News archive

Supriya Hobbs, who was a high school student in the lab as part of the Students and Teachers as Research Scientists (STARS) program run by UMSL, has completed her engineering degree at the University of Illinois. She has teamed up with a classmate to found Miss Possible, which will market science discovery dolls/apps for girls. The first in development is Marie Curie. Here's a recent story: Marie Curie prepares to throw down with Barbie Supriya was in the lab the same summer as Roy (see below).

Stan Andrisse completed his American Physiological Society Porter Physiology Fellowship for his work with GLUT1, and he has moved to a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins. Stan has something in common with my wife, Gretchen Salsich. Both are the only ones with their last names in biomedical science. Their PubMed searches (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=andrisse, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=salsich) come up pure. Pretty neat!

Amanda Kaverman, a 2013 SEMO grad, and Liz Windham, a 2013 WashU graduate are the current grad students in the lab.

Roy Collins (http://www.yalebulldogs.com/sports/m-footbl/2012-13/bios/collins_roy_m16o) tore up the gridiron in his senior season at Yale and was named the Elis top offensive lineman for 2012, and his thoughtful perspective is featured in the Ivy League's celebration of 2013 Black History Month http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/history/blackhistory/2012-13/Roy_Collins. As a STARS student in the summer before his senior year at Choate-Rosemary Hall, Roy had a hand in collecting our first data demonstrating decreased IGF-1 signaling in skeletal muscle of mice that were haploinsufficient for ATM, and his work also appears in our 2012 paper in Experimental Physiology and the 2013 paper in APNM.

Joe Chen again received an honorable mention in the Department of Biology's undergraduate research symposium, and he was again selected to present in the university's Senior Legacy Symposium in April, 2013. This time around, Joe was actually a senior. He's now a technician in a lab at Stanford University.

Gaytri Patel, Andrea Webber, and Joe Chen received honorable mention in the Department of Biology's undergraduate research symposium. As a result, they will present their work at the SLU Senior Legacy Symposium in April, 2012.

Charlie Qin, who joined the lab in the summer of 2009 as a participant of the Students and Teachers as Research Scientists (STARS) program, received a 2011 National Merit Scholarship and will attend Washington University.

Mike McKuin and Allyson Renth were selected to present their research poster at the 2011 Saint Louis University Senior Legacy Symposium. That's pretty good for Allyson, who won't be a graduating senior until 2014! Allyson has been accepted into the 2012 Advanced Summer Program for Investigation and Research Education (ASPIRE) clinical research program for undergraduates at Washington University.

Jeong-Sun Ju (former PhD student) has completed postdoctoral fellowships at Washington University School of Medicine (Neurology) and the Stritch School of Medicine (Loyola University, Chicago) and joined the faculty of The University of Suwon (in the metropolitan area of Seoul, Korea).

Pooja Rajguru (former high school student in the lab) contributed to diabetes research in Ronald Lynch’s lab when she was an undergraduate biomedical engineering student at the University of Arizona. After obtaining her engineering degree, she moved on to medical school. Pooja contributed a great deal to a 2010 paper with James Ching.

Akshar Patel (former undergraduate) is a medical student at the Saint Louis University School of medicine and has just completed a Medical Student Summer Research Training in Aging Program research project (with Joseph Flaherty, MD, SLU Division of Geriatrics) that he was awarded by the American Federation for Aging Research. Akshar and ImJu Jeong contributed equally to our 2010 paper on the role of ATM in insulin signaling and glucose transport. Akshar also teamed with high school teacher Todd McDonald on a 2011 paper regarding an influence of ATM on cytochrome c oxidase.

Rona Robinson-Hill (a high school teacher who was in the lab in the summers of 2009 and 2010) is organizing a “Women in Science Symposium” at McKinley Classical Leadership Academy (a St. Louis public middle/high school) featuring local women scientists and in parallel with the new science curriculum in which the students will learn about "Women in Science." Rona's on track to complete her doctorate this year.