Category Archive for : ‘Palmer Lab News’

Jonah joined the Palmer Lab in March 2026 as a rotation student in the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology PhD program.

Drs. Abraham Palmer and Sandra Sanchez-Roige were featured in a recent article on the 23andMe blog!

The article, “A Decade of Discovery: Unraveling the Genetics of Behavior with 23andMe and UCSD,” celebrates the partnership between 23andMe, Dr. Abraham Palmer, and Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Roige, and lists the numerous research papers they have collaborated on in the past decade.

Check it out!

Palmer Lab postdoc Dr. Montana Lara was featured in a recent article on the Genetics Society of America (GSA) blog!

The article, “Early Career Leadership Spotlight: Montana Kay Lara,” explores Montana’s research and career interests.

Check it out!

Jai is a rotating first year PhD student from the UCSD Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program who joined the Palmer Lab in January 2026.

Welcome, Jai!

Palmer Lab members enjoyed time together at the annual holiday party on December 18, 2025. Food, fun…and rats!

Palmer Lab members attended SfN/Neuroscience 2025 at the San Diego Convention Center, November 16 – 19 2025.

Did you visit us at the RATTACA booth to support the HS rats P30 center?

Dr. Brittany Leger successfully defended her thesis titled “Utilizing a network biology framework to integrate GWAS signal across species, variants, and traits” on September 15, 2025. 

Congratulations, Dr. Leger!

See additional photos in the Photo Gallery!

Palmer Lab member Daniel Munro is participating in a NASA study to test a denitrogenation protocol to reduce the risk of decompression sickness in astronauts during spacewalks!

Starting today, he will live for a week in an altitude chamber at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas with seven other test subjects and perform activities to simulate extravehicular activity (EVA) conditions. The results of this research will inform the design of Artemis missions to the moon and beyond.

Jaxon Leighty joined the Palmer Lab in June 2025 as part of the Research Experiences for High School and Undergraduate Students (REHU) summer program through our P30 Center. He is a high school senior at SET High School and plans to pursue a career in molecular biology.

Welcome, Jaxon!

Mohammad joined the Palmer Lab in June 2025 as a laboratory/animal assistant. His research interest is in the gut-brain axis.

Welcome, Mohammad!