Thompson-Peer Lab
News
[ Also check https://twitter.com/ThompsonPeerLab ]
​
2024
​
Sept 26, 2024 | Sydney's paper is accepted by Scientific Reports for publication!! Bravo to all the authors!! You can read it here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-74670-4
​
Sept 23, 2024 | Rosty is selected for the CIRM training grant fellowship, starting in January.
​
Sept 19, 2024 | Sydney is awarded a GAANN fellowship for the upcoming year. Mia and Rosty are continuing GAANN fellows.
​
Sept 18, 2024 | Vini starts in the lab as a postdoc.
​
Sept 12, 2024 | Katie presents our work at the Cold Spring Harbor Labs conference 'Molecular Mechanisms of Neuronal Connectivity'.
​
Sept 4, 2024 | Mia is selected to receive the Rose Hills Foundation graduate fellowship award. Congratulations!
​​​
Aug 29, 2024 | Vini successfully defends his PhD thesis, becoming the first graduate student to graduate from the lab! W all celebrate together with him.
​
Aug 11, 2024 | Sydney gives a plenary talk at the CIRM trainee conference. Watch her talk here or here.
​
July 30, 2024 | Our lab hosts a demonstration for about 40 Brain Camp students (middle and high schoolers).
​
July 17, 2024 | Our lab hosts a tour for the COMPASS students from the UCI Stem Cell center.
​
Summer 2024 | Rosty attends the 3 week long Cold Spring Harbor Labs course "Drosophila Neurobiology."
​
Summer 2024 | Jada Mars is working with Mia for the summer, coming from North Carolina A&T through the CNLM Summer Institute in Neuroscience UC/HBCU program.
​
June 2024 | Dario and Vicky and Isha all graduate with their Bachelor's degrees. Yuting graduates with her Master's degree.
​
May 30, 2024 | Vini's paper is accepted for publication at Progress in Neurobiology! Congratulations to all the authors!!
​
May 9, 2024 | Vini and Isha both receive awards from the CNLM. Vini receives the Jared M. Roberts Memorial Graduate Student Award, while Isha receives the Carol Becker McGaugh Award. You can see Vini's short talk about his work at the award's ceremony HERE.
​
April 4, 2024 | Mia receives an honorable mention for her NSF GRFP appliction.
​
March 31, 2024 | Sydney's paper is available at bioRxiv. Take a look at what she's been working on!
​
Winter 2024 | Vini is TAing for Developmental Biology this quarter.
​
​
​
2023
​
Dec 2023 | Vicky, Dario, Isha, Ly, and Anjali are all awarded UROP funding for their undergraduate research. Congratulations!
​
Dec 2-6, 2023 | Patrick attends CellBio/ASCB 2023 in Boston, and presents a poster of his work.
​
Nov 30, 2023 | We host Jill Wildonger from UCSD for a department seminar.
​
Nov 2023 | The lab moves back into our renovated lab space, back into 4444 McGaugh Hall.
​
Oct 27, 2023 | Katie presents our work at UCLA, as part of the Synapse 2 Circuit seminar series.
​
Oct 2023 | Rosty is selected as a GAANN fellow.
​
Fall 2023 | Katie is again co-teaching introductory biology (Bio 93). Rosty is TAing for Genetics, and Mia is TAing for Dev & Cell Biology Lab.
​
Sept 19, 2023 | Sydney is selected to receive the Rose Hills graduate student fellowship. Bravo!
​
Sept 2023 | Undergrads Ly and Anjali join the lab. Welcome!
​
Aug 26, 2023 | Katie presents our work at the West Coast Society for Developmental Biology meeting in San Luis Obispo, and chairs a session on Neural Development and Regeneration.
​
Aug 22, 2023 | Vini leaves for an internship at Eli Lilly for the Fall, in Boston. What a rockstar!
​
July 27, 2023 | Katie is a panelist for the UCI Undergraduate Student Initiative for Biomedical Research (USIBR).
​
July 8, 2023 | Katie teaches a session on Neuronal Cell Biology, and our work, at the Cold Spring Harbor Labs Neurobiology of Drosophila course.
June 2023 | Rosty joins the lab for his PhD!
​
June 10-16, 2023 | Sydney presents her work in a poster at the GRC/GRS Gordon conference on Triplet Repeat Disorders.
​
June 5, 2023 | Mia is selected as a GAANN fellow.
​
June 2023 | Mia joins the lab for her PhD!
