MCB People in the News

December 14, 2007

Postdoctoral Poster Session Award Winners

Congratulations to Shivendra Kishore in the Stamm lab (Second Place) and Jozsef Gal in the Zhu lab (Honorable Mention) in the College of Medicine Postdoc Poster session.

Dear Postdoctoral Scientists,

We would like to thank every postdoctoral scientist who took the time to develop posters and provide presentations of their research at the First Annual Postdoctoral Poster Session on Wednesday, December 12, 2007.  This was a very lively event where postdoctoral scientists and faculty judges learned a great deal from each other and where high level science was the topic of every discussion.  We are very pleased with your reports that this event was both very useful and enjoyable!  We hope the Postdoctoral Poster Session will become a true highlight of the Postdoctoral Development Series. 

We have two clear award winners and one tie: 

First Place:  Dr. Judit Z. Baffi, Ophthalmology, Ambati lab
Dr. Baffi will receive $1,000 in travel support to the conference of her choice in the next 12 months. 

Second Place: Dr. Shivendra Kishore, Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, Stamm lab
Dr. Kishore will receive $500 in travel/research support in the next 12 months. 

Second Place (tie):  Dr.  Guofang Qiu, Radiation Medicine, Rangnekar lab and Dr. Yanming Zhao, Radiation Medicine, Rangnekar lab

We will break the tie for the additional Second Place Award by a drawing to determine the winner at the January Postdoctoral Development Seminar.  This seminar will be on January 12, 2008 at 4 pm in CTW 127 (Wethington Commons Room). 

Honorable Mention:

Dr. Xabier Arzuaga, Nutritional Science/Toxicology, Hennig lab
Dr. Jozsef Gal, Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, Zhu lab
Dr. Erin Hascup, Anatomy and Neurobiology, Gerhardt lab
Dr. Hanad Duale, Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center/Physiology, Rabchevsky lab 

Judging forms will be also be available for pick up by each postdoc at the January Postdoctoral Development Seminar. 

We hope you will join us on Wednesday, January 16, 2007, at 4 pm in CTW 127 to congratulate the Postdoc Poster award winners.  The topic of the seminar will be obtaining extramural funding. 

Happy Holidays! 

Anthony Sinai PhD
Chair
Postdoc Advisory Committee
 

Dec. 12, 2007

The Faces of Research:  Jamie Cantrell

Dear Biochemistry Colleagues, 

I am just writing to call your attention to an article in the latest Dean’s newsletter that features the interesting research project that Jamie Cantrell, one of our graduate students, is doing in Dr. Sabire Ozcan’s laboratory.  Also of note is that this nice article was written by Rachel Ahmed in Dr. Paul Murphy’s lab!   

Kevin

LINK TO ARTICLE

Dec. 2, 2007

JBC Paper of the Week

The Sarge Lab's paper titled "HSF1-Tpr interaction facilitates export of stress-induced hsp70 mRNA" has been chosen as Paper of the Week in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. 
 

Nov. 12, 2007

Gill Heart Institute Cardiovascular Research Day Award

It is my great pleasure to inform you that Nathan Correll in the Andres Laboratory was awarded second place for the best student presentation at the Gill Heart Institute Cardiovascular Research Day, which was held on October 19, 2007.
Please join me in congratulating Nathan for this very nice honor.

-Kevin Sarge
 

Oct. 16, 2007

Welcome Fall 2007 Rotation Students
 

May 31, 2007

Predoctoral Fellowships

Megan Sampley, Steve Smith and Nathan Vanderford have been awarded predoctoral fellowships from the American Heart Association.
 

May 31, 2007

Zhu Lab Paper Recognized

A recent paper on studies from Haining Zhu's laboratory into Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, was recognized on the main UK web site (link is below).
http://news.uky.edu/news/display_article.php?artid=2335
 

March 21, 2007

Dr. Becky Dutch Nominated for the Sarah Bennett Holmes Award

"Recognizing Remarkable Women at the University of Kentucky" -
Dr. Rebecca E. Dutch serves the University of Kentucky as Associate Professor in the Department of  Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry.  In a discipline dominated by men, Dr. Dutch leads a lab of nine women, inspiring her seven female students and one female research assistant to develop the knowledge, experience, skill and confidence required for making independent research decisions and backing up those decisions when questioned.  Dr. Dutch encourages critical thinking as she guides research projects, scientific writing, and instructs her students in effective public speaking, all essential skills required for professional success, obtaining independent funding, fellowships, and presenting research at meetings and professional conferences...

