulation and dysregulation in cancers; the role of a distinctive brain structure, the choroid plexus, in supporting brain health; and the impact of autoantibodies in advancing pain in complicated diseases such as fibromyalgia.

The 2023 class includes four investigators whose research relates to the biology of pain—a complex neurobiological system with widespread societal impact. Two researchers selected for the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Award in Pain are supported by the Rita Allen Foundation and two are supported by Margaret and William R. Hearst III.

“The scientists selected to join the Class of 2023 are asking bold questions and pioneering new approaches to understand the body’s vast and vital processes—research that informs strategies to prevent and treat diseases,” said Elizabeth Good Christopherson, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Rita Allen Foundation. “We are especially pleased that Margaret and William R. Hearst III are making more opportunities possible with their support of early-career Scholars engaged in pioneering research on the mechanisms of pain—advancing critical discovery science to provide deeply-needed options for relief.”

Offered in partnership with the U.S. Association for the Study of Pain, the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Award in Pain program aims to combat the high-impact pain that significantly impairs the life or work of some 20 million Americans—an epidemic disproportionately impacting women and people of color.

“Investing in high-risk/high-reward discovery science is critical to developing the treatments of tomorrow. Margaret and I are pleased to partner with the Rita Allen Foundation to support innovative researchers exploring the frontiers of chronic pain—whose impacts our family has felt first-hand,” noted William R. Hearst III.

Since 1976, the Rita Allen Foundation has invested in more than 200 biomedical scientists at the early stages of their careers, enabling them to pursue research directions with above-average risk and promise. Scholars have gone on to make fundamental contributions to their fields of study and have won recognition including the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize in Medicine, the Lasker-Koshland Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science, and the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

Five of the 2023 Scholars were nominated by research institutions across the United States and selected by the Rita Allen Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Committee of leading scientists and clinicians. The four investigators selected to receive the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Award in Pain were chosen by a Review Committee of the U.S. Association for the Study of Pain, including previous Rita Allen Pain Scholars and other leaders in the field.

The nine pioneering early-career researchers selected as 2023 Rita Allen Foundation Scholars are:

Lucas Farnung, Harvard Medical School, Milton E. Cassel Scholar

Victoria Abraira; Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (Award in Pain)

Seungwon (Sebastian) Choi, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Award in Pain)

Neil Dani, Vanderbilt University

Jesse Dixon, Salk Institute for Biological Studies      

Emerson Krock, McGill University (Award in Pain)

Nicole M. Martinez, Stanford University

William Renthal; Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School (Award in Pain)

Hongying (Hoy) Shen, Yale University

Below, these newest Rita Allen Scholars offer a window into their current research and reflections on their pathways to the forefront of discovery science.

[Photo: Courtesy Lucas Farnung ]

Lucas Farnung, Harvard Medical School

Assistant Professor, Cell Biology

[Link: https://www.farnunglab.com]

Milton E. Cassel Scholar

B.Sc., University College London

Dr. rer. nat., Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

Lucas Farnung has been designated the Milton E. Cassel Scholar for the 2023 class of Rita Allen Foundation Scholars. This special award honors the memory of a longtime President of the Rita Allen Foundation who passed away in 2004.

Each human cell takes on an extraordinary feat, as it compacts its two-meter-long genome into a nucleus that is merely a few microns in size. Yet, our genetic material must remain accessible, ready to be read by the cell's molecular machinery. To mitigate this conflict, the genomic DNA is spooled like yarn around specialized proteins called histones. Together, histones and the DNA form a structure called chromatin, akin to delicate beads on a string. The Farnung lab studies how a cellular machine called RNA polymerase II navigates through chromatin and generates blueprints of the DNA in a process called transcription. We use a combination of biophysical methods, machine learning, and structural biology approaches. Elucidating transcription through chromatin is important to understand how cells develop, morph into diverse types—like heart or liver cells—and react to the environment. With many cancers linked to dysregulated chromatin transcription, a deeper grasp of this process is vital for novel cancer therapy development.

What will funding from the Rita Allen Foundation allow you to do?

Funding from the Rita Allen Foundation will allow us to explore emerging molecular mechanisms at the intersection of chromatin and transcription. Transcription control, pivotal to numerous cellular processes, can, when dysregulated, trigger a broad spectrum of cancers. As a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar, I am excited to integrate our research on chromatin transcription with epigenetic processes. This is a bold step, but it will allow new breakthroughs in our understanding of gene expression regulation and dysregulation in cancers.

How did you enter this career path? Was there anyone or anything that particularly inspired you?

My fascination with science took root during a school lesson on molecular biology, where I was introduced to the mesmerizing structure of the DNA double helix and the complex folding of proteins. The notion that a finely tuned dance of physics and chemistry could dictate life in its myriad forms—from the simplest of unicellular organisms to the breathtaking complexity of human beings—was so exciting! This sparked a fascination in me that has grown into a quest to understand biology at its most fundamental level.

[Photo: Courtesy Victoria Abraira]

Victoria Abraira, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Assistant Professor, Cell Biology, and Neuroscience

[Link: https://www.abrairalab.org]

B.S., University of Southern California

Ph.D., Harvard University

Our work proposes a basic blueprint for how spinal cord circuits instantiate top-down emotional context into the modulation of somatosensory input before it even reaches the brain. This work impacts our fundamental understanding of the emotional and attentional aspects of somatosensation and contributes to the emerging picture of the sophistication of contextual processing in the spinal cord and peripheral sensory organs. This work supports the idea of spinal cord and associated peripheral circuits as therapeutic targets for treating conditions affecting somatosensory dysfunctions, like acute and chronic pain. While this specific research project focuses on one neuromodulatory signal, oxytocin, the same blueprint is currently being applied to other modulatory networks implicated in pain modulation, including serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and endocannabinoids.

How did you enter this career path? Was there anyone or anything that particularly inspired you?

I am the first woman in my family to graduate high school and the first person to attend college. Growing up my family always encouraged me, though as Latin American immigrants, they did not always know what path to point me towards. I entered this career path because of teachers and mentors that 1) really believed in me, 2) gave me a chance, and 3) were there to cheer me on when things were not working. When I came to this country, I did not speak any English, my family was very poor, and I was very naive about anything related to science or a career in science. They showed me everything, including how to advocate for myself. Now as a mentor, my main motivation is to inspire the next generation of scientists, including finding ways to amplify their voices. Thus, this award would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of all my current and former lab members. Their ideas and thoughts are reflected in the science that we do every day, including the science that the Rita Allen Foundation is so generously supporting.

[Photo: Courtesy Sebastian Choi]

Seungwon (Sebastian) Choi, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Assistant Professor; Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Anesthesiology, and Pain Management

[Link to: https://www.schoilab.org/]

B.S., Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

M.S., Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Ph.D., Harvard University

In conjunction with Margaret and William R. Hearst III

Each day we experience myriad somatosensory stimuli—hugs from loved ones, warm showers, a mosquito bite, and sore muscles after a workout. These tactile, thermal, itch, and nociceptive signals are detected by sensory neurons innervating the skin, propagated into the spinal cord, and transmitted to the brain via ascending somatosensory pathways. Primary sensory neurons that innervate the skin and detect a wide range of somatosensory stimuli have been identified and well-characterized. In contrast, very little is known about how peripheral signals are integrated and processed within the spinal cord and how these signals are conveyed to the brain to generate somatosensory perception and behavioral responses. Our lab aims to determine the developmental logic, functional organization, and dysfunction of ascending somatosensory circuitry. Our lab explores these exciting areas using new mouse genetic tools in conjunction with advanced molecular, anatomical, physiological, and behavioral approaches.

What will funding from the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Award in Pain allow you to do?

Touch and pain are subjective experiences that are greatly modulated by internal states as well as pathological conditions—wounded soldiers on the battlefield often do not experience significant pain because they are focused on the battle, and a gentle touch can be perceived as painful, or disturbing, in people with neuropathic pain or autism spectrum disorders. Ascending somatosensory pathways are “sensory gateways” to the brain, and the “gating” of their activities needs to be tightly controlled to maintain normal touch and pain sensations. We think that “sensory gating” at the level of this ascending system is disrupted, and thus aberrant neuronal activities in the ascending pathways give rise to touch and pain abnormalities in these disease states. The Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Award in Pain funding will help us to test this idea by determining the pathophysiological changes of spinal output neurons, in chronic pain states, using neuropathic and cancer pain models.

How did you enter this career path? Was there anyone or anything that particularly inspired you?

I became interested in pursuing a career in biomedical research when I went through liver transplantation surgery as a donor for my father in college. While it was a tremendously difficult time for my family, my experience sparked a passion for biomedical sciences. Afterward, my graduate and postdoctoral training shaped my long-term interest in neuroscience research.

[Photo: Courtesy Neil Dani]

Neil Dani, Vanderbilt University

Assistant Professor, Cell and Developmental Biology

[Link: https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/cdb/person/6044/]

B.S., University of Rochester

M.S., New York Medical College

Ph.D., Vanderbilt University

We research the choroid plexus, a fascinating and understudied structure in the brain that generates cerebrospinal fluid and nourishing substances that support brain health throughout life. Recently with collaborators, we have generated detailed maps of the choroid plexus, which reveal the cellular sources of the nourishing substances and several additional cell types, suggesting previously unappreciated functions. We believe that the breakdown of these cellular functions contributes to neurological and neurogenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, and that further research could provide novel insights into potential new prevention methods or treatments. To investigate, we are using cutting edge imaging tools that enable us to directly visualize the activity of choroid plexus cells in real time.

What will funding from the Rita Allen Foundation allow you to do?

Studying the choroid plexus requires us to think creatively. While certain problems can be solved by adapting tools from allied fields, other questions call for innovating new techniques. Support from the Rita Allen Foundation will enable us to take risks and develop new approaches and insights. Over time, these efforts will help us explore translational relevance for our work and pursue other funding mechanisms.

How did you enter this career path? Was there anyone or anything that particularly inspired you?

Starting from washing laboratory glassware, I was fortunate to have supportive mentors who introduced me to bench science. Throughout my training, the guidance and trust of these mentors nurtured my passion for research, and I am deeply grateful for their selflessness and commitment to my development. Now, my aim is to inspire and support aspiring researchers from all backgrounds to explore the joys of scientific research and discovery.

