Outstanding Mid-Thesis Research Award Winners

In recognition of a student whose research, in the judgement of the faculty, profoundly impacts their field.

2021

Mariana Noto Guillen
Assembling stable syntrophic Escherichia coli communities by comprehensively identifying beneficiaries of secreted goods
Mentor:  Amir Mitchell, PhD

Nicholas Peterson
Surveillance of Host- and Pathogen-derived metabolites in innate immunity
Mentor: Read Pukkila-Worley, MD

I-Hao Wang
Reconstruction of Olfactory Neural Circuits Using Single Molecule Approaches
Mentor: Paul Greer, PhD

2020

Chantal Ferguson
ApoE RNAi-modulation:  Novel Strategy for Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease
Mentor: Anastasia Khvorova, PhD

Kevin Gao
Perturbing Nucleic Acid Sensing in Murine Models to Identify Novel Mechanisms of Auto-immunity and Auto-inflammation
Mentor: Ann Rothstein, PhD

2019

Georgia Gunner
Elucidating Roles for Microglia in Sensory Experience-dependent Synaptic Remodeling
Mentor: Dorothy Schafer, PhD

2018

Julia Alterman
Di-valent srRNAs:  New Chemical Scaffold for Modulation of Gene Expression in CNS
Mentor: Anastasia Khvorova, PhD

Ameer Elaimy
Regulation of Breast Cancer Stem Cells by VEGF/Neuropilin Signaling
Mentor: Arthur Mercurio, PhD

2017

Janelle Hayes
Structure and Mechanism of an Exceptionally Powerful Molecular Motor
Mentor: Brian Kelch, PhD

2016

Arvin Iracheta-Vellve
The roles of the inflammasome and IRF3-mediated signaling in alcoholic liver disease
Mentor: Gyongyi Szabo, MD, PhD

Alison Philbrook
Molecular mechanisms of synaptic development and remodeling
Mentor: Michael Francis, PhD

2015

Spencer Adams
Molecular and Organismal-level Studies of Bioluminescence
Mentor: Stephen Miller, PhD

Leyuan Ma
Targeting Drug Resistance and Residual Cancer Stem Cells in Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia
Mentor: Michael Green, MD, PhD