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!
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!
Dr. Abraham Palmer presented at the Department of Pharmacology Seminar Series at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center on January 11th. His talk was titled “Using outbred mice and rats to study the genetic basis of behavioral, physiological, and expression traits”.
