Three current lab members (Emily, Max and Lakshmi) got together with four lab alumni (Robert, Eillen, Vladimir and Jessica), all of whom have gone onto their own independent faculty positions. We shared deep-fried cheese curds at State Street Brats!
From left: Robert Luallen, Emily Troemel, Eillen Tecle, Max Strul, Vladimir Lazetic, Jessica Sowa, Lakshmi Batachari
Congratulations to Tuan Tran (Troemel lab F2) and his impressive thesis developing a new system for studying intracellular bacterial infection in the lab of Robert Luallen (Troemel lab F1)!
A few weeks ago, we gathered at Emily’s house for a brunch to recognize current postdocs Vladimir and Spencer’s time with the lab, and to wish them well in their newly acquired faculty appointments!
To celebrate, members of the lab brought various baked goods—
— the most elaborate of which was this anatomically detailed (and delicious!) worm cake labeled with myo-2p::mCherry and pals-5p::GFP, as well as accompanying L1s, prepared by Nicole.
Spencer had his official last day with the lab on June 20th, where we saw him off with a lab coffee break. Vladimir’s final day with the lab was on July 14th, and we commemorated it by making a Friday evening lab beach trip after we wrapped up experiments for the day.
Though we are sad to see them go, we wish both Spencer and Vladimir good luck as they prepare for their new faculty positions at Colorado College and at George Washington University, respectively!
This year, we gathered over pizza to once again participate in a lab holiday white elephant gift exchange.
Additionally, we took the time to express specific gratitude to other lab members as a way to recognize everyone’s efforts in creating a productive and positive lab environment!
To recognize a variety of lab accomplishments, we celebrated together at Emily’s house for a pot-luck style lab brunch!
Some of the many reasons for celebration included two new grants awarded to the lab, a recently published paper that was led by postdoc Spencer Gang (Gang et al PLOS Genetics 2022), and the contributions of our undergrads as they move on in their careers.
Top: Emily, Vladimir | Middle: Katie, Spencer, Michael, Ian, Lakshmi, Deevya, Max, Mario | Bottom: Rridhisha, Alyssa, Cheng-Ju.
We took the opportunity to also invite a few lab alumni who have since moved on to other positions. It was nice to have everyone— postdocs, staff, students, and alumni— together for an outside-of-lab event!
Top: Emily, Vladimir | Middle: Katie, Spencer, Michael, Ian, Lakshmi, Deevya, Max, Mario, Cheng-Ju and son | Bottom: Rridhisha, Alyssa, Eillen
Over the last 8 weeks, Lisa Trevino has been working under the supervision of IRACDA postdoc Dr. Spencer Gang to perform research in our lab as part of the UCSD School of Medicine’s Pharmacology Department’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) Program.
While with us, Lisa grew familiar with C. elegans as a model organism and worked with Spencer to assess pals-22 mutants for altered mitochondrial function and morphology. As part of this research, they helped to establish a protocol for TMRM staining to measure mitochondrial potential in our lab.
Thank you for your great work during your fellowship and congratulations on a great presentation of your research at the SURF Research Symposium! Best of luck with your future endeavors.
