Category Archive for : ‘Palmer Lab News’

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

The article, “Genome-wide association study of behavioral, physiological and gene expression traits in outbred CFW mice” has generated considerable interest in various news and social media outlets! Twitter, multiple blogs & websites, and two university press releases (UCSD, Middlebury) are among those covering the article. Altmetric ranks it in the top 5% of all scientific articles, ranked by attention.

Dr. Abraham Palmer has been appointed as Vice Chair for Basic Research in the Department of Psychiatry. In this role, he will coordinate department research efforts, support fellow faculty and student researchers, and organize regular departmental research events. He will work closely with Dr. Murray Stein, MD, the Vice Chair for Clinical Research in Psychiatry.

Katherine McMurray defended her thesis, “Methylglyoxal & Glyoxalase 1 (GLO1) in Psychiatric Disorders: Insights into possible treatments”, this month and it was approved by her committee. Congratulations, Kat!

In December, she will join Dr. Renu Sah’s lab as a post-doctoral scholar. Dr. Sah is in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati. Her lab studies the pathophysiology of anxiety disorders and hopes to identify novel biomarkers and improved therapeutic options.

Sandra Sanchez has accepted a post-doc position and will join the Palmer Lab in Winter 2016! She is currently a Visitor Researcher at the University of Sussex (United Kingdom) and recently received her PhD in Dai Stephens’ lab there. Her research focuses on the effects of alcohol withdrawal on impulsivity traits in mice and humans. Welcome, Sandra!

After a decade of perpetual Chicago winter, the Palmer Lab is moving to sunny California!

Dr. Palmer will join the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California – San Diego on January 1, 2016.

The Palmer Lab will be moving to UCSD’s brand-new Biomedical Research Facility II. Check out some nice visuals and more information about its construction here and here!

The Palmer Lab had a big showing at the Rat Genetics and Genomics for Psychiatric Disorders and Addiction workshop on June 29th: Katherine McMurray, Alex Gileta, and Yu-yu Ren presented their work and all won “Best Poster” awards. Congratulations, you three!

The Department of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago has promoted Dr. Abraham Palmer to full Professor, effective July 1, 2015. Dr. Marcelo Nobrego was also promoted to full Professor and Dr. Daniela del Gaudio was promoted to Associate Professor. Congratulations, everyone!

Kayla Chase has accepted a joint post-doc position and will join both the Palmer and Lieb Labs in Summer 2015!

Yu-yu Ren has accepted a post-doc position and will join the Palmer Lab in Fall 2015! He is currently finishing his PhD in Jun Li’s lab at the University of Michigan. His dissertation research focuses on gene expression patterns in rat models of aerobic capacity and metabolic fitness.