Category Archive for : ‘Palmer Lab News’

The manuscript , “Genome-wide association study of problematic opioid prescription use in 132,113 23andMe research participants of European ancestry”, has been provisionally accepted for publication in Molecular Psychiatry. Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Roige is the first author and Dr. Abraham Palmer is the last author; they are also co-corresponding authors. In addition, Mariela Jennings, Sevim Bianchi, and Yuye Huang, who are members of Dr. Sanchez-Roige’s lab, are co-authors. This study identified two genome wide significant loci associated with problematic opioid use (POU). Additional genetic correlations along with POU were found including alcohol dependence,

The 2021 Complex Trait Consortium (CTC) meeting was held virtually from Manchester, UK from September 1-3, 2021.

Abraham Palmer, Oksana Polesskaya,  Daniel Munro, Brittany Leger, Milad Mortazavi, Apurva Chitre, Joel Leal-Gutierrez, and Denghui Chen has attended.

Dr. Abraham Palmer has received a $200,000  supplement for the project titled, “Making data from the center for GWAS in out bred rats FAIR and AI/ML ready”.  NIDA has provided these funds to improve the AI/ML (Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning)-readiness of data from the Center for GWAS outbred rats. Additionally, these funds will be used to address important shortcomings in the processing of several large datasets and be used to implement new methods of effective information sharing.

Clara Ortez joined the Palmer Lab in August of 2021, she recently graduated from UC San Diego with a B.S. in Cognitive Science specialization Neuroscience, during which she interned at the George Lab studying behavioral components of drug use. She’s from the Bay Area but loves San Diego weather and beaches, where you can find her reading a good book!

Dr. Polesskaya presented a poster titled “High-throughput genotyping of zebrafish enables GWAS in outbred EKW population” at the 16th International Zebrafish Conference (IZFC).  Coauthors from the Palmer lab includes Dr. Riyan Cheng, Apurva Chitre, Bonnie Lin, Khai-Minh Nguyen, and Dr. Abraham Palmer. This poster presents a cost-effective and high-throughput genotyping method that the Palmer lab has developed in support of a GWAS in zebrafish in order to study the genetic underpinning of complex traits related to anxiety behavior. This method is applied to genotyping large quantities of zebrafish which enables

The article, “Functional validation of a finding from a mouse genome-wide association study demonstrates that Azi2 influences the acute locomotor simulant response to methamphetamine”, has been accepted for publication in Genes, Brain, and Behavior. This article discusses the potential mechanisms of Azi2 and its role in methamphetamine sensitivity. Dr. Abraham Palmer, Dr. Amanda Barkley-Levenson, Xinzhu Zhou and several others co-authored this article. Congratulations!

Zeljana grew up in continental Serbia, Europe. She lived in Dubai and London, before she moved to the States for school. Mesmerized by all things brain-related, she first double majored in Neuroscience and Psychology, and then received her Master’s degree in Neurobiology – all at UC San Diego. In her spare time, she is a travel junkie, a student pilot, an avid watcher of Grey’s Anatomy, and the main resource for her kindergartener’s incessant questioning of the Universe.

Welcome, Zeljana!

Alan Lin joined the Palmer Lab in June 2021 as a REHU summer student. He is a rising senior at Williams College majoring in Biology and Statistics, and he hopes to use both fields to pursue a career in bioinformatics/biostatistics. In his free time, Alan enjoys being outdoors, playing tennis, and listening to music.

The Research Experiences for High School and Undergraduate Students (REHU) program (ratgenes.org/education/rehu/) that is funded by the NIDA Center for Genetic Studies of Drug Abuse in Outbred Rats where Dr. Palmer is the PI. REHU program provides

Sammy Myakishev-Rempel joined the Palmer Lab in June 2021 as a REHU student. Sammy graduated from UC High School with strong skills in computer science. She is hoping to gain experience from working in an academic lab and developing programming skills on multiple platforms. Her hobbies include sewing, paper-crafting, learning Japanese, and electronics.

The Research Experiences for High School and Undergraduate Students (REHU) program (ratgenes.org/education/rehu/) that is funded by the NIDA Center for Genetic Studies of Drug Abuse in Outbred Rats where Dr. Palmer is the PI. REHU program provides high

Brittany Leger joined the Palmer lab in June 2021 as a PhD student in the Biomedical Sciences program at UCSD. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2017 with a BS in Molecular Biology, then joined Massachusetts General Hospital in the labs of Dr. Richa Saxena and Dr. James Walker. Brittany is interested in developing methods to integrate genetic data from animal model studies and human studies to reveal underlying mechanisms behind neuropsychiatric behavior. Outside of lab, Brittany enjoys hiking, figure drawing, and is currently learning to longboard.