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

The article, “Cdh13 and AdipoQ gene knockout alters instrumental and Pavlovian drug conditioning”, was accepted for publication in Genes, Brain and Behavior. Authors include current and former Palmer Lab members (Amy Hart, Celine St. Pierre, Emily Leung, Abraham Palmer) as well as collaborators Christopher King, Leah Militello, Cassandra Versaggi, Nathaniel Roberson, James Catlin, Jerry Richards, and Paul Meyer.

Dr. Abraham Palmer presented at the Institute for Genetics Seminar series at the University of California San Francisco on March 24th. His talk was titled “A Toolbox and Rationale for Performing GWAS for Behavioral Traits in Outbred Mice and Rats”.

Their grant, “Identification of Genetic Variants that Contribute to Compulsive Cocaine Intake in Rats” was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). This project seeks to elucidate the genetic basis of cocaine intake and other drug abuse-related behaviors in rats. Dr. Abraham Palmer will be the PI for the UCSD subcontract portion of the project.

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,

Their grant, “Genetics of novelty seeking and propensity for drug abuse in outbred rats”, was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). This project seeks to study the genetic and functional basis of novelty-seeking behavior in two lines of rats that offer a uniquely powerful model for understanding the neural mechanisms of drug seeking, addiction and relapse. Dr. Abraham Palmer will be the PI for the UCSD subcontract portion of the project.

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.

Drs. Amanda Barkley-Levenson and Sandra Sanchez-Roige have each received a Young Investigator Travel Award to attend the Genes, Brian and Behavior 2017 meeting of the International Behavioral and Neural Genetics Society (IBANGS) in Madrid, Spain. These awards will help defray the costs of their travel and lodging and are generously supported by NIAAA. Congratulations both!

The 2017 meetings of the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) and Seminar (GRS) for Quantitative Genetics & Genomics was held in Galveston, TX from February 25th – March 3rd.

Graduate student Alex Gileta and post-doc Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Roige attended both sessions and presented posters.

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!