Category Archive for : ‘Palmer Lab News’

Celine St. Pierre will start her PhD in Human & Statistical Genetics at Washington University in St. Louis this fall. Congratulations, Celine!

Liz Joyce, our former undergraduate, has received a Fulbright Open Study/Research Award as part of the 2017-2018 Fulbright U.S. Student Program. She will use this opportunity to continue studying genetics in Germany next year. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the largest U.S. exchange program offering opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide. The program currently awards approximately 1,900 grants annually in all fields of study, and operates in more than 140 countries worldwide. Congratulations,

The recently published article, “Identification of a novel, fast acting GABAergic anti-depressant“, has garnered significant attention in various news and social media outlets! San Diego’s CW6 news interviewed Dr. Abraham Palmer about the study’s findings. UCSD highlighted the study in its recent press release. It was featured in Drug Development News’ May 2017 issue (page six). The Sacramento Bee also covered it. It’s been retweeted many times.

Dr. Riyan Cheng has joined the Palmer Lab! He is our new Associate Project Scientist. Dr. Cheng was recently a Research Fellow in Justin Borevitz’s lab at The Australian National University, where he developed novel statistical methods to perform genome-wide association studies for various phenotypes to discover genetic variants. He previously completed a post-doc in the Palmer Lab from 2008 to 2012. Welcome, Riyan!

The article, “Genetic Background Limits Generalizability of Genotype-Phenotype Relationships“, by Sittig et al. (Neuron, 2016) has been recommended in F1000Prime as being of special significance in its field. Dr. Susanne Ahmari ranked the article as “Exceptional” (three stars) in her review, which can be read in full here.

F1000Prime is a curated collection of top articles recommended by the Faculty of 1000 as being significant and impactful to the fields of biology and medicine. Articles from over 3,700 peer-reviewed journals are highlighted. Learn more about F1000Prime and its features here!

April Williams has accepted an offer as a Bioinformatics Scientist at Arima Genomics, a biotechnology company based here in San Diego. Arima Genomics seeks to develop new platforms for DNA sequencing that enables identification of structural variants and assembly of haplotype resolved genomes. Congratulations and farewell, April!

The recent article, “Genome-wide Association Study of Loneliness Demonstrates a Role for Common Variation”, has garnered significant attention in various news and social media outlets! KSWB Fox 5 interviewed Dr. Abraham Palmer about the study’s findings. Dr. Sandra Sanchez Roige penned a piece in Genétic Médica (in Spanish) discussing the results. Dr. Sanchez was also interviewed by Colombian radio station Voces RCN. It’s been retweeted many times. UCSD highlighted the study in their recent press release about being ranked the 15th best university nationally. The Huffington Post, Nature World News,

The recent Neuron article, “Genetic Background Limits Generalizability of Genotype-Phenotype Relationships”, has garnered considerable attention on various social media outlets! No doubt helped by the accompanying whimsical video abstract, “Should Single Strains Suffice?”, starring Drs. Laura Sittig, Abraham Palmer, and Abe’s 1977 VW van. It’s been retweeted many times and covered by blogs. Altmetric ranks it in the top 5% of all scientific articles, ranked by attention or similar age.

In the above Cell Press video abstract, “Should Single Strains Suffice?”, Drs. Laura Sittig and Abraham Palmer explain what happened when they examined the effects of two genetic mutations on a panel of different mouse strains. Their findings were recently published in Neuron. Featuring Abe’s own restored 1977 VW van!

Jungkyun Seo will start his PhD in Computational Biology & Bioinformatics at the Duke University Graduate School this fall. Congratulations and farewell, Jung!