[Photo: Chris Keeney]

Jesse Dixon, Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Assistant Professor, Gene Expression Laboratory

[Link: https://dixon.salk.edu]

A.B., Princeton University

Ph.D., University of California San Diego

M.D., University of California San Diego

The Dixon lab is interested in how the spatial organization of genomes affects the acquisition and impact of mutations in cancer. Our genomes are 3 billion base pairs in length and must be compacted into the nucleus of every cell in our body. How our genomes are organized in cells has a major impact on diverse processes, from the expression of genes to the replication of DNA as cells divide. In cancer, our genomes are bombarded with mutations, some of which break and shuffle the genomes creating a mosaic of how these genomes appear in healthy cells. When our genomes are shuffled in cancer cells, this often can place cancer-causing genes in novel environments with altered spatial organization, which can lead to aberrant gene activation that drives the growth of cancer cells. The Dixon lab is interested in understanding where and when such altered gene regulation events occur and understanding what critical factors facilitate altered gene activation in cancer genomes.  

What will funding from the Rita Allen Foundation allow you to do?

The funding from the Rita Allen Foundation will allow us to explore novel, high-risk high-reward projects on the role of altered 3D genome structure in cancers. Our understanding of the role of 3D genome organization in both healthy and cancer cells is rapidly expanding, but whether this represents an opportunity to develop novel cancer therapies is unclear. This work will allow us to begin to explore whether we can use our understanding of the functions of 3D genome organization to begin to create novel strategies for diagnosing and treating cancers.

How did you enter this career path? Was there anyone or anything that particularly inspired you?

Both of my parents were scientists but growing up, they never really put any pressure on me to pursue science as a career. Ultimately, I think it was actually working in the lab, both in college and then as a technician right after I graduated, that really got me hooked on science. In the end, I completed an M.D./Ph.D. for my graduate degree. I don’t currently practice medicine, but I think that the medical training I received definitely influences the way I think about problems in the lab.

[Photo: Katy Maclachlan]

 Emerson Krock, McGill University

Assistant Professor, Dental Medicine and Oral Health Sciences

[Link: https://www.mcgill.ca/painresearch/emerson-krock]

B.Sc., McGill University

Ph.D., McGill University

Fibromyalgia is a chronic, whole-body pain disorder. Despite having a clinical diagnosis for decades, the underlying causes remain poorly understood. During my postdoc, my colleagues and I found that IgG antibodies from fibromyalgia patients cause mice to develop signs of pain, but antibodies from pain-free people do not. The fibromyalgia antibodies bind to satellite glia cells, which surround pain-sensing neurons, and the levels of these antibodies are higher in fibromyalgia patients with more pain. These results suggest a subset of fibromyalgia pain could be mediated by autoantibodies—that is, antibodies attacking parts of our own body. However, why these autoantibodies develop remains unclear. The Krock lab at McGill University is investigating how fibromyalgia autoantibodies develop. One possibility is that altered gut bacteria stimulate an antibody-generating immune response, and if these antibodies recognize molecules similar enough to molecules found on satellite glia, then an autoantibody response could occur.   

How did you enter this career path? Was there anyone or anything that particularly inspired you?

As a child I was always fascinated by nature and any little science experiment I could perform. However, it was not until I was an undergraduate that I realized I could pursue a career in research and science. I was first a summer student in Lisbet Haglund’s lab at McGill University. I then began as an M.Sc. student in her lab and later transferred to the Ph.D. program. Laura Stone was a close collaborator and introduced me to the world of pain neuroscience, which completely fascinated me. Drs. Haglund and Stone encouraged me to pursue my interests in pain research, and I then moved to Sweden to do a postdoc with Camilla Svensson at the Karolinska Institute. Dr. Svensson further encouraged me and helped me work towards starting my own research group. These mentors have had a large impact on my passion for pain research and my career path. On a more personal level, both of my parents have chronic low-back pain, so the reality of living with chronic pain was omnipresent as I grew up. They now both give a little bit of extra inspiration for my research. 

[Photo: Courtesy Nicole Martinez]

Nicole M. Martinez, Stanford University

Assistant Professor, Chemical and Systems Biology; Developmental Biology

[Link: https://martinez.stanford.edu]

B.S., University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez

Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania

Messenger RNAs (mRNAs), the instructions to make proteins, are composed from a 4-letter alphabet of RNA bases. These bases are extensively chemically modified to create new letters in the alphabet that change the meaning of the message. These changes can impact the fate and function of mRNAs in cells. The full collection of RNA modifications in cellular mRNAs represents a previously unappreciated layer of gene regulation on top of what is hard-wired in our genome. We are studying how these chemical modifications are added very early when mRNAs are “born,” and how they impact how mRNAs are processed and interpreted in cells. RNA modifications have an important role in health and disease: many RNA modifying enzymes have been associated with a wide range of human diseases, particularly neurodevelopmental disorders and cancer. Our goal is to connect molecular functions of RNA modifications to normal and disease traits using innovative high-throughput sequencing methods, RNA biochemistry, and model systems.

What will funding from the Rita Allen Foundation allow you to do?

Why and how small chemical changes in RNA lead to human diseases is still largely unknown. The Rita Allen Foundation will allow us to work toward uncovering the molecular basis of inherited neurodevelopmental disorders caused by dysregulation of RNA-modifying enzymes and reveal targets for therapeutic intervention.

How did you enter this career path? Was there anyone or anything that particularly inspired you?

Growing up I didn’t know any scientists or know that research was a career path. I pursued an undergraduate degree in industrial biotechnology at the University of Puerto Rico, thinking I might work in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. Everything changed during a summer research experience at the Broad Institute, where I had my own project and my first experience with discovery. I am indebted to the early mentors who provided me with key opportunities to identify as a scientist. My Ph.D. and postdoc advisors were exemplary role models, and their intentional mentorship, support, and encouragement helped me persevere as a scientist. Early exposure to research, access to quality mentors and sustained mentorship are among the most impactful opportunities that we can provide to launch careers in science for trainees of diverse backgrounds.

[Photo: Courtesy William Renthal]

William Renthal, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Associate Professor, Neurology; and Director, Headache Research

[Link: https://renthal.bwh.harvard.edu/ ]

Ph.D., University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

M.D., University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

In conjunction with Margaret and William R. Hearst III

The Renthal lab studies the genomic and epigenomic mechanisms that contribute to conditions related to refractory headache and facial pain. This work aims to reveal molecular features that are unique to pain-related cells and circuits that could be used to develop novel strategies for pain therapeutics with fewer side effects. I also co-direct the Harvard PRECISION Pain Center, an NIH-funded network of pain clinicians and scientists who are leveraging advanced multi-omic technologies to characterize the specific cell types and states associated with pain using human samples. Together, this work aims to improve translation of basic research discoveries into safer treatments for patients with refractory headache and/or pain conditions. 

What will funding from the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Award in Pain allow you to do?

The Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Award in Pain will provide the flexibility to explore high-risk projects that we believe could offer important new insights into pain neuroscience. Specifically, we will now be able to test new ideas and speed the development of novel tools our group develops to selectively inhibit human nociceptors, which if successful, could provide fundamentally new ways to treat refractory pain. 

How did you enter this career path? Was there anyone or anything that particularly inspired you?

Fantastic mentorship is both what launched my journey to become a physician-scientist and what helped me navigate the many challenges along the way. I’ve had so many great mentors, it’s hard to know where to start! In my freshman year in college, I worked in a cancer research laboratory directed by Eva Lee. The excitement in her lab for discovering new biology with immediate clinical relevance was what initially set me on a direct path to an M.D./Ph.D. program. In graduate school, I had the great fortune of working with Eric Nestler. During that time, I was lucky to absorb just a tiny fraction of his super human passion and work ethic for improving the standard of psychiatric research and care. And, my postdoctoral advisor, Michael Greenberg, whose fearlessness for exploring new frontiers in molecular neuroscience showed me how difficult questions can be answered by simply building the right tool. In summary, find great mentors—then work hard to become one yourself!    

[Photo: Courtesy Hoy Shen]

Hongying (Hoy) Shen, Yale University

Assistant Professor, Cellular and Molecular Physiology

[Link: https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/hongying-shen/]

B.S., Nanjing University

Ph.D., Yale University

The nervous system harbors numerous metabolic enzymes and transporters that play important roles in brain physiology. However, the functions of hundreds of these, including those genetically linked to neurological and psychiatric disorders, remain poorly understood. To bridge this knowledge gap and overcome technical barriers, our laboratory has devised a suite of mass spectrometry metabolomics-based biochemistry methods, combining in vitro activity-based metabolomics with neuronal cellular metabolomics screening, to simultaneously investigate multiple disease-associated genes in a multiplexed format. This "deorphanization" pipeline holds the promise of uncovering novel brain biochemistry governed by these orphan metabolic genes, elucidating their impact on neuronal metabolism and synaptic transmission. Focusing on disease-associated genes might yield insights into the pathologies of brain disorders and facilitate the development of new diagnostics and therapeutics.

What will funding from the Rita Allen Foundation allow you to do?

My proposal to "deorphanize" metabolic genes involved in brain physiology carries strategic risks stemming from the exploration of the “unknowns,” making it unsuitable for traditional funding mechanisms. However, this proposal holds significant potential for high rewards, as each of these orphan genes could offer significant insights into brain biochemistry and open new avenues of research with translational impact. The funding from the Rita Allen Foundation will therefore accelerate our investigation of multiple disease-associated genes and allow us to redirect our focus towards the nervous system.

How did you enter this career path? Was there anyone or anything that particularly inspired you?

My education and scientific training in complementary fields play an important role in shaping my current research interest in metabolic biochemistry and cellular metabolism. My bachelor's degree in chemistry and Ph.D. in biochemistry and cell biology have provided me with a unique skill set to investigate metabolism from both chemical and cell biology perspectives.

Each July, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute welcomes dozens of graduate students and their advisers into a close-knit community of scientists committed to advancing equity and inclusion. Known as “Gilliam Day,” this annual celebration follows HHMI’s announcement of the newest cohort supported by the Gilliam Fellows Program.

Today, in keeping with this tradition, HHMI congratulates 50 graduate students and their advisers who have been named Gilliam Fellows in recognition of outstanding research in their respective scientific fields and their commitment to building a more inclusive scientific ecosystem. Each student-adviser pair will receive an annual award totaling $53,000 for up to three years.

The Gilliam Fellows Program invests in graduate students and their advisers who embody leadership in science and are committed to advancing equity and inclusion in science. “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.”

Gilliam Fellows attending 2023 annual meeting at HHMI Headquarters in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Credit: Keith Weller

The Gilliam community now totals 451 outstanding scientists, tracing back to the program’s launch in 2004. This year’s cohort hails from 37 institutions across the country, including eight institutions receiving their first-ever Gilliam Fellowship award. At these first-time awardee institutions, Gilliam Fellows are working to address key questions in science and human health, including how health disparities impact cancer outcomes and how air pollutants affect the health of high school-aged children.

