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 Complex Trait Consortium’s 14th annual meeting was held in Portland, Oregon from June 8-11.

Alex Gileta, Natalia Gonzales, Abraham Palmer, and several other past or future Palmer lab members attended.

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!

Their Research and Education (REP) Responsive proposal, “Genetic Mapping and Gene Identification in Acute Kidney Injury Using Outbred Rats”, has been funded by the Medical College of Wisconsin Board of Trustees in the amount of $200,000 over two years, beginning July 1, 2015. The Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin (AHW) Endowment funds research awards in which MCW physicians and scientists work to improve the health of the people of Wisconsin through scientific advances. In this proposal, Dr. Solberg-Woods’ lab will phenotype HS rats for kidney injury & Dr. Palmer’s lab will

Dr. Palmer delivered the keynote lecture at the 1st Finnish Symposium of Biological Psychiatry on the University of Helsinki campus on May 18th. His talk was titled “Using quantitative genetic techniques to elucidate molecular mechanisms of behavior”.

The NIDA National Center for GWAS in Outbred Rats was highlighted in the University of Chicago Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience’s Spring 2015 newsletter. Dr. Palmer is the Principal Director of this multi-site effort to refine understanding of the genetic basis of drug abuse and addiction. Read the full newsletter here! More information about the NIDA Center is available here.

The cover story of Medicine on the Midway’s Spring 2015 issue focuses on how different University of Chicago neuroscientists are employing innovative and powerful approaches in their research. Dr. Palmer is one of four faculty members featured in this article, where he discusses his collaboration with Dr. John Cacioppo about the genetics of loneliness, upcoming partnership with personal genetics company 23andme, previous work identifying novel molecular mechanisms related to anxiety and other behaviors, and more. Read the full article here!

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

Dr. Palmer presented at the Neuroscience Integrative Center for Addictions’ Seminar Series at the University of California – Los Angeles this week. His talk was titled “Quantitative Behavioral Genetics”.

Michelle Fay Cortez of Bloomberg Business wrote an article about biopharmaceutical company Amgen Inc’s recent deCODE Genetics initiative. They are sequencing the genomes of more than 1 in every 100 people in the country of Iceland in order to find novel genetic variants related to disease risk. They will use these results to develop new medications and tailor future projects.

Dr. Palmer discussed how deCODE Genetics is an example of the changing field of genetics research — thanks to rapidly deflating sequencing costs, researchers can examine how rare variants affect disease