MICaB NEWS
April 2008
New MICaB students for 2008-2009
Thanks to all of the MICaB faculty and students who participated in the recruiting
activities this semester. Your participation is essential to the successful
recruitment of outstanding students to our program. The following students
will
be joining the program this fall:
Lucas Brand (U of St. Thomas), Ryan Flynn
(Austin College), Jeff Hall (Oregon State U), Casey
Katerndahl (U of MN-TC), Kristen Pauken (Colorado
State U), Cara Skon (St. Olaf College), Adam Spaulding
(U of Georgia). MD/PhD student Wade Schulz (U of MN-TC) will
also be joining MICaB.
Please welcome these students to the MICaB Program!
Biomedical Sciences Graduate Programs Research Recognition
Day
The first Biomedical Sciences Graduate Programs Research Recognition Day will
be held on May 27, 2008; 1:00 – 6:00 p.m. at the McNamara Alumni Center.
The graduate programs participating include MICaB; Biochemistry, Molecular
Biology & Biophysics; Cellular and Integrative Physiology; Molecular,
Cellular, Developmental Biology & Genetics; Neuroscience and Pharmacology.
Registration is required (Deadline for registration is Friday, May
16). For more information: http://www.orbs.umn.edu/gradresearchday/
Cancer Center
The U of M has received $65 million from the Minnesota Masonic Charities to
support the Cancer Center. In recognition of this generous gift - the largest
ever received by the U of M - the Cancer Center will now be called the Masonic
Cancer Center, University of Minnesota.
Watson Award
Congratulations to MICaB student Katie Ballering (mentor,
Gary Dunny), recipient of the 2007 D.W. Watson Fellowship administered through
the Department of Microbiology.
Bacaner Award
The Bacaner Research Award program is sponsored by the Minnesota Medical Foundation
to encourage intellectual achievement by graduate students and is underwritten
by a gift to the Foundation in memory of Jacob and Minnie Bacaner. The recipient
of the 2008 Bacaner Research Award is Laura Bursch (mentor,
Kris Hogquist).
Beatrice Z. Milne and Theodore Brandenburg
Award
MICaB student and recent Ph.D. graduate Petter Woll (mentor,
Dan Kaufman) was selected as one of five recipients of the 2008 Beatrice Z.
Milne and Theodore Brandenburg Award for research excellence in the basic
biomedical sciences. Each awardee receives $6,000 cash and presents their
research at the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Programs Research Recognition
Day on May 27, 2008.
Golden Pipetman Award
This award (http://www.micab.umn.edu/current/GoldenPipetman.html)
is given to an outstanding MICaB student who has contributed to the excellence
of the MICaB program. The contribution can be in the form of publications,
outside funding, and/or service to the program. The recipient of the Fall
2007 Golden Pipetman Award is Hamlet Chu (mentor, Marc Jenkins).
Any MICaB student or faculty member can nominate a student for the Golden
Pipetman. Nominations are now being accepted for the Golden Pipetman Award
for spring 2008. Any MICaB student or faculty member can nominate a student
for the Golden Pipetman. Send your nominations by E-mail to Louise Shand at
shand@umn.edu by April 30.
MICaB Student Travel Awards
The recipients of the Spring 2008 MICaB Student Travel Awards are: Matthew
Hamilton (Sadowsky lab), Ryan Kelly (Blazar lab),
Julie Wolf (Davis lab), Jennifer Gori (McIvor
lab) and Pete Gillis (Rice lab). Each recipient receives
a travel award of $1000 to attend a national research meeting and present
their research. Congratulations!
Thanks also to the MICaB Travel Awards Review Committee: Kim Mansky
(chair), Koho Iizuka and Steve Rice.
The next MICaB Student Travel Award competition will occur at the beginning
of the fall 2008 semester. Look for an E-mail announcement.
Congratulations new MICaB Ph.D.s
MICaB students who have earned their PhD degrees (May, 2007 to present) include:
Dr. Chris Peters (Mantyh lab), Dr. Sara Vetter
(Schlievert lab), Dr. Pujya Agarwal (Mescher lab), Dr.
Cory Yarke (Mueller lab), Dr. Anna Strain (Rice
lab), Dr. Matt Burchill (Farrar lab), Dr. Mark Anderson
(Armstrong lab), Dr. Flavia Popescu (Mescher lab), Dr.
Christine Vogtenhuber (Blazar lab), Dr. Amanda Martin
(Shimizu lab), Dr. Ruan Zhang (Mueller lab), and
Dr. Petter Woll (Kaufman lab). Congratulations!
Welcome new MICaB Graduate Faculty Members: Bryce Binstadt,
Timothy Hallstrom, Daniel Kaplan, David Masopust, Jaime Modiano, Kirsten Nielsen,
and John Ohlfest.
KUDOS Congratulations to the following MICaB
faculty and students:
MICaB faculty member Gary Dunny will receive the 2008 American
Society for Microbiology Graduate Microbiology Teaching Award, to be presented
at the ASM General Meeting in Boston in June.
MICaB faculty member Marc Jenkins presented one of three
Distinguished Lectures at the 95th Annual Meeting of the American Association
of Immunologists in San Diego. The lecture was attended by an estimated crowd
of 4,000 people.
MICaB student Mandy Brosnahan (Schlievert lab) was awarded
a $500 student travel grant from the American Society for Microbiology to
attend the ASM General Meeting in Boston in June.
MICaB student Aaron Barnes (Dunny lab) is a co-author on
a paper entitled "Development and use of an efficient system for random
mariner transposon mutagenesis to identify novel genetic determinants of biofilm
formation in the core Enterococcus faecalis genome." The paper is in
press in Applied and Environmental Microbiology (June issue) and a high resolution
scanning electron micrograph of Enterococcus faecalis biofilm cells prepared
by Aaron was selected for the cover of the journal.
MICaB student Lisa Jasperson (Blazar
lab) was awarded an NIH (National Institute
of Aging) F30 award, 2008-2011. The award will investigate the role
of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase in the age-related increase of severity of
graft versus host disease.
The MICaB Career Development Program
The program is coordinated by a committee consisting of MICaB faculty members
Carol Lange (chair), Kris Hogquist and Leslie
Schiff and MICaB students Ryan Kelly and Lucia
F. Zacchi. They have been very active this year, hosting a variety
of speakers and events that have been very popular. Upcoming:
• April 29; 450 CCRB; 4:00-5:00 pm
Chris Pennell, Ph.D. "Skills for the Big Chill: How
to Survive and Thrive as a Newly Independent Scientist"
• May 15; 2-137 Jackson Hall; 12:00-1:00 pm
Jenni Punt, Ph.D. “Working and doing research at small undergraduate
institutions”
See the web site for details: http://www.micab.umn.edu/current/careerdev.html
Email me (armst018@umn.edu)
or Louise Shand (shand@umn.edu) your news
items for the MICaB newsletter.
Sandy Armstrong
Director of Graduate Studies
Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology (MICaB) Ph.D. Graduate Program