​
June 2023 | Vicky earns a Dean's award from the UCI School of Biological Sciences for her research.
​
May 31, 2023 | End of quarter lab celebration at Eureka!, for all our hard work.
​
May 25, 2023 | Vicky earns the Carol Becker McGaugh Award from the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.
​
May 25, 2023 | Sydney shares her project with the Dev & Cell Bio department in a Research in Progress seminar.
​
May 24, 2023 | Katie visits the department of Entomology and Nematology at UC Davis to share our work.
​
May 19, 2023 | Undergrads present 5 posters at the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program symposium, all in the "Health under the microscope" division. Great job, everyone!! Vicky earns 1st place in that category.
​
May 2023 | Vicky, Dario, and Isha all earn Excellence in Research, based on papers and posters.
​
May 4, 2023 | Sydney passes her Advancement to PhD Candidacy exam with flying colors!
​
April 27, 2023 | Vini gives a lightening talk, and presents a poster, at LEARNMEM 2023 in Huntington Beach.
​
April 21, 2023 | Katie gives a keynote talk at the USA National Brain Bee Championship. Afterwards, Patrick, Vini, and Sydney demonstrate experiments in our lab to the competitors.
​
April 15, 2023 | Vicky wins the UC LEADS symposium "top honors" and "outstanding research poster", in San Diego.
​
April 2023 | Rosty and Matthew are rotating in the lab this Spring, coming from the INP and MCSB programs, respectively.
​
March 22, 2023 | Our lab has a joint lunch with the lab of Pablo Lara-Gonzalez, our nextdoor neighbors.
​
March 2023 | Yuting joins the lab for her Master's thesis, coming from the Molecular Biology & Biochemistry's MSBTM (Master of Science Program in Biotechnology Management) program.
​
March 2023 | Katie gives a talk at the EMBO Mechanisms of Neuronal Remodelling conference in Israel.
​
March 2023 | Katie chairs the Neural Development and Physiology session at the GSA Drosophila meeting in Chicago.
​
Feb 28, 2023 | Katie gives a talk at the 20th Annual UCI Epilepsy Research Center symposium.
​
Feb 16, 2023 | Sydney presents her work at the 10th annual Sue and Bill Gross UCI Stem Cell Center symposium.
​
Feb 2, 2023 | Sydney has her pre-advancement meeting with her mentoring committee, and gets great feedback.
​
Jan 2023 | Mia and Gautam are rotating in the lab this Winter, coming from the CMB program and INP program, respectively.
​
​
​
2022
​
Dec 2022 | Sarah Hernandez's manuscript on the role of ECM and glia in Huntington's disease is published in Human Molecular Genetics, with undergrad Grace Jean as a middle author, and Katie as co-corresponding author alongside Leslie Thompson. Read it here.
​
Dec 9, 2022 | Our lab celebrates the holidays with a potluck feast and cookie decorating contest.
​
Dec 9, 2022 | Many of the undergraduates in the lab earn UROP funding! Vicky & Dario are funded on a join proposal, and Daria and Isha are each independently funded on their own proposals. Nice job!
​
Dec 15, 2022 | Patrick passes his advancement exam and advances to PhD candidacy. Bravo!!
​
Nov 2022 | This month, our lab moves from 4444 McGaugh Hall to 4115 McGaugh Hall. A huge amount of work, but we're slowly settling in to our new (temporary) home. We will be here for 1 year, while our lab space in 4444 is totally renovated.
​
Nov 11, 2022 | Vicky presents her work at a poster at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minoritized Scientists (ABRCMS) in Anaheim, CA.
​
Sept 19, 2022 | Vini runs a demo of experiments in our lab for the new INP students during bootcamp.
​
Sept 2, 2022 | Vicky, as a mentor for the SURF program, leads a lab tour for the SURF students.
​
Aug 11, 2022 | Both Vicky and Jaela present at end of summer symposiums for their respective programs. Vicky, supported by the UCI UC-LEADS program, presents at the UCI Graduate Division's Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium. Jaela presents at the Summer Institute for Neuroscience's Research Symposium.
​
Jul 28, 2022 | Vini shows middle and high school kids a day of fly neuroscience in our lab for Brain Camp. Read more about it here in the UCI News.
​
June 27, 2022 | Katie is selected for an endowed research fellowship from the Hellman Foundation!