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. This learning experience includes monthly online interactive webinars and two in-person workshops at HHMI headquarters in Chevy Chase, Maryland – all of which are designed to teach advisers how to listen and engage across cultures.

“By offering professional development to mentors and supporting the growing Gilliam community, HHMI is working to create lasting change across campuses and throughout the wider scientific community,” says Blanton Tolbert, vice president of HHMI’s Center for the Advancement of Science Leadership and Culture (CASLC), which was established last year. 

CASLC houses the Gilliam Fellows Program as well as other HHMI undergraduate- and graduate-level programs designed to bring together academic faculty, administrators, and students working to transform the experience of science education.

“Gilliam Fellows join a diverse and supportive community of scientific leaders who are working to forge new pathways to empower others to achieve personal success,” Tolbert says. “In this way, the program reflects what should be the norm across all of science: today’s students should expect to see leaders from all different backgrounds and experiences, reflecting true equity and inclusion in science.”

Read more: HHMI Awards 50 New Gilliam Fellowships to Advance Equity and Inclusion in Science

Chancellor-Provost Francine Conway proudly announced the recipients of the 2022-23 Chancellor-Provost Awards for Faculty Excellence, which recognize excellence in innovative teaching, scholarly inquiry, service, and impact. The individuals receiving these awards were nominated by their colleagues for their outstanding contributions. CBN is proud to have two of their own receive these prestigious awards. 

 
Joanna Burger for receiving the Chancellor-Provost Award for Excellence in Service
Brian Daniels for receiving the Chancellor-Provost Award for Excellence in STEM Diversity

President Jonathan Holloway and Executive Vice President Prabhas Moghe announced the recipients of the 2022-23 Universitywide Faculty Year-End Excellence Awards. Each year these awards honor members of the Rutgers community selected by their colleagues for outstanding contributions to teaching, research, and public service. This year, 29 individuals have been selected for recognition including CBN's own Peng Jiang.

Peng Jiang for the Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research

The CCNP research assistant position is designed to lay groundwork experience in clinical research across various mental health disorders including but not limited to: mood, psychotic and anxiety related disorders. The research assistant will be trained in carrying out research endeavors in highly clinical settings while exploring varying research questions in topics in neuroscience/ psychology/psychiatry.

Clinical Duties   

• Attending clinical rounds (virtually or in-person at UBHC)
• Aid in screening, recruitment, and scheduling of potential subjects
• Shadowing full board psychiatric evaluations

Research Duties

• Aid in running behavioral sessions (behavioral tasks, self-reports, and clinical symptoms scales) of studies across multiple psychiatric populations
• Score and manage experimental data on behavioral databases on Box.

Educational Opportunities

• Attend CCNP Seminars and other affiliates’ research presentation (via Zoom)
• Partake in consensus meetings with CCNP Clinical Supervisor and affiliated clinicians

If interested, please email a resume/CV AND a one-page letter of intent (include your research interests) to Valerie Lilley, by Friday, March 31st at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Oldenburg Lab is looking for a research assistant for the summer as part of the CABM Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE)! A full description of the program can be found here. We are looking for a motivated upcoming sophomore or junior to join the lab for the summer and possibly continue into the fall semester!

The goal of the Oldenburg lab is to understand how specific patterns of neural activity give rise to behaviors and actions. We know that groups of neurons encode motor movements in complex patterns, with many cells firing with millisecond precise sequences. But just correlating neural activity to action doesn’t tell us how that activity drives behaviors, instead we need to perform causal manipulations – recreating these multi-neuron patterns of activity to truly understand the motor system. To make these precise spatio-temporal patterns we use and develop a technique called Multiphoton Holographic Optogenetics. Like with conventional optogenetics we use light to activate cells, but here we use high power lasers and a variety of optical tricks to make each spot of light roughly the size of a single neuron’s soma. Allowing us to activate the neurons we want without affecting their neighbors. Changing which neurons are activated and controlling the timing of each we can drive complex patterns of spikes in many different neurons, testing the role of different patterns of activity, and ultimately decode the language of the motor system.

For undergraduates that are interested, please send an email to Raj Harsora at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and cc Ian Oldenburg (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) with a resume/CV and a brief paragraph about why you’re interested in the position!

Assistant Professor – Tenure-track faculty

The Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience (CBN) at Rutgers University invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position at the Assistant Professor level to develop an innovative research program focused on the role of non-neuronal cells in the function of the central nervous system. Research approaches may involve the use of a variety of animal or cellular models and may be directly or indirectly relevant to human diseases.

The CBN Department is part of the Division of Life Sciences (DLS) and the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) and is based on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus, located within one hour of major cities such as New York City and Philadelphia. The CBN Department is home to an interactive, collegial faculty with broad research interests, including molecular and cellular biology, neurodevelopment, immunology, and system neuroscience.  Opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration exist within CBN, DLS and SAS, Departments and Institutes in the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School located on the same campus, as well as with research groups at the Rutgers University Newark campus or Princeton University.  Rutgers University offers excellent facilities, faculty mentoring, and competitive start-up packages.

Applicants must hold a Ph.D., M.D., or equivalent degree and have a minimum of three years of postdoctoral training in a relevant field.  The successful candidate is expected to maintain a productive, extramurally funded research program, to train pre- and postdoctoral fellows, and to teach undergraduate courses for the CBN major.

Rutgers University has one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation and boasts several programs established to nurture equity and inclusion. These programs enhance the achievement of excellence by both faculty members and students. We encourage applications from women and members of communities who are underrepresented in the sciences and will evaluate the potential of the applicant to mentor and empower our students.

Interested individuals are encouraged to apply by supplying the following: 1) a curriculum vitae; 2) a brief statement of research plans; 3) a statement summarizing their approach to promoting diversity and inclusion; 4) a statement describing teaching and mentoring interests and experience; 5) the contact information of three individual who can provide letters of reference.

Applications should be submitted as soon as possible but not later than December 15, 2022.  Late applications will be considered only if the position remains available.

Rutgers University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Link to posting can be found here.

Akashdeep Randhawa came to Rutgers to study science. Along the way, he became an entrepreneur, building a start-up company around an invention with the potential to improve results for millions of patients in physical therapy.

Randhawa started Smart MS3 (Muscle Sensing in Three Dimensions) after his grandmother suffered a stroke. He wanted to do something to keep her motivated to continue intense physical therapy to restore her ability to hold things and to walk.

The company’s disc-shaped monitor is about the size of an adult hand and powered by electrodes that can record a patient’s activity and collect data on how hard their muscles are working. The data provides patients with a better understanding of how therapy is working their muscles, which activities are helping the most, measuring progress.

“I deeply believe in the technology we’re developing,” Randhawa said. “I know it’s going to be helpful to people.”

A junior at the School of Arts and Sciences majoring in bio neuroscience, Randhawa is also minoring in entrepreneurship at Rutgers Business School. He is an example of a generation of student entrepreneurs Rutgers is producing in an ecosystem of instruction, networking, and mentorship.

Read more: Student juggles classes and the challenges of being a startup CEO

The PTC Talent Pipeline Program (TPP) is a one-year global fellowship program aimed at providing recent graduates real-world experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and related professions, including research, finance, commercial, compliance, quality, legal, information technology, and communications. Throughout the immersive fellowship program, participants will be provided mentorship, job coaching, career counseling, and leadership training.

Amid this global pandemic, many talented and hardworking recent graduates are rightfully worried about being able to enter the workforce. While this is an unfortunate reality, at PTC we want to help and be part of the solution. - PTC CEO, Stuart W. Peltz, Ph.D 

Full article and links to opportunities can be found here

The Department of Cell Biology & Neuroscience (CBN) at Rutgers New Brunswick-Piscataway campus offers opportunities for underrepresented minority Ph.D. holders to train as Presidential Postdoctoral Fellows (PPF) with one of several faculty members. The PPF program is part of the Presidential Diversity Hiring Initiative Program implemented by the Chancellor- Provost office. A full description of this initiative can be found here: https://academicaffairs.rutgers.edu/investing-faculty-diversity-rutgers.

Read more: Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow (PPF) positions available in CBN

Dear graduate students,

We are happy to announce that the new SGS website, in collaboration with RU Career Exploration and Success, has a page where students can search for jobs and internships posted on Handshake: https://grad.rutgers.edu/professional-development/internships-rutgers. These are positions specifically for doctoral students and other grad students (please scroll down to Internship at Companies at this page to start searching for them right away).

Our alumni who have successfully secured rewarding careers outside the academia tell us that an internship is one of the most effective ways of career exploration and landing a job in for profits, non-profits, and government agencies. We hope that those of you interested in exploring careers outside the academia will utilize this new resource and let us know about your experience once you get that internship (we understand that we need more internships listed and we are working on it).

Here is a webpage that might be helpful to those of you preparing applications for these internships: https://careers.rutgers.edu/develop-skills

Please contact Ramazan Gungor should you need anything in this process.

Melissa González learned the secret behind great scientific discoveries while trying to solve a problem in her professor’s neuroscience lab: If you can’t figure out how to do something, Google it.

The lab where she worked was genetically altering neurons in mice to see how it affected their spinal cords and behavior. Instead of relying on the painstaking process of having lab technicians observe their movements, González set up two cameras that fed the data into a computer algorithm using a process that involves machine learning.

“She basically did it the way any scientist does it — by Googling things, asking questions, trying things out, failing and asking questions and trying again,” says Victoria Abraira, an assistant professor of cell biology and neuroscience who runs the lab.

The cutting-edge technique González established has only been used by a handful of labs across the country that are studying mice to understand what happens to the human spinal cord after an injury, Abraira says.

Last April, González’s research in the lab moved to a new level when she received a two-year, $200,000 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The federal grant supports scientists from underrepresented groups in biomedical research.

Read more: Melissa González received a federal grant that supports scientists from underrepresented groups

Frederric Kelada spent his four years at Rutgers in constant motion: He was a teaching assistant for a physics class, a researcher in a neuroscience psychology lab and a volunteer for a crisis response team on campus.

Yet on top of all that, he managed to cofound the first undergraduate research journal at Rutgers to publish student papers from any academic discipline. The first two issues of the journal were released this year.

“It seemed to be a huge miss for Rutgers to be such a big research school and not to have an undergraduate research journal,” says Kelada, a cell biology and neuroscience major who hopes to attend medical school.

Kelada and his friend, Prachi Srivastava, a biology and psychology major, were both working in research labs the summer after their freshman year when they decided that Rutgers needed an interdisciplinary undergraduate research journal.

