Category Archive for : ‘Palmer Lab News’

Bonnie Lin joined the Palmer lab in August 2019 as a data analyst. She was born and raised in San Diego. She graduated from Amherst college with a background in statistics and neuroscience. Bonnie loves the process of using data and research to address health questions and disparities. In her free time, she’s happy to enjoy San Diego’s nice weather at home and to study MBTI types (she’s an ENTJ). Additionally, she likes almost all things “green”- matcha, being vegetarian, cycling, reducing waste, etc.

Welcome, Bonnie!

Eden’s project focused on calling genotypes for the X and Y chromosomes using GBS data. She was able to adapt the pipeline for use in the sex chromosomes but discovered that imputation was much less successful because the reference genotype data that we had been using for the autosomes is much less complete for the sex chromosomes. Future work will use high and low coverage whole genome sequence data to discover and call SNPs on the sex chromosomes.

Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Roige had a healthy baby girl named Margot. Congratulations, Sandra!

On May 19th, 2019, Ariana Page married Trevor James at Leo Carrillo Ranch in Carlsbad, CA.

Congratulations, Ariana!

Dr. Yu-yu Ren has finished his postdoc in the Palmer lab and has accepted a position as the head Bioinformatics Scientist at AnaptysBio in San Diego, CA. The Palmer Lab will miss him and wishes him the best of luck!

Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Roige was recently promoted from post-doctoral scholar to Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSD. Funded by the TRDRP New Investigator Award, Sandra will derive psychiatric phenotypes from electronic health records from one of the largest biobanks in the US, BioVU, to perform genetic studies of substance use disorders. Sandra is also receiving funds from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD Young Investigator Award) to validate some of the human genetic findings using animal models.

Congratulations, Sandra!

Dr. Abraham Palmer recently organized a visit for Sweetwater High School students to visit UCSD and attend the annual Judd Symposium.

Palmer lab members gathered to celebrate the holidays and Alex Gileta’s graduation before Alex moves back to Chicago. Thanks to all those who celebrated with us!

Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Roige was awarded the Harry June Award. This special award is given to early career researchers in substance abuse and was established in honor of ACNP Member, Harry June, Ph.D. and is funded by the National Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. Dr. June was a renowned research scientist in the field of substance abuse and was a devoted mentor to students and young faculty.  Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Roige was acknowledged for this special award by Dr. Steve Hyman during the President’s Plenary Session: From Genetics to the Neurobiology

On November 1, Alex Gileta defended his thesis at the University of Chicago. The title of his thesis was “Genetic analyses of Pavlovian conditioning in outbred models,” and it was approved by his committee.

Congratulations, Dr. Gileta!