​
June 22, 2022 | Jaela Melton arrives in our lab for a summer of research, supported by the CNLM's NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates, the Irvine Summer Institute in Neuroscience. During the school year, she's a student at North Carolina Agriculture and Technology State University. Jaela is working with Sydney for the summer. Welcome!
​
June 12, 2022 | Both Mansher and Claire earn fellowships to support their research this summer from the UCI Summer Undergraduate Research Program.
​
June 7, 2022 | Patrick is awarded a Department of Developmental and Cell Biology teaching award!
​
June 3, 2022 | The lab gathers to celebrate Vini's Advancement to Candidacy and Grace's graduation. Grace is off to medical school, to pursue a combined DO/MPH program at Tuoro University Nevada.
​
June 2, 2022 | Vini advances to PhD Candidacy!!! Congratulations!!
​
May 25, 2022 | Sydney is recognized with the CNLM 2022 Norman Weinberger Award. Katie is recognized with the inaugural Exceptional Mentor Award. Bravo!
​
May 21, 2022 | Six of the undergraduates present posters of their work at the UROP symposium.
​
May 19, 2022 | Vini presents his work in the Dev & Cell department seminar.
​
May 5, 2022 | Patrick does an excellent job presenting his work in the Dev & Cell department seminar.
​
May 5, 2022 | Vini and Sydney both present both lightening talks and posters at the CNLM Spring meeting.
​
Apr 28, 2022 | Sydney presents a poster at the REMIND symposium, the student/postdoc symposium for the UCI Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (MIND) center.
​
Apr 26, 2022 | We go for a well-deserved lab outing!
​
Apr 21, 2022 | Undergraduate student Vicky Lam is selected for participation in the UCI LEADS program. Congratulations!
​
Mar 19-25, 2022 | Vini presents his exciting findings, giving both a talk and a poster at the Gordon Research Seminar & Conference on Central Nervous System Injury and Repair in Oxnard, CA. He is selected for the Carl Storm fellowship to attend the meeting.
​
Mar 17, 2022 | We have a lab photo shoot. Everyone gets professional headshots, and we finally get a good picture of everyone all together.
​
March 8, 2022 | Science News for Students, an online platform for science information for middle & high school students, publishes their Explainer on "Cells and their parts", based in part on an interview with Katie.
​
Feb 23, 2022 | Sydney presented her recent work at the NBB Neuroblitz research in progress seminar.
​
Feb 18, 2022 | Sydney shared her recent work in a lightening talk at the UCI Neurodegeneration Community Workshop, supported by the CZI as well as various UCI centers.
​
Feb 18, 2022 | Vini shared his recent work at a Progress in Neurobiology research in progress seminar from the UCI department of Anatomy & Neurobiology.
​
Jan 20, 2022 | Sydney has been awarded CIRM (California Institute of Regenerative Medicine) trainee scholar funding from the UCI Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center.
​
Jan 20, 2022 | After displaying lots of patience, Jasmine Chavez is finally able to present her fall 2021 rotation project to the lab.
​
Jan 3, 2022 | Daisy Gallardo, an INP first year PhD student, starts her winter 2022 rotation in our lab.
​
​
​
2021
​
Dec 30, 2021 | Miyo Sun and Emily Davis, two of our Bio199 researchers, are moving on to different research groups. It was great to work with both of you, and we wish you the best.
​
Dec 8, 2021 | Patrick does a fantastic job presenting his work in progress at the weekly student Neuroblitz.
​
Dec 1, 2021 | Sarah Hernandez, a visiting postdoc, moves to Massachusetts. The collaboration continutes, now long-distance.
​
Nov 23, 2021 | Katie presents some recent work at UC Riverside's Neuroscience weekly seminar series. Delighted to see more colleagues in person.
​
Oct 29, 2021 | After working in our lab for 2 years, Anatoli is moving on. He's returning to full time work in the de la Maza lab in the department of Pathology at UCI. Anatoli has brought his skills to the de la Maza lab, and/or to the lab of his close collaborator Dr Petersen, for more than 20 years, and we're sure he'll continue to advance science there. Best of luck!
​
Oct 11, 2021 | Hassan Sheikh joins the lab. As a part-time lab technician, he will help us keep everything running smoothly, balancing working in the lab with his undergraduate studies. Welcome Hassan!
​
Sept 27, 2021 | Jasmine Chavez, a first year grad student in the Interdepartmental Neuroscience PhD program, starts her rotation in our lab. Welcome!