Their first step was to contact the Aresty Research Center for help in providing the support to get the journal established. They really had to go through the ringer of what it is to start a journal from beginning to end as undergraduate students," says Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez, director of the center, which facilitates undergraduate student research. But she added, "In a departure from the fate of many previous attempts at establishing a research journal, the new journal is here to stay."

While many universities have undergraduate research journals, what distinguishes the Aresty Rutgers Undergraduate Research Journal (RURJ) is that it uses a peer review program led by student facilitators, Brevard-Rodriguez says. Undergraduates who wanted to work on the journal met weekly during the fall semester with Aresty’s advanced undergraduate trainers, guest faculty members and professional staff to learn how to review research papers.

“Our review process is very extensive,” says Kelada, an honors student in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers-New Brunswick. “There are a lot of steps involved.”

In the first round, four to six undergraduates reviewed each paper individually, and then in pairs and as a group, they discussed changes they would recommend to the author. Then at least one graduate student and one faculty member read the paper and suggested further edits for the author to incorporate. The final phase of review was sending each paper to a student copy editor.

The first issue of RURJ was published last December with six articles, ranging from the effects of antidepressant treatment on mice to the impact of campus food and physical activity at Rutgers’ Cook campus on students’ eating habits and exercise. The second edition of the journal will be released in May.

During the preparations for the journal’s launch, Kelada was seen as a leader who could motivate the students to reach their goal of getting the first issue published on time, Brevard-Rodriguez says.

“When emails were coming in and people were meeting in person, Fred was the driving force to make sure that things would get done,” Brevard-Rodgriguez says. “He was the one who really stayed on top of all the steps and made sure that no one lost sight of what the goals were. He was very persistent.”

Srivastava says the journal turned out to be a much bigger project than she originally envisioned. “When we first came up with the idea, I thought it would just be this website that we would run with a small group of students,” she says. “Now there are hundreds of people who know about it and we have a mailing list of close to 600 people.”

Kelada says the experience of creating the journal has taught him several lessons, including why it is beneficial to include a diverse group of students in the project. “A lot of what made RURJ great is we’ve had a lot of ideas come from a lot of different kinds of people, which was great because we needed as many ideas as possible to contribute to the founding of the journal.”

Having a team to help make decisions and learning to trust the members were also essential to teach Kelada to delegate tasks to students who had skills in other areas.

After graduating, Kelada, who lives in Basking Ridge, will continue working as a rehabilitation technician at a physical therapy practice before applying to medical school. He also hopes to remain involved in the journal in the coming year.

“I’ve been doing this so long and it’s been such a big part of my life,” he says. “Looking back at all we did, we’re so proud of ourselves and it’s so amazing because we never thought we would get here.”

Rutgers-New Brunswick Undergraduate Recipients

• Elena Wei, Cell Biology and Neuroscience, School of Arts and Sciences, 2020 (Colombia)
• Mansi Shah, Cell Biology and Neuroscience, School of Arts and Sciences, 2020 (Spain)

Full article to be found here

INDIANAPOLIS – Rutgers' men's lacrosse captain Kieran Mullins has been chosen as one of this year's Wayne Duke Postgraduate Award recipients, it was announced Thursday by the Big Ten Conference and Indiana Sports Corp. Mullins joins Michigan State's Lea Mitchell as recipients of the annual $10,000 scholarship for their achievements in academics, athletics, extracurricular activities and leadership.

All Big Ten institutions were asked to nominate one female and one male student-athlete for the 2020-21 school year. In recognition of the Big Ten's leadership in fully integrating athletics into the academic mission of its member institutions, the Indianapolis Big Ten Community Partnership initiated the Wayne Duke Postgraduate Award in 2008. During the past 14 years, the award has contributed nearly $190,000 in scholarships.

Mullins is a three-time captain who holds a 3.8 GPA while majoring in cell biology and neuroscience with minors in health & society and sociology. He has been a member of the Dean's List every semester to date, as well as a three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree, was selected as a Rutgers Interdisciplinary Research Team (IRT) Fellow, a Rutgers Postgraduate Big Ten scholarship recipient, a Senior CLASS Award nominee and received the RU Athletic Directors Award.

Outside of the classroom, Mullins is a patient transporter at Centrastate Healthcare System and a volunteer as a Crisis Text Line Counselor. Prior to his time as a Crisis Text Line Counselor, he served as a mentor with Rutgers Educational & Athletic Developmental Initiative, Rutgers Athletics Department's RWJ Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital "Thanksgiving Day", and Rutgers Recreation "Special Friends Day".

Mullins' accomplishments extend well beyond the classroom. He has received multiple accolades throughout his playing career, being selected as an honorable mention All-American, Scholar All-American, two-time All-Big Ten and All-ECAC standout, named to the Tewaaraton Award Watch List and a Senior CLASS Award Nominee. Mullins currently has 99 goals and 179 points, putting him in position to graduate among the top scorers in the 100-year history of the Rutgers men's lacrosse program.

Mullins is the third Rutgers student-athlete, and second from the men's lacrosse program, chosen for the Wayne Duke Postgraduate Award since RU joined the Big Ten in 2014-15. Campbell Sode was the 2015 male recipient, while Emily Mills (women's golf) received the women's award in 2018.

"Indiana Sports Corp is humbled to have the opportunity to present the Wayne Duke Postgraduate Award to these outstanding student-athletes," said Indiana Sports Corp President Ryan Vaughn. "Both of the honorees have demonstrated impressive leadership skills, academic and athletic performance as well as role models for their communities." 

The Wayne Duke Postgraduate Award is named for the late Big Ten Conference commissioner who served from 1971 to 1989. While leading the Big Ten, Duke spent much of his time working to improve academic standards and graduation rates for students competing in conference athletics. 

• Referenced Person: Dai, Wei

Assistant professor Wei Dai has received a CAREER award from NSF to study structural organization of phase transition assemblies formed by proteins with extended polyglutamine (polyQ) homo-repeats. PolyQ proteins are associated with Huntington’s Disease (HD) and at least eight other human neurodegenerative diseases. They are one of the simplest intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) that can condense into membraneless liquid-like or gel-like assemblies through a process termed phase transition. At present, it remains a mystery how the ultrastructure of phase transition assemblies supports spatiotemporal control of functions of the enclosed proteins. By applying cutting edge bioimaging of cryo-electron tomography and 3D ultrastructure analysis, this project will assess how the formation of polyQ protein phase transition assemblies are affected by cellular factors such as lipid vesicles, and provide a deeper understanding of how biophysical and structural properties of phase transition assemblies support biological activities of enclosed IDPs. This project also includes a research-driven education component that will introduce interdisciplinary research to undergraduates, and provide engaging online training resources on biostructure imaging to undergraduate and graduate students. This grant will start in Jan. 2021 and run through 2025.  

Sean O’Leary, Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience/Keck Center

The abrupt shut-down required swift action in order protect valuable research. While others packed up supplies to work from home, Sean headed to the animal care facility. As some staff and faculty of the Keck Center professors have underlying conditions or family situations that made it impossible for them to come back to campus, Sean willingly took on the additional responsibility for their animals to enable his co-workers to stay safe. In addition to his already added responsibilities, Sean saw missing links and went to work on them. He took emails for those people off-site and placed orders for them, he received and distributed packages, and even figured out the erratic mail system so he could pick up correspondence and get it to the right people. Sean came into the Center, day after day after day, never missing a beat.

The Institute for Research on Women invites all undergraduates to apply to its Fall 2020 Virtual Learning Community, "Knowing Bodies: Science, Sex, and Gender." Given the ongoing global crises we have witnessed over the past several months, this class will use feminist approaches to science and technology to explore how our bodies are both vulnerable and resilient to illness, lack of health care, economic uncertainty, racial injustice, and changing social norms. At the same time, we will examine the role of technology in facilitating the disembodied experience of online learning, remote working, and video chats with family and friends. Because self-care is a key component to feminist politics, it is critical that we consider how trauma affects our communities, and what strategies we can use to handle stress and heal.

In keeping with Rutgers' decision to hold most classes online this fall, the Learning Community will be synchronous remote, meeting once a week on Thursdays from 4:30-6:00pm through Zoom. As a discussion-based, 1.5 credit seminar, it will be a creative space to unwind from the pressures of our daily lives, build strong community, attend virtual IRW lectures, "field trips," and livestream events, take part in digital technology workshops, teach one another healthy practices for "pandemic survival," and work on mini-research projects. I'm encouraging students to develop projects related to this theme (COVID-19, reproductive rights, police brutality, aging, trans-embodiment, gender/race and pharmaceuticals, the digital divide, etc.), but the main thing we'll be doing is learning how to podcast! So, instead of writing a traditional paper or doing a poster presentation, we'll learn how to use our research to tell stories through sound! It's a fabulous opportunity for students interested in exploring a very different kind of classroom at Rutgers.

Hope to see you there!

Please contact Sara Perryman at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information.

Apply online at: undefined

Greetings CBN Students!

We are close to the start of the Fall 2020 semester – we hope you’re enjoying the summer! We know that students are anxious about the new, remote semester format, so we’re writing to you early to help you plan for a successful term.

There are quite a few changes to the registration deadlines and policies for the fall 2020 term, all designed to facilitate a smooth transition into your remote classes, as well as assure continued success throughout the term. Please retain this email message so that you can refer to it for information as we approach the first day of classes (Tuesday September 1).

Remote Learning:

As you know, just about all undergraduate courses will be offered remotely, on-line in the fall 2020 term.
The Schedule of Classes has been fully updated to indicate exactly how each class will be organized. Look up each of your courses in the Schedule of Classes to review the Course Format, the Section Comments, and the Course Notes.
Course Format: In a WHITE box adjacent to each individual Index Number:

If the course format includes Days of the Week and Times, then the class meets virtually on-line and on-line attendance at those times is required. This format, sometimes referred to as SYNCHRONOUS REMOTE, emulates the face-to-face classroom experience and all students will be meeting together with the instructor at the designated times. You can ignore the Campus Location, since the course is meeting remotely.

If the course format states Hours by Arrangement, then the class has no specific meeting times, rather the course site will indicate specific weekly requirements and assignment due dates. In addition, flexible opportunities to meet with TAs, instructors and classmates will be a part of these classes. This format, sometimes referred to as ASYNCHRONOUS REMOTE, provides flexibility, especially for students in other time zones, but still requires the same amount of hour per week as more traditional course formats. These courses ARE NOT self-paced; there is a weekly schedule for work submission beginning the first week of classes.

If the course format includes both a specific meeting time AND Hours by Arrangement, then the course meets virtually on-line and attendance is required at the indicated time AND contains more flexible weekly requirements. This format, sometimes referred to as HYBRID REMOTE, often allows recitations to meet virtually as a group.


