Norman Hassell Successfully Defends Masters Thesis
Norman Hassell successfully defended is thesis “Patterns and dynamics of pelagic stream microbial community assembly”
Congratulations!
Daniel McSkimming Successfully Defends Dissertation
Daniel McSkimming successfully defended his dissertation “Rational characterization of cancer variants in the eukaryotic protein kinase domain”.
Congratulations Dr. McSkimming!!
IOB Faculty Member Awarded NIH Grant
Dr. Robert J. Woods has received significant funding from the National Institutes of Health. The U01 grant has been awarded to develop a suite of web-based tools to enable non-specialists to model glycoconjugates and glycan-protein interations.
Congratulations Dr. Woods!
IOB Graduate Student Publishes in G3
Bioinformatics doctoral student Lexiang Ji is first co-author of a paper recently published in G3 – Genes Genomes Genetics. The paper is a result of collaboration with Dr. Zack Lewis, Assistant Professor in Microbiology at UGA.
Ji’s paper, “Histone H1 limits DNA methylation in Neurospora crassa” can be found here.
DARPA Contract Awarded
Dr. Juan Gutierrez and Dr. Jessica Kissinger are two of 40 established investigators involved in the THoR’s HAMMER project, which was recently funded through a $6.4 million contract.
The Defense Advances Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) are supporting the project which focuses on malaria and its effects on human and non-human primate hosts.
Both Dr. Gutierrez and Dr. Kissinger will supervise a number of Bioinformatics graduate students over the course of the project, and will collaborate with scientists across the globe. The ultimate goal being therapeutic interventions with the aim of reducing disease severity and death.
For more information, please visit the following website for the official press release published through EurikAlert!
REU Students work with IOB Faculty
Dr. Jonathan Arnold, who oversees the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program through the Department of Genetics, has placed several REU participants with IOB faculty.
The National Science Foundation program promotes active research participation by undergraduate students in any of the areas of research funded by the NSF. REU participants have been placed with Dr. Jessica Kissinger, Dr. Art Edison, Dr. Natarajan Kannan, and Dr. Juan Gutierrez. Participants will work on projects throughout their time in the REU program.
iWall makes a visit to the Life Sciences Building
Dr. Jonathan Arnold, Graduate Coordinator of the Institute of Bioinformatics, and Professor of Genetics has introduced the UGA community to a highly advance in innovative technological teaching tool.
Three panels of iWall have been installed in a classroom in the Life Sciences Building. Dr. Arnold is using this technology in his NSF funded REU program this summer. Faculty and students are able to explore research and education using the iWall.
In addition, Dr. Juan Gutierrez, Associate Professor in Bioinformatics and Mathematics, is using the iWall as an interface with his ALICE web-based software system.
For more information on the iWall and the way it’s being explored, please see the story published by the Athens Banner-Herald, found here: UGA Professor, students experiment with giant touch-screen technology
Recent Graduate Accepts Position
Recent PhD graduate Joydeep Mitra has accepted a Postdoc position at Memorial Sloan Ketterling Cancer Center in New York City, NY.
Dr. Mitra will be working on a cancer genomics project aimed at personalized therapies. He will be joining the lab of Dr. Elli Papaemmanuil and working the with head of myeloma service, Dr. Ola Landgren.
Congratulations and good luck on your new endeavor, Dr. Mitra!!
IOB Student Annie Kwon wins Poster Award
Ph.D. Student Annie Kwon was awarded Best Poster at the UGA Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Retreat. The retreat, held at Unicoi State Park on May 15-16, 2016, offered two awards for best talk and two awards for best poster.
This award comes with a monetary prize.
Congratulations Annie! Good work!!
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grant
Faculty of the Institute of Bioinformatics have received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a better reference genome annotation and metabolic map for the protist pathogen Cryptosporidium.
IOB Graduate student Yiran Li will be working on the comparative genomics aspects of this project.