Article Continued Here

 

March 6, 2007

Biochemistry Student Wins Presidential Fellowship

Dear Biochemistry Colleagues,

It is my great pleasure to inform you that Ms. Chunxia Zhao in the Whiteheart Laboratory has been awarded a Presidential Fellowship from the University of Kentucky.

 

 

October 5-7, 2006

Congratulations are due to Megan Sampley for winning fourth place in the student competition for the Gill Heart Institute Cardiovascular Research Day.  In addition, according to Dr. Carole Moncman there were numerous works from both our graduate students and post-docs that were scored favorably in this competition, so we would like to acknowledge all of these individuals that participated.  The Gill Heart Institute Cardiovascular Research Day is an event for UK that is growing each year and provides students, fellows and staff the opportunity to discuss their work in a scholarly fashion with other researchers.
 

September 29, 2006

Biochemistry Rises to 12th in the Nation as Ranked by NIH

Letter from the Chair -

Congratulations to all of you. 
The Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry rose in NIH rankings of public medical schools  from 28th in 2000 to 12th in 2005.  In terms of all medical schools we've climbed from 54th to 26th. 
This is a fantastic accomplishment for which you all should be very proud of yourselves.

Louis B. Hersh
George Schwert Professor and Chair
 

July 19, 2006

Dr. Kevin Sarge receives the 2006 Clinical and Translational Science Mentor Award

May 25, 2006

Four Biochemistry Students Receive AHA Predoctoral Awards

Jennifer Rudolph, Wangsun Choi, Jason Ren, and Richard Singiser have been awarded Predoctoral Awards from the American Heart Association.  These awards, which will begin July 1, carry a stipend of $20,000 per year and provide two years of support.  We are very proud of these students as well as all our other students who are putting forth effort to seek predoctoral support from this and other sources.

April 1, 2006

Biochemistry Professor wins Great Teacher Award

Dr. Wally Whiteheart, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, has received a Great Teacher Award for excellence in the classroom.  This prestigious award, only six of which were given by the University of Kentucky this year, is based on nominations from students.  It has been awarded yearly since 1961, making it the oldest continuous honor bestowed by UK for teaching excellence.  We congratulate Dr. Whiteheart for his outstanding contribution to quality teaching here at UK.

The complete News Release can be found at: http://news.uky.edu/news/display_article.php?artid=1163

December 9, 2005

Review featured as cover article

A review authored by Dr. Kevin Sarge and Physiology faculty member Dr. Ok-Kyong Park-Sarge was featured as the cover article for the November issue of Trends in Biochemical Sciences, a top-ranked review journal in the biomedical sciences. The article is: Sarge, K.D. and Park-Sarge, O.K. (2005) Gene bookmarking: keeping the pages open. Trends Biochem. Sci. 30: 605-610. 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16188444&query_hl=4

Click here to see cover image
 

May 18, 2005

Biochemistry Chair Appointed Senior Associate Dean for Basic Science Affairs

Congratulations to Dr. Louis B. Hersh, Department Chair for the Department of Molecular & Cellular Biochemistry, the newly appointed Senior Associate Dean for Basic Science Affairs.  This new office advises the Dean and works collegially with Senior Associate Deans for Research and Education on matters of academic affairs and operations relating to the basic science departments.  Dr. Hersh has served as Chair for the Department of Molecular & Cellular Biochemistry for 13 years and has been a guiding force in the development of the department.

May 17, 2005

Christina Hines awarded Medical Student Research Award

Biochemistry MD/Ph.D. graduate Christina Hines was presented the Medical Student Research Award by Dr. Louis Hersh (Chair) this past Saturday at the UK Medical School Senior Awards Brunch.  The Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry is very proud of Christina and her accomplishments and wishes her the best of luck throughout her medical career.

May 17, 2005

Biochemistry Article selected as Research Highlight by Advanced Photon Source

A recent biochemistry article, titled:  Enzyme Mutations And Motor Disorders, was selected as a research highlight by the annual publication of the Advanced Photon Source.   The paper stems from work performed by Yiying (Crystal) Cai as part of her thesis research. 
see:  Y. Cai, C.N. Cronin, A.G. Engel, K. Ohno, L.B. Hersh, and D.W. Rodgers, "Choline Acetyltransferase Structure Reveals Distribution of Mutations that Cause Motor Disorders," EMBO J. 23, 2047 (2004)

May 11, 2005

Biochemistry Researcher Wins Kirwan Prize

University of Kentucky biochemistry professor Louis Barry Hersh today received the Albert D. and Elizabeth H. Kirwan Memorial Prize at the university’s 138th commencement.