​
Sept 23, 2021 | Katie is the keynote speaker at the Sanford Burnam Prebys Research Institute's Annual Trainee Symposium in La Jolla, CA.
​
Sept 20-21, 2021 | The newest cohorts of graduate students have arrived on campus! Katie gave a short presentation during the CMB graduate program new student welcome week, and participated in a speed networking event with new INP grad students. Vini lead groups of first year INP students through experiment demonstrations in the lab. INP first years got to watch him work with flies, injure neurons, and image calcium dynamics. Welcome to UCI for the new students, and way to go Vini, representing the power of fly neuroscience!
​
Aug 20-21, 2021 | Patrick and Sydney each present posters of their work at the in-person conference organized jointly by the Center for Neural Circuit Mapping & Cajal Club in Irvine, CA.
​
Aug 3, 2021 | Carolee's paper comes out in the journal Neuroinformatics. What an impressive accomplishment for an undergrad! Here's the department news about it. Read the actual article here.
​
Jul 30, 2021 | Jasmin Kwak gives her last lab meeting before heading to Brandeis. Best of luck!
​
Jul 22, 2021 | Vini gives UCI CNLM BrainCamp middle and high school students a virtual lab tour and experiment demonstration. Great job inspiring the next generation of scientists!
​
June 24, 2021 | We hold our first hybrid lab meeting. 5 in person, 5 on zoom. Fantastic!
​
June 18, 2021 | The lab is hiring for a postdoc. Apply here: https://recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF06857
June 15, 2021 | First year Sydney Prange, who just joined the lab, passes her CMB prelim exam. Nice job!
​
June 11, 2021 | UROP-funded undergrad student Grace Jean receives the Howard Schneiderman Prize from the UCI Undergraduate BioSci Honors convocation for her work in the lab.
​
June 11, 2021 | Undergrads Dario Rimicci, Emily Davis, and Vicky Lam are all recognized by the UCI Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) for their excellent proposals. Looking forward to seeing what these young scientists can accomplish this summer!
​
June 10, 2021 | Grad student Vini earns the 2021 Department of Developmental and Cell Biology Teaching Award for his work in Bio93 last fall. He was especially acknowledged for taking the initiative to create a video lab demonstration for students learning remotely, so that they could see what an experiment in a research lab is like.
​
June 10, 2021 | Grad student Vini earns a spot on the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory's T32 grant. Thanks for supporting this promising young scientist for the next 1-2 years.
​
June 3, 2021 | First year CMB student Sydney Prange joins the lab. Welcome!
​
May 27-28, 2021 | The Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory Spring Conference #CNLM21 Katie presents in the open papers session on Thursday, and Vini gives a fantastic talk in the Data Blitz on Friday.
​
May 12, 2021 | Congratulations Vini on earning this year's Roger W Russell Award from the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory! See his short talk here.
​
May 6, 2021 | Undergraduate student Jacob Liu begins working with grad student Jasmin, to contribute to data analysis.
​
April 22, 2021 | Undergraduate Research Olympiad Talk: Bio199 undergraduate researcher Miyo was chosen to present a snapshot to the Annual Olympiad Competition. Link to her video "Success in Research Starts with an Open Mind" can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwOieOFeUKM
​
March 20, 2021 | First year CMB graduate student Sydney Prange will be joining our lab for her Spring 2021 rotation. We are excited to work with her this quarter!
​
March 16, 2021 | Congratulations Vini on presenting and receiving one of three Poster Awards at the 8th Annual Conte Center Symposium! Great Job!!!
​
Jan 12, 2021 | Katie is the speaker at the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory's Evening 2 Remember, sharing our work with the broader community. Find a summary here.
​
Jan 6, 2021 | Fresh off their experience teaching, Vini and Patrick both recruit undergraduate students to work with them. Welcome to Dario, Emily, Vicky, Mansher, Miyo, and Rocelyn.
​
​
2020
​
​
Fall 2020 | Katie survives teaching at UCI for the first time. Vini and Patrick both do an excellent job as TAs for Bio93 and Bio93 Honors, respectively. Jasmin survives coursework and TAing. Anatoli holds it down for us at the lab.
​
July 20, 2020 | Patrick and Vini join the lab! Rotating graduate students Patrick and Vini join the Thompson-Peer Lab. They will investigate different mechanisms of dendrite regeneration for their thesis work.
​
June 8, 2020 | Physics grad student Jasmin Kwak joins Steve Gross' lab, to work on a collaborative project with our lab.
