Spring 2020 | New & Noteworthy: Postdocs & Students

POSTDOCS

Ryo Higuchi-Sanabria (Dillin lab) - K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award (NIH)

Rick Hooy (Hurley lab) - Ruth L. Kirschstein F32 postdoctoral fellowship (NIH)

Tess Branon (Barton lab), Steven Crossley (C. Chang & Nomura labs) & Katy Ong (Bilder lab) - nominated as Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Fellows
Tess Branon	Steven Crossley	Katy Ong

MCB Postdoc Award recipients

We are excited to announce the recipients of our annual MCB Outstanding Postdoctoral Fellow Awards! Each year, the department honors five postdocs (one in each division) for excellence in research, contributions to the division and department, mentoring, and outreach.

BBS

Basil Greber
(Nogales lab) -
Greber studies the mechanisms of DNA repair and transcription initiation. He has used cryo-electron microscopy to determine the three-dimensional structure of transcription factor IIH, an important molecular complex that plays key roles in both processes.

CDB

Melanie Worley
(Hariharan lab) -
Regeneration of damaged tissues is a complex process that requires the surviving cells to respond, proliferate, and repattern to replace what was lost. Worley investigates the molecular and cellular mechanisms that control tissue regeneration by using single-cell transcriptomics and genetic approaches in the model organism Drosophila.

GGD

David Booth
(King lab) -
Booth has pioneered the development of reverse genetic approaches in choanoflagellates, first by establishing a robust approach for transfection and more recently by establishing CRISPR-Cas9 mediated gene editing in the model choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta. He recently started his own lab at UCSF, where he will use evolutionary and functional approaches to investigate the origin of animal cell types and cell differentiation.

IMP

Patrick Mitchell
(Vance lab) -
Mitchell studies how our cells distinguish between microbes that make us sick (pathogens) from those that do not. His work — in collaboration with his colleagues in the Vance lab — has revealed that host immune sensors can detect activities that are specific to pathogen infections, which is a new and exciting mechanism that is critical for mounting an effective and appropriate host defense.

NEU

Alexandre Tiriac
(Feller lab) -
Detecting the directions in which objects move is critical for an animal’s everyday behavior. Tiriac’s research aims to identify which factors — like visual experience, for example — are important for the development of the retinal circuits that detect the direction of motion.

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Rose Hill (Bautista lab) - received a Weintraub Award for outstanding achievement in the biological sciences for graduate-level academics.	Tomar Langberg (Feldman lab) - received a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship in Israel.
Erika M. Lopez-Alfonzo (A. Martin lab) - is a recipient of the Ford Foundation Pre-doctoral Fellowship, a competitive program administered by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.	Rafael Rivera-Lugo (Portnoy lab) - received the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) Carl Storm Underrepresented Minority Fellowship to support his participation in the 2020 GRC on Microbial Toxins and Pathogenicity.