Section Notes: In a BLUE box located above each specific section of the course. The section comments include:

How to access the course online using Canvas, Sakai or an alternative Learning Management System
Topics Course Subtitles
Prerequisite information
Registration restrictions
Software/technology requirements such as the need for a Webcam, Microphone, Scanner and/or Test-Taking Authentication Program


Course Notes: In a GREY box located under the title of the course. The course notes include:

SAS Core goals
Instructions for seeking special permission
Registration limitations and course equivalences

________________________________________

Registration Policies and Deadlines

WebReg and Registration Changes

Continuing Students may use WebReg now to make schedule adjustment. The add/drop period extends through September 14.

New, first year students will be receiving their schedules on August 20, and will be able to use WebReg to make adjustments for beginning Tuesday, August 25, extending through September 14.

SAS Students may add and drop classes without a W through September 14, but must retain a full-time registration of at least 12 credits.

SAS Students may withdraw from individual classes with a W through November 30, as long as they retain 12 credits of active registration.

SAS Students may withdraw from all classes by taking a Leave of Absence through November 30.

Class Attendance Changes

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 8: attend MONDAY classes

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 25: attend FRIDAY classes

(we know….this seems crazy!)

________________________________________

Advising and Registration Assistance

Help is just a mouse-click away! Like you, SAS Advisors are working remotely, though the physical Advising Centers are closed. But, we are here to assist you on-line:

Need help registering or adjusting your schedule: Advisors are available for Live Chat weekdays 9am-5pm EST

Want to reach us by email? This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Virtual Advising Appointments: Need to speak with an advisor for long term planning? Call 848-932-8888 to set up an appointment – Coming Soon: Schedule your appointment with our new on-line scheduling tool!

The Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience would like to congratulate our 2020 senior graduates for their outstanding accomplishment and express our gratitude for your patience and understanding during the transition to online education. These past few months have not been easy on anyone, especially for our senior graduates navigating future endeavors such as continuing studies and pursuing careers.

A virtual celebration to honor our 2020 graduating seniors was held on Thursday, May 14, 2020 featuring student speakers that shared their experience at Rutgers with their fellow graduates. CBN also honored Anuja Bahulekar, Morgan Fishman, and Allyson Stillwell with a CBN AAA Award for their exemplary academic record of a cumulative GPA of 4.0. Awards for student research accomplishments were also announced.  The Department recognized Nicholas Page, Anurag Modak, Ivan Bobkov, Rucha Janodia, and Mohana Biswas with a CBN Research Award, and  Nora Kiledjian, Liam Hiester, and Aisha Patel for the outstanding thesis awards.

Thank you graduates for your hard work and dedication. Congratulations CBN graduates and best wishes for your future success!

• Referenced Person: Burger, Joanna

Congratulations to Dr. Joanna Burger for being awarded the Distinguished Career Award at the recent PROTEMASS Society meetings in Caparica, Portugal. This meeting in particular was on Pollutant Toxic Ions and Molecules (PTIM). Dr. Burger presented on Temporal Trends in Heavy Metals in US Atlantic Coast Estuaries: A Food Chain Approach and Emerging Issues and has been honored with the Distinguished Career Award for her notable contributions.

• Referenced Person: Young, Wise

Reaching Out to People Living with a Devastating Injury

Wise Young opens up a lab to patients and their families

Charlene Lightcap had never been to Rutgers. But one Friday night she drove from her Delaware home to the Nelson Laboratories building on Busch Campus.

Her mission was personal. Wise Young, School of Arts and Sciences professor and one of the world's foremost experts on spinal cord injury, was holding an open house in which he'd discuss his efforts to help patients recover and walk again.

Lightcap, whose daughter Renee was paralyzed in a car accident several years ago, had no idea what to expect.

"I just decided to go," Lightcap said. "I never thought I'd actually meet Dr. Young."

Yet minutes after stepping off the elevator, she found herself shaking hands with the noted neuroscientist.

"Hi, I'm Charlene, and my daughter Renee is quadriplegic," she said.

"Hi Charlene," Young said in a reassuring voice. "I'm glad you came."

She joined about 40 others at the W. M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience, where Young serves as founding director, and holds open houses that include a tour, film, and a lecture that starts with the basics of spinal cord injury and moves to the latest treatments. 

Article written by John Chadwick, SAS Senior Writer
To read the full article, click [here].

• Referenced Person: Huda, Rafiq

The Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience is excited to welcome Dr. Rafiq Huda to the department in January 2020! Dr. Huda completed his undergraduate studies at Carleton College, where he studied Biology and Neuroscience and continued his training through graduate studies at Northwestern University. Using cellular electrophysiology techniques, he uncovered novel mechanisms for respiratory motor control by brainstem neural circuits. Seeking to bridge the mechanisms operating at cellular and systems levels, he did his postdoctoral work in the Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, where he extended his training to systems neuroscience and advanced optical methods for analysis of neural circuits in behaving mice. He uncovered the function of distinct prefrontal cortex circuits in attention and motor planning and also dissected the role of striatal circuits in reward-based learning. Dr. Huda’s long-term research goal is to understand the cellular and neural circuit mechanisms underlying key cognitive functions like attention and behavioral flexibility. Current work in his lab emphasizes the role of molecularly- and anatomically-defined cortical, striatal, and midbrain circuits in attention and flexibility using next-generation optical tools. In addition to resolving the contribution of these circuits to various cognitive functions, his work will identify general principles for information flow and computation in long-range brain circuits.

CBN recently held our annual CBN Gathering on October 10, 2019 at the Nelson Biological Labs. The gathering was aimed towards students who are currently in the CBN major and those who are interested in becoming CBN majors. Through several presentations and a period to allow mingling and advising, the event allowed students to get to know the CBN major, CBN student organizations and explore career opportunities.

This year, the gathering featured two main presentations. The first was by Dr. Gregory Sobol, who discussed the process of getting into medical school and what students should have in mind before they apply. Secondly, Dr. Janet Alder discussed alternate career options and various graduate studies in the biomedical sciences.

Following the presentations, students, presenters and faculty were given the opportunity to network and advise. One of the CBN student organizations that participated in the gathering this year was CBN Society. They host journal club meetings, medical school trips, and other activities that help CBN peers in applying to medical school or in pursuing a Ph.D. program. 

Photo Credits to My Nguyen.  

• Referenced Person: Daniels, Brian

Dr. Brian Daniels has received a $75,000 grant from the American Parkinson's Disease Association to study roles for programmed cell death signaling in astrocytes during Parkinson's Disease (PD). The Daniels lab will use several new genetic systems to selectively manipulate cell death signaling in astrocytes, both in cell culture systems and in a mouse model of PD. These studies aim to identify molecular mechanisms that promote harmful astrocyte activation in PD, with the ultimate goal of informing future development of therapies targeting this process.

Congratulations to Diego Prado De Maio from the Covey Lab for receiving a fellowship with the American Association of Immunologists!

In the Covey lab, they are investigating the mechanisms that regulate normal and aberrant immune responses. When an individual encounters a foreign substance or pathogen it triggers the immune system to become activated so that it can 1) identify the substance as foreign, 2) prevent its spread, and 3) eliminate it completely from the body. A key aspect of our immune system is the capability to mount a response that is both highly specific to the pathogen and is able to create a ‘memory bank’ to protect against subsequent reinfection. Two prominent players in this adaptive response are T cells and B cells. Their lab focuses on a major subset of T cells, the CD4 helper T cells, which, as their name implies, provide ‘help’ to other immune cells to boost their functional properties. One of the most critical signals provided to B cells activates the CD40 pathway and this occurs through binding of T cell-expressed CD40L with CD40 expressed on B cells. Their lab had previously identified a novel pathway which regulates levels of CD40L on T cells. By removing this pathway in mice, they are attempting to understand the importance of this pathway and how varying CD40L levels can impact typical and atypical immune responses. 

Diego's project, which the American Association of Immunologists granted us the Careers in Immunology Fellowship for, is to investigate how this particular pathway of CD40L expression can affect the autoimmune disease lupus erythematosus or lupus. In lupus, T cells and B cells identify some of the body’s own molecules and cells as foreign (similar to a pathogen) and begin mounting a defense against them.  This generates an ongoing immune response which can damage tissues and cause chronic disease. They are confident that their current research will shine new light on the fine details that lead an immune response to attack their own body. Their overall goal with this research is that it will provide new avenues for targeted therapies that can decrease autoimmune responses without leaving individuals vulnerable to attack by other pathogens.

Congratulations to Anton Omelchenko from the Firestein Lab for receiving a fellowship grant of $100,500!

The Graduate Student Fellowship consists of three-year awards of $27,500 per annum with an additional $6,000 for tuition. The aim of this study is to assess the therapeutic efficacy of exosome-based delivery of molecules which inhibit the expression of a gene encoding the sodium-calcium exchanger 1, or NCX1, for the treatment of mild traumatic brain injury. The calcium ion plays an important role in the biological mechanisms, which induce extensive cell damage in the brain after brain trauma. NCX1 is a protein that regulates the amount of calcium present inside of neurons and supporting glial cells. Impaired function of NCX1 contributes significantly to the dysregulation of calcium balance in neurons and glial cells, leading to subsequent cell damage and cell death.

Targeting proteins, such as NCX, in the brain with standard pharmaceutical drugs is difficult due to lack of drug diffusion across the blood brain barrier, a biological system that prevents easy passage of molecules into the brain from the bloodstream. A novel system to introduce therapeutics into the brain is the use of exosomes, nanoscale biological vesicles naturally released by cells for intercellular communication. These vesicles can be harvested from cells, loaded with drugs or other therapeutic molecules, and injected into the bloodstream to deliver the intended therapy to the brain.

For this study, we propose to develop a system using targeted exosomes to deliver a molecular therapy to reduce the amount of NCX protein in neurons in the brain after trauma. Our aim is to test the delivery system in cell culture and mice, and ultimately, assess the therapeutic potential of the system with respect to learning and memory deficits and cell damage in an animal model of mild brain injury. We hope that our proposed work will provide key stepping stones for future therapeutic strategies involving novel delivery of therapeutics for traumatic brain injury.

Congratulations to our undergraduates who successfully presented their summer research projects at the DLS SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) poster presentation on August 13th! 

Students awarded the DLS SURF Fellowship this year include Atul Bhattiprolu, Isabel Biermann, Nithisha Cheedalla, Alekhya Kunaparaju, Aisha Patel, Ritika Raghavan, Tara Shrier and Jemmie Tsai. 