The annual award, which includes a $5,000 prize, recognizes a full-time UK faculty member for outstanding contributions to original research or creative scholarship. It is named in honor of Albert D. Kirwan, president of UK from 1968 to 1970, and his wife, Elizabeth, and was established by their sons.

Hersh, who chairs the UK Department of Biochemistry and is director of the Kentucky Center for Structural Biology, was recognized for research that attracted $3 million from outside grant agencies in 2004 alone. His recent work focuses on decreasing the accumulation in the brain of the neurotoxin amyloid beta peptide, believed to be a causative agent of Alzheimer’s disease. He has identified two enzymes that degrade the amyloid beta peptide.

In the last four years, Hersh has produced 39 articles in scientific journals such as Life Science, Molecular and Cellular Biology and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He was elected president in 2003 of the Association of Medical and Graduate Departments of Biochemistry, and serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals.

Apr. 18, 2005

2nd year MCB Students Present at ASBMB Meeting

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS
2nd year MCB students Mary Bosserman, Nick Noinaj, Megan Sampley, Rachel Schowalter, Melanie Silver, Rich Singiser, Chiranthani Sumanesekera, and Nathan Vanderford presented their research data at the Annual American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology that was held April 2-6 in San Diego.  Every year the department sends all 2nd year students to the ASBMB meeting, which next year will be in San Francisco, because it provides them an excellent opportunity to improve their research presentation skills, learn about the work of other scientists, and make professional connections that can be very valuable for their future career success.
 

Apr. 1, 2005

2 Biochemistry Students Awarded UK Academic Excellence In-State Scholarships

The department would like to congratulate two of our graduate students, Rachel Schowalter and Nathan Vanderford, who have been awarded UK's Academic Excellence In-State Tuition Scholarship. 

Nov. 8, 2004

Large Increase in MCB Grant Funding

"Over 11 million dollars in total grant funding was obtained by researchers in the department for the period July 2003 to June 2004, a 40% increase over the level for the previous year. NIH grant dollars rose from $4.7 million in fiscal year 2003 to over $8.3 million in fiscal year 2004".

Oct. 27, 2004

Biochemistry Student Wins 2nd Place for Poster at Gill Heart Institutes Cardiovascular Research Day

Our graduate student Lisa Kelly Senetar was awarded second place for her poster at the Gill Heart Institute's Cardiovascular Research Day yesterday. She competed against over 60 students from throughout the University for this honor.

Oct. 8, 2004

Dean Congratulates 2 Biochemistry Students for Outstanding 1st Year Performance

Nathan Vanderford and Rachel Schowalter received high praise from Dr. David Watt, Executive Dean for the UK College of Medicine, for earning a GPA of 4.0 during their 1st year in the Integrated Biomedical Sciences Program.
"This is a demanding curriculum, both in terms of the amount and level of prescribed coursework and in terms of juggling coursework and bench research during rotations.  You have performed at a consistently high level throughout this challenging year."  - Dr. Watt

Rachel and Nathan were 5 out of 35 Students from their class who achieved a "straight A" average.

Sept. 1, 2004

2 Biochemistry Students Make all-star Rugby Team

4 Rugby Players Make all-star team (taken from The Lexington Herald Leader):  Four members of the Lexington Moths Women's Rugby Club have been selected for the Ohio Rugby Union All-Star Team.  Mary Bosserman (Biochemistry), Sarah Martin, Natalie Mickelsen and Rachel Schowalter (Biochemistry) represented local rugby at the Midwest Rugby Tournament in Chicago last weekend.  The tournament brought together the best women players of the Ohio Union, pitting them against all-star teams from other unions, including Illinois, Minnesota and Iowa.  The Lexington Moths are members of the Ohio Rugby Union and regularly play against clubs in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee.

The Moths have started practice for the new season, and new players are welcome.  No age limit or experience is necessary.  For more information, contact Sarah Martin at (859) 913-4599 or email mothrugby@yahoo.com.

August 6, 2004

Willie Craft receives NIH predoctoral award

June 30, 2004

Five MCB students win American Heart Association predoctoral awards