2009

2010

2011

2012

January: Marie and Lakshmi are the first victims, er, graduate students, to join the lab

August: Ann arrives at the University of Kentucky. The lab and fish room are not quite ready...

The lab, September 2009

The fish room, October 2009

December: We have fish! Tony joins the lab as technician and fish-room guru

Tony

Our first racks of fish

Marie

Lakshmi

September: Wen and Stephen join the lab

August: Sara joins the lab as our new technician. Welcome, Sara!

Stephen

Wen

March: Ann receives a Pew Scholars Award in the Biomedical Sciences. A University of Kentucky first!

December: Marie passes her qualifying exams. Congratulations!

March: The lab is awarded a grant from the Knights Templar Foundation to study the role of Sox11 in ocular development

April: Stephen, Marie, and Lakshmi win poster awards at the Bluegrass Society for Neuroscience Spring Neuroscience Day. Way to go!

June: The lab is awarded a grant from the Fight for Sight foundation to study the role of Insm1a in retinal development

July: Lakshmi passes her qualifying exams. Yay!

May: Lakshmi gives a talk at the 2012 ARVO meeting.

August: Our R01 proposal, “The role of Insm1a in photoreceptor differentiation,” is funded for five years by the National Eye Institute. Woo-hoo!

April: Lakshmi is awarded the Lyman T. Johnson Academic Year Fellowship for Fall 2012.

April: Marie is awarded the Gertrude Flora Ribble Graduate Fellowship for 2012-2013 AND is selected as a 2012 Outstanding Teaching Assistant in the College of Arts & Sciences.

August: Marie gives a talk at the Midwest Regional Zebrafish meeting

November: Stephen passes his qualifying exams. Congratulations!

April: Lakshmi and Marie win Outstanding Poster awards at the Bluegrass Society for Neuroscience Spring Neuroscience Day

2013

April: Marie, Lakshmi, and Sara win poster awards at the Bluegrass Society for Neuroscience Spring Neuroscience Day.

March: Lakshmi’s Lyman T. Johnson Graduate Fellowship is renewed for the 2013-2014 academic year. Wen is awarded a one-semester Academic Year Graduate Fellowship for 2013-2014. Congratulations!

February: Marie receives a Travel Fellowship from the National Eye Institute to attend the 2013 ARVO meeting in Seattle.

May: Marie, Stephen, Wen, and Lakshmi present posters at the 2013 ARVO meeting in Seattle. 

May: Our paper, “Insulinoma-associated 1a (Insm1a) is required for photoreceptor differentiation in the zebrafish retina,” is accepted for publication in Developmental Biology. Congratulations, Marie (1st author) and Stephen (co-author)! Here’s the Pubmed link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23747542

November: Wen passes her qualifying exams. Way to go, Wen!

December: Two of our undergraduate BIO 395 students, Ellen French and Sunny Singh, are named Gertrude Flora Ribble Undergraduate Research Scholars for the Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 semesters. Congrats, Ellen and Sunny!

2014

April: Lakshmi’s Lyman T. Johnson Graduate Fellowship is renewed for the 2014-2015 academic year and she is awarded a one-semester Gertrude Flora Ribble graduate fellowship. Wen is awarded a one-semester Academic Year Graduate Fellowship for 2014-2015. Congratulations to you both!

March: Undergraduate Mallika Gopalaiahgari and high school student Sana Aslam both win poster awards for their research presentations at the Bluegrass Society for Neuroscience Spring Neuroscience Day. So proud of our students!

Mallika and Lakshmi

Sana and Marie

May: Our paper, “Sox11 is required to maintain proper levels of Hedgehog signaling during vertebrate ocular morphogenesis,” is accepted for publication in PLOS Genetics. Congratulations, Lakshmi (1st author), Wen, and Stephen (co-authors)! Check out the paper here: http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1004491

July: Lakshmi and Wen both present posters at the Society for Developmental Biology meeting in Seattle. Congratulations to Lakshmi for receiving a Travel Award to attend the meeting.

August: Cagney “CC” Coomer joins the lab as a rotating graduate student. Welcome, CC!

September: Hannah Henson joins the lab as our first postdoc. Welcome, Hannah!

November: Undergraduate BIO 395 student Abi Krishna is named a Gertrude Flora Ribble Undergraduate Research Scholar for the Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 semesters. Congratulations!

December: Our review article, “Keeping an eye on SoxC proteins,” is accepted for publication in Developmental Dynamics. Congratulations to Lakshmi and Wen, co-first authors. Pubmed link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25476579

December: Our paper, “Sox4 regulates choroid fissure closure by limiting Hedgehog signaling during ocular morphogenesis,” is accepted for publication in Developmental Biology. Congratulations to Wen (1st author), Lakshmi, and Stephen (co-authors)!

December: Wen is awarded a University of Kentucky Emeriti Faculty Graduate Fellowship for Spring 2015. Way to go, Wen!