The Division of Life Sciences Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship award includes a $3500 stipend for summer research experience. The Fellowship is funded by the Division of Life Sciences, the Human Genetics Institute of New Jersey, and by a generous endowment from Duncan and Nancy MacMillan. After working full time in a lab for 10 weeks over the summer, each student has submitted a 2-3 page research progress report and presented their research findings at the SURF poster presentation.

Abraira Lab Graduate Student, and leader of the Parvalbumin Project; Nofar has been awarded the prestigious $60,000 State of New Jersey Commission on Spinal Cord Research Grant with outstanding commendation. Nofar will use said funding towards her endeavor to characterize the novel parvalbumin spinal cord neuron's role in both locomotive control and spinal cord injury recovery; continuing her stellar work through 2021. 

• Referenced Person: Cai, Qian

Dr. Qian Cai has received a renewal for a $2,625,000 R01 grant to study regulation of mitochondrial quality through mitophagy in Alzheimer’s disease.

The goal of this study is to establish a causative link between mitophagy deficits and early synaptic pathology in a physiological Alzheimer’s disease (AD) model and define mechanistic details of a strategy that can rescue mitophagy deficiency and bioenergetic dysfunction in AD mice. The identified mechanisms are expected to provide new concepts leading to preventive and therapeutic strategies that will benefit the growing number of AD patients who have mitochondrial deficits and metabolic dysfunction, and may suggest strategies for other age-related neurodegenerative disorders and healthy neuronal aging. Dr. Cai's studies will advance understanding of a critical early step in AD pathogenesis.

• Referenced Person: Firestein, Bonnie

Professor Bonnie Firestein was awarded a 2-year $8,000 grant as part of the Rutgers Global Grant Competition.

The award titled, “The role of αKlotho forms in neuroprotection and recovery following traumatic brain injury” is a joint project with Professor Cristoforo Scavone from at the Universty of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Jennifer Jiang, an undergraduate student in Dr. Wei Dai’s group, received the Best Young Research Talk (sponsored by Agrisera) for her presentation on "Structural and Functional Analyses of Photosynthetic Protein Complexes in Thylakoid Membranes of a Marine Diatom" at the 36th Eastern Regional Photosynthesis Conference (Woods Hole, MA. May 3-5, 2019).

For two years, she has been working in the Dai Laboratory, using cryo-electron tomography, proteomics and biophysical tools to study the structural architecture and spatial distribution of photosynthetic protein complexes embedded in thylakoid membranes. The primary objective is to gain insight into the molecular machinery responsible for supporting robust photophysiology in photosynthetic organisms. Congratulations Jennifer and best wishes as she begins her PhD this fall at Rutgers!

• Referenced Person: Abraira, Victoria

Victoria Abraira, an assistant professor in Rutgers Cell Biology and Neuroscience was selected as a 2019 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. by the The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences provides funding to young investigators of outstanding promise in science relevant to the advancement of human health.

The program makes grants to selected academic institutions to support the independent research of outstanding individuals who are in their first few years of their appointment at the assistant professor level.

Abraira is only the fourth faculty member and first woman from Rutgers University to win this honor!

Congratulations to this Rutgers University—New Brunswick scholar whose research explores the neural circuits involved in processing and responding to touch.

"Although touch is an important part of our everyday lives and shapes how we move through the world and interact with others, it is the least studied of all the senses," Abraira said in her bio posted on Pew. "As a postdoctoral fellow, I discovered that most of the neurons in the skin that detect touch relay information to cells in the spinal cord, rather than communicating directly with the brain."

Using methods in molecular genetics coupled with advanced techniques for manipulating and monitoring the activity of individual neurons in awake mice, her team will stimulate or silence specific spinal circuits to determine how they encode tactile sensations and use this information to guide the animal’s behavior and its ability to coordinate movement.

The team will also explore, for the first time, how social touch is modulated by spinal circuits that differ from those that process the touch that allows us to grasp and distinguish objects.

"Our findings could lead to new treatments for disorders that impair social interactions, such as autism, or to improved therapies for spinal cord injury," she says.

The Pew Charitable Trusts awarded 22 early-career researchers who have been selected to join the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences. These promising scientists will receive four years of funding to invest in exploratory research to advance human health and tackle some of biomedicine’s most challenging questions. Dr. Abraira will explore the neural circuits involved in processing and responding to touch. To read the full announcement, click [here].

• Referenced Person: Jiang, Peng

Targeting a key gene before birth could someday help lead to a treatment for Down syndrome by reversing abnormal embryonic brain development and improving cognitive function after birth, according to a Rutgers-led study.

Using stem cells that can turn into other cells in the brain, researchers developed two experimental models – a living 3D “organoid” model of the brain and a mouse brain model with implanted human cells – to investigate early brain development linked to Down syndrome, according to the study in the journal Cell Stem Cell. The study focused on human chromosome 21 gene OLIG2.

To read the full article, click [here].
To read the full paper, click [here].

Kusuma Anath, Role of Orexin On Binge Eating Behavior Studied Through Pharmacogenetic Modulation

Erin Kelly, Characterizing the Endogenous Neuronal Distribution of Vinculin for an Investigation of the Forces that Transduce Mechanical Cues in Neurons

Ansley Kunnath, Sex-Specific Effects of Antipsychotics and D-Serine on Rat Cortical Neurons

Charles Morse, Multiple Action Potential Thresholds Characterize the Responses of Spiral Ganglion Neurons to Dynamic Stimuli

Meher Pandher, Total Leukocyte Quantification by Linear Smear Detects Gender Differences in Immune Response to Spinal Cord Injury

Manan Parekh, Addressing a Novel Mechanism of Neuronal TrashExtrustion in C. elegans and Developing a High Throughput Unbiased Genetic Screen Protocol

Riya Patel, Establishing a Knockdown of Chd4 in Order to Determine its Role in Neuronal Differentiation

Avina Rami, Isolation of Exosomes from Human Umbilical Cord for the Development of Exosome-Rich Plasma

Fady Soliman, Exploring the Role of Exosomal Netrin-1 in Pre-Metastatic Niche Development for PDAC

The Henry Rutgers Scholar Award recognizes School of Arts and Sciences graduating seniors who have completed outstanding independent research projects. These awards are offered across all departments of the School of Arts and Sciences, and so represent only the very finest achievements of students.

On April 12, 2019, thirty-four CBN Honors students presented their work at the 2019 Honors Colloquium, a poster session where fellow students, faculty mentors, and other CBN faculty gathered to learn about the research they have been conducting in laboratories across campus. CBN Honors students pursue research in labs within the department of their major - the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience - and two other School of Arts and Sciences departments, Genetics and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, and also Rutgers Biomedical and Health (RBHS). 

• Referenced Person: Margolis, David

Learning how to tie a shoe or shoot a basketball isn’t easy, but the brain somehow integrates sensory signals that are critical to coordinating movements so you can get it right.

Now, Rutgers scientists have discovered that sensory signals in the brain’s cerebral cortex, which plays a key role in controlling movement and other functions, have a different pattern of connections between nerve cells and different effects on behavior than motor signals. The motor area of the cortex sends signals to stimulate muscles.

To read the full article, click [here]. 

• Referenced Person: Daniels, Brian

Join us in welcoming Dr. Brian Daniels, our new Assistant Professor! Dr. Daniels is from Greenville, SC and received BA/BS degrees in English and behavioral biology. He began his research career as an undergraduate studying the behavioral consequences of chronic infection with the neurotropic parasite Toxoplasma gondii. He maintained his interest in infectious diseases of the central nervous system as a PhD student in neuroscience at Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied interactions between the nervous and immune systems during West Nile virus encephalitis. He pursued postdoctoral training in immunology at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he worked to define specialized host defense mechanisms in the brain to neuroinvasive viruses, including Zika virus. The goal of his lab at Rutgers is to understand how the resident cells of the brain and spinal cord coordinate immune responses to both infection and sterile traumatic injury, with a particular interest in cell types that comprise the blood-brain barrier, the primary physiologic interface between the nervous system and circulating immune cells. Using a combination of mouse models and advanced tissue culture systems, they hope to uncover molecular mechanisms that shape both protective and pathologic neuroinflammation.

Nicholas Page was just 14 when he started working in the lab of a Rutgers–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School professor. He landed that gig by simply asking for it. Page was participating in the Brain Bee, a competition for high school students hosted by the Medical School.

   “I was mingling with faculty and asking about research opportunities for high school students,” he says.

The one who said “yes” was Mladen-Roko Rasin, a professor of neuroscience and cell biology who studies the formation of the brain, and how it is disrupted in diseases such as autism and epilepsy.

“The rest is history,” says Page, of Matawan, New Jersey.

Story by John Chadwick. To read the full article, click [here].

• Referenced Person: Kiledjian, Megerditch

Megerditch (Mike) Kiledjian, Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers–New Brunswick.

Kiledjian’s research focuses on the mechanistic understanding of mRNA turnover and its consequence on human disorders. His lab’s primary emphasis has been on a key regulatory step involving the removal of the protective 5´end cap, termed decapping. The lab has identified all known mRNA decapping enzymes and has made significant contributions to our understanding of how decapping contributes to the physiology of the innate immune response, cell migration and cognitive function. The lab’s most recent focus has been on the link between RNA metabolism and cellular metabolism. The lab identified a novel mRNA 5´end cap consisting of nicotinamide adenine diphosphate (NAD). The presence of an NAD cap on mRNAs demonstrates an important correlation between mRNA decay and cellular energetics and new avenues to modulate gene expression in human cells.

The association cited Kiledjian for “distinguished contributions to advancements in the life sciences, particularly in understanding the molecular mechanisms of post-transcriptional regulation of gene 

[He is one of] five Rutgers professors have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) – a distinction awarded by association members.

The AAAS today announced 416 new fellows, citing their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. The honorees will be presented an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on February 16 at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2019 AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Todd Bate. For the full article, please click [here].

• Referenced Person: Covey, Lori

Lori Covey, professor of Cell Biology and Neuroscience and an accomplished scholar in the field of immunology has been named Area Dean of Life Sciences.

Lori succeeds Ken Breslauer, who after two decades of leading the School of Arts and Science's life science programs, has decided to return to the faculty and pursue research.

Lori brings years of experience as a Rutgers University faculty member, research scientist, and all-around academic leader. She received her undergraduate degree from University of California, Riverside and her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Following postdoctoral training at Columbia Medical School, Lori joined Rutgers in 1993 and gained renown for her discovery of novel pathways regulating T cell-B cell interactions that are critical to the body’s defense system against disease.

