Long time with no news! The COVID pandemic has upended a lot of our plans, making research difficult. However we are pulling through and have a ton of cool projects on the pipeline. We received a pilot grant from the Carney Institute, in collaboration with Ahmed Abdelfattah to use novel genetically encoded voltage indicators to test the role of new neurons on epileptogenesis. We have two papers under review, Sayali’s one on MMP9 and one on the effects of SSRI, both available as preprints. Several undergrads graduated, Andrea in 2020 and Jackie, Alyssa and Janelys in 2021. We also have several summer UTRA students coming, which we will feature soon. It’s been a long haul, but hopefully we’re coming through in decent shape, a little worse for the wear.

Another belated post! Let’s see – Alexis officially joined the lab and was awarded an NSF GRFP AND an HHMI Gilliam Fellowship which she is deferring for a year. Carlos Toro is a new graduate student from MPP Program who will be working on identifying targets of MMP9. Audrey Medeiros, during her rotation obtained some beautiful SBEM data and will be collaborating with us during her PhD in the O’Connor-Giles lab. Three talented undergrads have joined our team: Alyssa Rust, Blanca Perez and Janelys Torres, they have some cool projects lined up. Meanwhile Jack Carter-Hughes, came to visit us for almost a year from Wales, and has now left us to finish his studies.

Yikes, time flies, and we never get around to posting lab news! So, lots of changes!

Torrey got her PhD in May and is now working in the lab as a postdoc for a bit. Alexis joined the lab as a grad student (and received an NSF GRFP!).  Julia, Karine and Alfonso got their undergraduate degrees all with honors! Two new postdocs: Sayali and Adrian. New technician -– Virgilio, summer student – Lizmaylin, new PREP student – Ambar and two new undergrads – Jackie and Andrea. Welcome all! After many years Mimi is leaving us to become a nurse practitioner.

We also forgot to feature Torrey’s Research Matters talk she gave last November. Here she is talking about Neural Circuits: How Brain Meets World

We should update this page more often!

Lots of news! First, congrats to Jenn for graduating! She’ll be spending next year at NYU. Oscar will be going to med school as well in NY. We also welcome several new lab members: Sam, Alfonso and Madhu joined this spring and Alexis will be rotating through this summer. Congrats to Sam, Alfonso and Julia for their UTRAS, and to Karine for her APS award.

Eric James successfully defended his PhD thesis this month and is gearing up for an exciting postdoc in Eve Marder’s lab in Brandeis. Way to go Eric!

Oscar successfully presented his Honors Thesis and poster earlier this month and will be graduating next week! We were supposed to have a picture, but we forgot to take it! In any case Oscar will remain at Brown next year as part of a PREP postbac program while he applies to grad school and med school. Congrats Oscar!

And here he is! Receiving award from Dean Mandel and looking spiffy in his sport coat.

This week we were visited by middle school kids from the Talbot School in Fall River. They won a grant to develop a project to send Xenopus tadpole to the International Space Station! During their visit they learned about Xenopus husbandry, how to study behavior and development and also a little bit abut neuroscience! Good luck with the project and we look forward to assisting you.

Also, check out the article on the Fall River Herald about the project.

This summer we were fortunate enough to host Fidaa and Leslie, both from the Met School in Providence, who were our summer NSF fellows. After taking a class at Brown, the fellows spent time in lab learning about the various techniques we use, and as always was great fun.