Jungkyun Seo will join the Palmer Lab in January!
He recently completed his M.S. in Statistics at the University of Chicago. He also worked as a Research Assistant in Nancy Cox’s lab, where he analyzed large sets of genomic data for complex trait associations and discovered his interest in genetics. He now brings his excellent computational skills to the Palmer Lab to gain further experience while applying to graduate programs.
The 53rd annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) was held in Phoenix, AZ from December 7-11.
Dr. Palmer was promoted from Associate to Full Member and gave a talk; Natalia Gonzales, Clarissa Parker, and Camron Bryant presented posters.
April Williams has also accepted a post-doc position and will join the Palmer Lab in Spring 2015! She is currently finishing her PhD in Coleen Murphy’s lab at Princeton University. Her dissertation is titled “Transcriptional Profiling of Dissociated Adult Caenorhabditis elegans Tissues”.
Amanda Barkley-Levenson has accepted a post-doc position and will join the Palmer Lab in Spring 2015! She is currently finishing her PhD in John Crabbe’s lab at the Oregon Health & Sciences University. Her dissertation is titled “The role of neuropeptide Y in binge-like drinking in mice”.
A recent article by Francie Diep in Scientific American explores the National Institute of Health’s new initiative that encourages researchers to design sex-balanced experiments. Part of this policy includes additional funding opportunities that add more animals to existing studies, in order to balance the sexes. Dr. Palmer received one of these supplementary grants in June to double the number of mice being used and allow for statistically-strong sex-specific results. Read the full article here!
The University of Chicago’s student-run newspaper, The Chicago Maroon, recently highlighted Dr. Palmer’s work for the new NIDA National Center of Excellence for GWAS in Outbred Rats. The Center seeks to use rats to investigate the genetic basis of drug abuse and other related behaviors. You can read the full article here!
Biotechnology company Illumina recently profiled Dr. Abraham Palmer for their October 2014 iCommunity newsletter. The interview highlights the Palmer lab’s work to elucidate the genetic basis of psychiatric and behavioral traits, with a particular focus on how they’ve utilized Illumina’s cutting-edge sequencing and genomic technologies to do so. Read the entire piece here and learn more about Illumina’s products here!
A recent article by Jeremy Allen of the Michigan Live focuses on the exciting research being done by Terry Robinson and Shelly Flagel of the University of Michigan as part of the new national Center of Excellence for GWAS in Outbred Rats (led by Abraham Palmer, University of Chicago).
Both labs were awarded a five-year, $1.5 million grant to study addiction-related behaviors in rats. Their project is titled “Genetic Studies of Incentive Salience” and is one of four initial projects supported by the Center. They will investigate the genetic basis of
Kevin Jiang of Science Life recently highlighted the research being done at the new NIDA National Center for Excellence for GWAS in Outbred Rats, which is led by Dr. Abraham Palmer. Dr. Palmer elaborated on the goals of the center as well as the benefits of using rats to specifically study drug abuse-related behaviors. You can read the full article here!
Dr. Palmer presented at the Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Systems Biology Colloquium at the University of California – San Diego last week, hosted by Jonathan Sebat, Department of Psychiatry and Institute for Genetic Medicine. His talk was titled “Using quantitative genetic studies to understand the brain”.
