CMB

CMB faculty trainer and alumni, Grace Boekhoff-Falk is featured for her work on fruit flies and how they detect the sense of smell.  The full article can be found on the UW Madison School of Medicine and Public Health website: http://www.med.wisc.edu/news-events/news/researchers-find-gene-critical-to-sense-of-smell-in-fruit-fly/35873

Chris Pfund is currently the Associate Director for the DELTA Program at UW-Madison.  The Delta Program promotes the development of a future national faculty in the natural and social sciences, engineering, and mathematics that is committed to implementing and advancing effective teaching practices for diverse student audiences as part of their professional careers.  Chris continues to share her talents with the CMB Program through professional development workshops for faculty mentor training and first year grad students.   

The research projects in our laboratory are focused on molecular imaging, molecular therapy, and nanotechnology. Molecular medicine is the future of 21st century patient management. Molecular imaging, “the visualization, characterization and measurement of biological processes at the molecular and cellular levels in humans and other living systems”, can play pivotal roles in disease diagnosis, treatment efficacy assessment, drug discovery, and the understanding of fundamental biology.

The Jorgensen lab uses cell and molecular biology tools to identify genes that are sexually dimorphic during sex differentiation, characterize their functional significance, and finally, understand how they are regulated.  Currently, we are focusing on two genes: steroidogenic factor 1 (Sf1) and Iroquois homeobox factor 3 (Irx3).

The research projects in the Raines laboratory are designed to reveal how biological phenomena can be explained with the principles of chemistry. The hypotheses are far-reaching, and testing them requires the use of techniques and ideas from diverse disciplines. This broad/deep training is appropriate for scientists who want to perform innovative and meaningful research at the widening chemistry - biology interface.

Why do we get sick?  This simple question underpins all research in my laboratory.  Our overarching goal is to understand why immune responses sometimes fail to protect us from acute and chronic viral diseases.  We study innate and adaptive immune responses to acute and chronic viral infections and the mechanisms viruses have evolved to subvert them.  Through our discoveries, we hope to contribute to the global campaigns against pandemic influenza and AIDS.

This photo was taken with my technician Jason Weinfurter when our building was holding its "Mustaches of Science" competition.

Congratulations to CMB faculty trainer, Dave Pagliarini, who was recently selected for a $300,000 Searle Scholar Award!  CurrentCMB students Josh Carson and Jarred Rensvold are conducting their research in the Pagliarini lab.  The UW news article features the full length story at http://www.news.wisc.edu/19608. 

CMB Student, Maria Mikedis (Karen Downs Lab) was selected and recently attended the 61st annual meeting of Nobel Laureates inLindau, Germany. Maria attended the conference from June 26-July 1, 2011. She was selected from an internal UW competition and then a national selection. Based on her thesis advisor holding an NIH grant, Maria's exciting research topic and high productivity within a short period of time, Maria was selected to represent research at the UW-Madison and thus the CMB Program.