​
June 3, 2020 | Our lab partially and slowly reopens after the COVID shut-down. Vini will finally get to do an in-person rotation in the lab this summer, and incoming INP student Jhay McKnight will be joining us for a summer rotation before she starts her first year of grad school.
​
Mar 31, 2020 | INP student Vini is bravely doing a computational rotation in our lab this spring.
​
Mar 20, 2020 | GSA's Genes to Genomes highlights our lab in their 'New Faculty Profile' column.
​
February 25, 2020 | Katie presents our work in a poster at the 7th Annual Conte Center Symposium, and is recognized as 1 of 3 poster award winners.
​
Februry 24, 2020 | Undergrad Carolee presents our work in Japan. Bio199 undergrad Carolee Nguyen earned a full-ride travel fellowship to present our work on dendrite image analysis at the 4th annual RIKEN Center for Computational Science & High Performance Computing Youth Workshop in Kobe, Japan, Feb 18-20, 2020. https://www.r-ccs.riken.jp/en/outreach/schools/200319/ She is one of only a handful of international applicants to receive this honor. We’re delighted for her!
​
January 14, 2020 | UROP awards. Undergrads Carolee Nguyen and Grace Jean both earned awards from UROP (Grace for her collaboration with Anita Bari) to fund their upcoming research in the lab. Great start to the year!
Jan 6, 2020 | CMB student Jeffrey Pina joins the lab for a Winter rotation. Welcome!
​
​
2019
​
Dec 2019 | CMB Rotation students Patrick and Diana did a solid job presenting their projects during the end of Fall rotation symposium back in December. We’re so glad to work with you all!
​
December 16, 2019 | 2019 CNLM fellows. UCI’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory welcomes the new fellows of 2019, including Katie. Welcome to the new CNLM Fellows They also recently highlighted The Scientist magazine’s selection of 8 Rising Stars in Neuroscience. CNLM Fellow Katherine Thompson-Peer Featured as a Rising Star in Neuroscience
Nov 21, 2019 | The CNLM highlights Katie's profile in The Scientist. (link)
​
November 19, 2019 | Profiled in The Scientist: Katie was honored to be profiled as 1 of 8 “rising stars in neuroscience” in an eBook from The Scientist, among some truly impressive colleagues. (PDF) (website)
October 31, 2019 | Twitter Since we seem to be forgetful about posting here, a friendly reminder that updates can also be found on Twitter @ThompsonPeerLab.
​
Oct 30, 2019 | Katie had the pleasure to chair a session at the Southern California Mechanobiology Day symposium (link).
​
Oct 4, 2019 | Katie presented at the Anatomy & Neurobiology department’s “Progress in Neuroscience” series.
​
Oct 1, 2019 | Katie gave a guest lecture in the course “Foundations in Neuroscience” for new Interdepartmental Neuroscience graduate program grad students.
​
Sept 26, 2019 | CMB student Diana Suder joins the lab for a fall rotation. Diana's fall rotation project deals with optimizing mounting procedures for long term imaging of organelle trafficking in neurons. Welcome!
​
Sept 23, 2019 | CMB student Patrick Hwu joins the lab for a fall rotation. Patrick's fall rotation project deals with how different classes of neurons guide each other during dendrite regeneration. Welcome!
​
Sept 17, 2019 | Katie gave a short presentation to the Cellular and Molecular Biosciences graduate program welcome week for new CMB grad students.
​
Sept 14, 2019 | Katie presented at the Developmental & Cell Biology Department retreat, at the Dana Point Ocean Institute.
​
Sept 6, 2019 | Katie gave an invited talk at the Southern California Drosophila Conference (link)
July 30, 2019 | Associate specialist Anatoli Slepenkin joins the lab. Welcome!
​
June 24, 2019 | Funded! Just got the Notice of Award that our R00 was funded !!!!!!! That’s 3 years of funding for the lab to do exciting projects and make important discoveries. Woo-hoo!!!!
​
Apr 30, 2019 | Our second lab member, undergrad Grace Jean, starts volunteering in the lab. Welcome!
Apr 29, 2019 | Our first lab member, undergrad Carolee Nguyen, starts in the lab. Welcome!
​
April 1, 2019 | Bring on the giant scissors! The ribbon-cutting day is upon us. The Thompson-Peer lab is now open for business!!
January 17, 2019 | Coming Soon. Getting ready to start the lab! Coming in April 2019.