Lori has served in a number of key leadership roles, at Rutgers and in national science organizations. She was the associate chair of the cell biology and neuroscience department from 2012 to 2016, and a member of the committee assessing the SAS Core Curriculum. After the creation of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Lori served on the team that evaluated the graduate program curriculum at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

As a member of the American Association of Immunologists, Lori was Chair of the Committee on the Status of Women and was appointed to run the advocacy programs for the Committee on Public Affairs. In the latter role, Lori helped lead public policy efforts for the association as well as advocate for scientists nationwide, including lobbying Congress for increased support for biomedical research. She also has been a member of several National Institutes of Health Study Sections responsible for evaluating grant proposals for individual, collaborative, and institutional research projects as well as student and postdoctoral training grants.

Throughout her career Lori has been an outstanding mentor to young scientists. Her students achieve prominent positions at institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and at top-tier colleges and universities nationwide.

The Area Dean of Life Sciences works with departmental chairs and directors to provide oversight for the recruitment, hiring, mentoring, promotion, and retention of faculty and staff critical to the university missions of research, education, and service. The dean also participates in the strategic planning and decision-making process of the School of Arts and Sciences providing recommendations and assistance to the Executive Dean.

Congratulations to Dr. Lori Covey!

• Referenced Person: Firestein, Bonnie

Dr. Bonnie Firestein was featured on an NPR All Things Considered podcast. Read more about the story here: https://whyy.org/articles/rutgers-study-proposes-novel-approach-for-treating-traumatic-brain-injury/. 

On Sunday, May 13th, 164 students received BAs in Cell Biology and Neuroscience at the 252nd Commencement.  

Our departmental celebration on May 10th was held, where students gathered together with faculty to share a dinner, and listened to remarks by their fellow classmates, Rahul Kataria, and Cynthia Zheng. Personalized engraved medallions were also presented to the graduates. Following tradition, the backs of all the medallions were emblazoned with a special image – this year’s was designed by Adin Aoki.

Students were also recognized at the celebration. Started last year, the Auerbach Academic Achievement Award for CBN seniors graduating with an exemplary academic record, was presented to five students -  Darius Hunt, Mark Mikhail, Neil Patel, Vyom Sawhney, and Jeffrey Sheu. These five students graduated with an impressive cumulative GPA of 4.0. Two students, Justin Mathew and Griffin Poole, received the Best Honors Poster Award from the Honors Colloquium.

 (L) Recipients of the Auerbach Academic Achievement Awards: (from left) Darius Hunt, Vyom Sawhney, Neil Patel.
Not pictured: Mark Mikhail and Jeffrey Sheu. 
(R) Recipients of the 2018 Best Honors Poster Awards: Griffin Poole and Justin Mathew

Congratulations and best wishes to all CBN graduates!

On Thursday, May 3, 2018, Dr. Qian Cai was named one of the University's most distinguished young faculty by this year's Board of Trustees Research Fellowships for Scholarly Excellence. Dr. Cai, one of five faculty recipients at Rutgers, was honored in recognition of her remarkable and innovative research into how defects in fundamental cell biological processes involved in protein trafficking and degradation contribute to disease pathology, and specifically, her significant insights that are providing a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms associated with Alzheimer's Disease. To see the program and other recipients, click here. You can also read more about it here.

On March 30, 2018, sixteen CBN Honors students presented their work at the 2018 Honors Colloquium, a poster session where fellow students, faculty mentors, and other CBN faculty gathered to learn about the research they have been conducting in laboratories across campus. CBN Honors students pursue research in labs within the department of their major - the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience - and two other School of Arts and Sciences departments, Genetics and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, and also Rutgers Biomedical and Health (RBHS). 

CBN Major Nicholas Page was the recipient of the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship. He along with Maine Christos, another Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences student, are among 211 selected nationwide as Goldwater Scholars for the 2018-19 academic year, the top undergraduate award of its kind in the natural sciences, engineering and mathematics.  An additional 281 nominees, including Rutgers junior Lawrence Gardner, a mechanical engineering major, earned honorable mentions.

To read the full article, please click [here].

The Rutgers Brain Health Institute, Rutgers-Newark and New Jersey Institute of Technology announced awardees in late January of their 2017 Pilot Grant Program in Neuroscience. Assistant Professor Peng Jiang, Assistant Professor, was awarded two of the eight pilot grants! The BHI-RUN-NJIT Pilot Grants in Neuroscience program is a multi-institutional funding program that provides pilot funding to foster basic and translational collaborative research between neuroscientists at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Rutgers New Brunswick, Rutgers Newark, and NJIT.  This 1-year pilot grant mechanism encourages cross-disciplinary collaborations by requiring that projects be directed by two or more principal investigators from different Rutgers schools or NJIT. Over the past two years the pilot program has funded 18 grants totaling $720,000. The goal of the funding program is to provide seed funding for new collaborative research projects to generate preliminary data necessary for extramural applications to federal, state and private funding agencies. The outcome data show that the 2015 pilot awardees have so far received nine extramural grant awards totaling $5.4 million.Learn more about the pilot grant program. 

The department held a retreat open to faculty and students on Thursday, January 11, 2018 at the Multi-Purpose Room in the Cook Campus Center. The retreat featured seminars by Professors Kelvin Kwan, Qian Cai, Peng Jiang, David Margolis, Gabriella D'Arcangelo, Max Tischfield, and Victoria Abraira who spoke about their research. Later on, postdoctoral associates, fellows, and students presented on their research through a poster session. Thanks to all who came out!

Join us in welcoming Drs. Victoria Abraira and Max Tischfield, joined the CBN faculty in January 2018 as Assistant Professors! Dr. Abraira graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in Biological Sciences and is coming to us from a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Tischfield is a graduate of the Rutgers College Honors Program in the Department of Cell Biology. He recently completed postdoctoral studies at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the Boston Children's hospital. Welcome Drs. Abraira and Tischfield!

CBN will be hosting a retreat on Thursday, January 11, 2018 open to undergraduate students, graduate students postdoctoral associates, and faculty. The first half of the retreat will consist of presentations from CBN faculty and the latter half will be a poster presentation by graduate students and postdoctoral associates. Students will have the opportunity to meet with faculty and other students in the department. Click here for more information. Registration is free and open to all who are interested. 

Assistant Professor Kelvin Kwan's research on inner ear stem cells was recently featured in Rutgers Today! Read more about it here. 

CBN recently held our first annual CBN Major Fair on October 6, 2017 at the Livingston Student Center. The fair was geared towards students who are currently in the CBN major and those who are interested in becoming CBN majors.  It featured three presentations. One by Dr. Shu Chan Hsu, Undergraduate Director at CBN who introduced the major and gave a brief overview of the classes and requirements, followed by Dr. Greg Sobol of the Health Professions Office, who spoke about getting into Medical School, and the last one was by Joe Scott, the Associate Director of Career Services who presented about how to maximize efficiency in job and internship searching.

After the presentations, students had the opportunity to visit booths, which included ones from CBN Student societies, such as RU WINS, RU Brain Society, and CBN Student Society. Students met and mingled with CBN faculty who were also there to meet with students. There was a great turnout, including a high school student who was looking into CBN as a potential major in college!

At the 2016-2017 Chancellor's Celebration of Faculty Excellence held on Tuesday, October 17, 2017, Professor Gabriella D'Arcangelo was recognized for receiving an Idea Development Award from the Department of Defense, Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Research Program. This grant award supports current research in Professor D'Arcangelo's lab aimed at better understanding the cellular mechanisms of Tuberous Sclerosis Complex, a developmental brain disorder associated with autism and epilepsy.

Congratulations to Bitha Narayanan, a graduate student in Dr. Lori Covey's lab, the recipient of the 2017 Victor Stollar Award! Bitha's research focuses on viral infections, the immune system, and immunotherapy. 

Congratulations to Dr. Bonnie Firestein for receiving the NJCBIR grant to begin 7/1/2017. It is one of only two large grants awarded, and the rest are pilot grants. 

Congratulations to Dr. Bonnie Firestein and her lab for their recently published paper on the usage of lithium in treating brain injuries, which has garnered a lot of attention. 

On Sunday, May 14th, over 171 students received BAs in Cell Biology and Neuroscience at the 251st Commencement.  

Our departmental celebration was held on May 11th where students received personalized engraved medallions. 

Recipients of the 2017 Auerbach Achievement Award

Congratulations and best wishes to all CBN graduates!

Last Friday, April 21, 2017, twenty four CBN Honors students presented their work at the 2017 Honors Colloquium, a poster session where fellow students, faculty mentors, and other CBN faculty gathered to learn about the research they have been conducting in laboratories across campus. CBN Honors students pursue research in labs within the department of their major - the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience - and two other School of Arts and Sciences departments, Genetics and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, and also Rutgers Biomedical and Health (RBHS). At the event, two students received awards for Best Poster:  Anna Chen and Parth K. Patel. 

Read about Andres Villegas's journey here.

Congratulations to Drs. Xiaobing Luo, Xinfu Jiao and Mike Kiledjian for their recent Article in Nature on m⁶A_m epitranscriptomic regulation of mRNA stability.

            Also see Highlighted Preview by Weinberg and Gross.

Congratulations to Drs. Xinfu Jiao, Ron Hart and Mike Kiledjian for their upcoming paper in Cell (March 9^th issue) on the identification of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD⁺) capped RNAs in mammalian cells.

The CBN Seminar Series is held on most Fridays at 12 pm in Nelson D-406.  Everyone is welcome to attend.  Refreshments are served.
<Download Spring 2017 CBN Seminar Series Schedule>

Congratulations to Dr. Kathleen Scott for receiving the New Brunswick Chancellor Award for Faculty Excellence in Service.  Read more.

The Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position at the level of Assistant Professor to develop an innovative research program focused on basic immunological processes relating to neurological disorders and/or cancer biology.

As part of the Division of Life Sciences, a group of Departments and Institutes that serves to provide opportunities for interdisciplinary research, the Department of CBN is home to an interactive, collegial faculty with broad interests encompassing immunology, molecular biology, stem cell biology and neurobiology.  Multiple opportunities for collaboration exist within the Department as well as with labs situated nearby at The Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, The Child Health Institute and Princeton University.  Rutgers offers excellent facilities and competitive start-up packages.

Outstanding applicants will hold a Ph.D., MD or equivalent degree and have extensive postdoctoral training in immunology or a related field. A strong track record of achievement is required.  The successful candidate will be expected to teach courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the fields of immunology, cell biology or neuroscience and establish and maintain a productive extramurally funded research program.

Interested individuals are encouraged to apply online with a curriculum vitae, a brief statement of research plans, and the names, addresses, and contact information of three individuals who will provide a letter of reference.

