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https://www.hhmi.org/news/hhmi-names-2024-hanna-gray-fellows
Congrats to former Dennis lab grad student and postdoc Daniela Soto for being named a 2024 HHMI Hanna Gray fellow. She is currently pursuing research at UC Santa Barbara co-mentored by Drs. Soojin Yi and Kirk Lohmueller (UCLA). We are so happy for you Dani!
Game night at the Dennis-Gill household as we say goodbye and celebrate former grad student and post doc José’s new job at BioMarin Pharmaceutical. Another memorable Anomia game for the lab, followed by zebrafish-themed gifts, including individual paintings from our very own lab members.
Another intense game of Anomia ensues…
Dennis lab undergrads Louie, Aidan, and Emily showcased their research through excellent poster presentations at the annual UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference. We are so proud of all you have accomplished!
Welcome to Integrative Genetics & Genomics PhD student Zoeb Jamal, who has joined the Dennis lab to pursue questions related to genetic variation in human duplicated genes and their role in neurodevelopment. Zoeb recently graduated with his B.S. in Computational and Systems Biology from UCLA and took a year to pursue postbac research in Dr. Päivi Pajukanta lab.
Congrats to Integrative Genetics & Genomics grad student Sean McGinty on passing his PhD qualifying exam! Time to celebrate!!
The Dennis lab had a blast at the American Society of Human Genetics meeting in Washington where we hung out with old friends and made new ones. Former grad student Daniela Soto joined Megan and former grad student (now postdoc) José Uribe-Salazar to present research related to structural variation and human evolution. The week was rounded off with José presenting a plenary talk on his shared work with Daniela identifying and characterizing human duplicated genes implicated in brain evolution, earning them an ASHG postdoctoral award. In addition to this award, numerous UC Davis trainees presented amazing work this year. So proud!
Our annual Genome Center Halloween symposium showcased human genetics research, with keynote speakers Priya Moorjani from UC Berkeley and Lucia Hindorff from NHGRI. There were awesome pumpkins and costumes all around, with the Dennis lab representing with its zebrafish pumpkin (courtesy of grad student Nick) and our Hogwarts-themed group costume.
Thank you(!) to the NIH National Institute of Mental Health for funding our lab’s first R01 related to human duplicated genes and their roles in neurodevelopment and autism. We are super grateful and excited to continue work in this exciting research area! We are currently recruiting postdocs to contribute to projects.
We have much to celebrate!
Undergraduate Gabriana La graduated with a B.S. in Biochemistry and will continue as a PhD student in the UC Davis Integrative Genetics & Genomics program. We are excited for her to return to the Dennis lab to pursue research questions related to autism genetics, funded via an NINDS Diversity supplement.
Undergraduate Jeffrey Zang graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science and will continue as a postbac in our lab until December, where he will move onto greener pastures in Seattle working for Amazon. Congrats Jeffrey!
Recent PhDs Dr. Daniela Soto and Dr. José Uribe-Salazar were the first Dennis lab graduate students to officially walk during UC Davis commencement! Daniela will continue as a postdoc in Dr. Jonathan Flint’s lab at UCLA in October. José will continue as a postdoc with our group to complete final projects (and transfer his vast knowledge to the rest of us!), with plans to transition to biotech in the coming year.
We also are excited to welcome undergraduate researcher, Emily Xu. She will join the group as a UC Davis CIRM COMPASS fellow focused on using zebrafish to model autism candidate genes.
We are excited to welcome our newest Integrative and Genomics PhD graduate student Nick Haghani! Graduating from UC Santa Barbara and taking a postbac year at UC San Diego, Nick’s dissertation project will use zebrafish to test genes implicated in brain development (evolution and conditions). Nick was also selected as a UC Davis MCB NIH T32 trainee! Yayyy!!
Check out our recently published review in Yearbook American Journal of Biological Anthropology, led by multiple former and current PhD students Daniela Soto, José Uribe-Salazar, Colin Shew, Sean McGinty, and Aarthi Sekar. We share challenges in detecting structural variation and the roles they play in human evolution. In particular, we highlight top candidate human duplicated genes implicated in brain development, detailed below.
Recently graduated PhD student Colin Shew will start as a postdoc at Genentech in Dr. Benito-Gutiérrez’s group this spring.
Red Shack trail