Applications should be submitted as soon as possible but not later than December 15, 2017. Late applications will be considered only if positions remain available.

Rutgers University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

CBN Assistant Professor Long-Jun Wu's work is featured in an article entitled, "Targeting Brain Cells to Alleviate Neuropathic Pain," in the August 8, 2016 issue of Rutgers Today.

In Cape May County, there is a growing tension between economics and ecology.  Dr. Joanna Burger is quoted in The Philadelphia Inquirer article N.J. decision ignites Shore strife: Oysters vs. red knots.

On Sunday, March 15, over 200 students will be receiving BAs in Cell Biology and Neuroscience at the 250th Anniversary Commencement. 

Our departmental celebration was held on March 12th where students received personalized engraved medallions containing an image from Dr. Robin Davis' laboratory.

CBN faculty and students dined together before the festivities began

CBN faculty and graduating students wearing their CBN medallions.

 Congratulations and best wishes to all CBN graduates!

Under a new pilot grant program offered by the Brain Health Institute at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Rutgers University–Newark, and New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) designed to drive new collaborations, neuroscientists from various campuses and units at Rutgers and NJIT were recently awarded nine, one-year research grants totaling $360,000. The projects are expected to generate preliminary data that can then be used in applying for federal, state, and private grants. Each project is directed by at least two principal investigators from different schools. Collaborative teams submitted 27 applications for review by an external scientific review committee and an internal programmatic review committee. Nine $40,000 awards were made. Seven of the nine funded teams have already taken their pilot grant proposal and submitted new applications to external funding agencies. Learn more about the projects.

CBN Professor Margolis and Professor James Tepper (RU-Newark) received an award for their project entitled "Role of Sensory Cortex in Behavioral Response Inhibition."  Beyond its traditional role as an early-stage relay of tactile information, the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) has an increasingly appreciated role in sensorimotor behavior and motor control. Our proposed experiments explore the hypothesis that S1 is involved in sensory-driven behavioral response inhibition via differential connectivity with neural circuits of the striatum. Response inhibition, the ability to stop a goal-directed behavior in the appropriate context, is fundamental for the cognitive control of behavior. Impaired response inhibition underlies impulsive behaviors present across many neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Tourette’s syndrome, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and addiction disorders. While current thinking holds that signaling from prefrontal cortex to striatum mediates response inhibition, this idea may be too simplistic; other cortical areas including S1 provide massive projections to the dorsal striatum (DStr) that could play important functional roles, especially during specific behavioral contexts. The proposed research will investigate the functional circuitry of S1-mediated response inhibition using an integrative experimental approach including optogenetics, mouse behavior and electrophysiology. The results have the potential not only to change current thinking about the role of S1-DStr projections in behavioral control, but could also identify S1-DStr signaling as a potential therapeutic target in disorders involving impulsive behaviors.

Cure SMA has awarded a $140,000 research grant to Dr. Kiledjian, CBN Chair and Distinguished Pofessor. SMA (spinal muscular atrophy) is a disease that robs people of physical strength by affecting the motor nerve cells in the spinal cord, taking away the ability to walk, eat, or breathe. It is the number one genetic cause of death for infants.

CBN Distinguished Professor Joanna Burger is featured in an article entitled, "Joanna Burger:  Respect for All Living Things," in the December 2015 issue of Risk Analysis.  [Download the Article]

Recently, Rutgers University-New Brunswick was ranked #2 in the nation for best schools to study health professions.  CBN professor, Bruce Babiarz, is featured in an article discussing the important role the Health Professions Office plays in students' lives.

The National Center for Complementary & Integrative Health (NCCIH) of the National Institutes of Health has awarded Professor Ah-Ng Tony Kong, Distinguished Professor, Glaxo Endowed Chair in Pharmaceutics and Graduate Director, a 5-year RO1 grant of $3,335,313 for the project, “Epigenetic mechanisms of indole-3-carbinol (I3C)/diindolylemthane (DIM) and triterpenoids in prevention of prostate inflammation and related disease.” The I3C/DIM found abundantly in cruciferous vegetables and triterpenoid ursolic acid (UA) from medicinal plants, fruits and vegetables such as blueberries, cranberries, beets, and mushrooms, are commonly used as botanical dietary supplements.  This grant will examine how chronic inflammatory processes can drive changes of inflammatory epigenome and investigate how botanical/natural products can modify these inflammatory epigenomic alterations resulting in suppression of inflammation and its related diseases including cancer in the prostate. In addition, the Analytical Core directed by Drs. Ronald P. Hart (Cell Biology), Brian T. Buckley (EOHSI) and Michael Verzi (Genetics) will develop the latest technology in next-generation sequencing coupled with bioinformatics, and in vivo metabolism, pharmacokinetics-pharmacodynamics studies of botanicals using LCMS technology.  Better understanding of the molecular mechanism of I3C, DIM and UA via epigenetic alterations can enhance the use of I3C, DIM and UA in disease prevention and can potentially benefit thousands.

Read about Dr. Kiledjian's journey to Rutgers

Two CBN professors were promoted on July 1st.  Mike Kiledjian, CBN Chair, was promoted to Distinguished Professor and Ping Xie was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. 

Wednesday, November 05, 2014 • 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Location: Rutgers Student Center

Admissions officers, students, and alumni come together to discuss graduate and law school opportunities. With over 100 programs expected to attend, this fair will be a great networking opportunity for both candidates and admissions officers alike. This event is only open to Rutgers University students and alumni from all majors. Attendees should dress professionally.

September 19, 2014 – Qian Cai, MD, PhD – Rutgers University
September 26, 2014 – Yuk Fai Leung, PhD – Purdue University
October 10, 2014   –  Dilek Colak, PhD – Cornell University
October 17, 2014  –  Edwin Rubel, PhD – University of Washington – Seattle
October 24, 2014  –  Long-Jun Wu, PhD – Rutgers University
October 31, 2014 –  Shi-Yong Sun, PhD ­– Emory Univ. School of Medicine
December 12, 2014 – Adam Kepecs, PhD – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Seminars meet from 12 - 1 pm in Nelson Labs B-228.    

Download Fall 2014 CBN Seminar Series Schedule

The Center for Integrative Proteomics Research and the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, seek to hire an outstanding tenure track assistant professor in the area of Cryo-Electron Microscopy. Applicants must have a Ph.D. and/or M.D., a distinguished record of scholarship, a strong commitment to excellence in teaching, and the leadership abilities to develop and support a world-class research program. The Center is located in a newly built 75,000-square-foot facility dedicated to fostering interdisciplinary research in the biological and biomedical sciences using complementary quantitative tools of measurement and analysis. The Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience is part of the Division of Life Sciences, a group of Rutgers Departments and Institutes that represent further opportunities for collaboration. Together the Center and the Department will provide access to a broad array of excellent research facilities and a competitive start-up package.

The Center and the Department are located adjacent to the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, and are less than one hour from New York City and Philadelphia.

Interested individuals should apply online through the Department’s recruitment website (http://cbnsearch.rutgers.edu) with a curriculum vitae, a brief statement of research plans, and the names, addresses, and contact information of three individuals who will provide a letter of reference.

The Search Committee will begin its deliberations on October 15, 2013.  Applications received after December 1, 2013 will only be considered in exceptional circumstances.

Rutgers University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

Dr. Bonnie Firestein received the Rutgers Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research for her work on the cell biology of mammalian neurons.

Welcome to our newest faculty members, Professor Long-Jun Wu and Professor David Margolis! Dr. Wu will arrive September 2012 and will study communication between microglia and neurons in normal and diseased brain. Dr. Margolis will arrive January 2013 and will focus on imaging of neural plasticity.

Epigenetic link to neurodegeneration in ataxia? Professor Karl Herrup recently reported in Nature Medicine that children born with ataxia telangiactasia, a disorder known to be related to DNA repair, can also be linked to proteins that change epigenetic regulation in neurons. Results demonstrated that inhibiting HDAC4 protein in a mouse model was able to reduce symptoms. Read the announcement of Prof. Herrup's discover in a recent Rutgers Today article.

A new model of Alzheimer's Disease Professor Karl Herrup recently published a novel hypothesis to explain the etiology of Alzheimer's Disease. Appearing in the December 15, 2010 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, Prof. Herrup's hypothesis is that AD is triggered by three steps, starting with an initiating injury, continuing with an inflammatory response, and resulting in a change in cell state. This model places the so-called "amyloid theory" in context of a larger progression of events, helping to explain why therapies targeting amyloid may be insufficient to ameliorate symptoms. Read the profile of Dr. Herrup and his model in a recent Rutgers news release.

Quality control in RNA capping Professor Megerditch Kiledjian's lab has recently published evidence for a novel quality control mechanism in RNA capping in the journal Nature. A recently-discovered protein, Rai1, is found to initiate decay of RNA transcripts bearing aberrant or incomplete cap structures. This work is described in more detail in a recent article in Rutgers Research Highlights.

Professor Kenneth Paradiso joins Rutgers CBN! Prof. Kenneth G. Paradiso, recently of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, has accepted an offer to become one of the newest Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell Biology & Neuroscience at Rutgers University. Prof. Paradiso's research focuses on the electophysiology of the calyx of Held, an important synaptic structure in the brain that helps to integrate audio input. Prof. Paradiso arrives with an NIH K99 Pathway to Independence (PI) Award to support his research. The faculty of CBN welcomes our newest colleague!

Professor Ron Hart awarded NIH Research Challenge Grant Prof. Hart, in collaboration with Prof. Manolis Kellis of CSAIL and the Broad Institute of MIT, was recently awarded a $1M Research Challenge Grant to study the role of small RNAs in regulating epigenetic marks on chromatin. The NIH Research Challenge grant program used ARRA funds to make only about 200 awards having high impact in biomedical or behavioral science and/or public health. Prof. Hart's award was one of a small number of projects using human embryonic stem cells under the new NIH guidelines.

NJ Autism Grant Awarded: Cypin and Neuroligin-1 in synaptogenesis Prof. Bonnie Firestein was recently awarded a grant from the New Jersey Governor's Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Autism. The project will determine how cypin and Neuroligin-1 (NLGN-1) regulate excitatory synapse formation, since creating the appropriate number and type of connections is essential for proper brain development and function. Defects in synapse formation underlie a number of cognitive disorders, including autism and autism spectrum disorders.

NJ Autism Grant Awarded: Reelin protein and autism Prof. Gabriella D'Arcangelo was recently awarded a grant from the New Jersey Governor's Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Autism. The project seeks to investigate the Reelin signaling pathway in synapse formation in developing mouse brain. Autism is believed to be associated with altered synaptic function.