News & Media
2024
- Congratulations to Jacob Ortega whose work on the identification of novel targets and regulatory mechanisms of small non-coding RNAs piRNAs is published today in Science Advances.
- Congratulations to Jacob Ortega on his very successful Ph.D. defense!
- Congratulations to Janet on her successful master's thesis defense today!
- Congratulations to Swathi for being inducted into the MD Anderson Cancer Center Academy of Health Science Education and conferred the title of MD Anderson Distinguished Educator.
- Congratulations to Han Bit Baek for winning the platform talk award at the Annual Department of Genetics Retreat!
- Congratulations to Jacob Ortega for being accepted at the Marine Biological Laboratory’s embryology course to be held June through July, 2024.
- Congratulations to Nick Newkirk for receiving travel awards from the MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and from the program in Genetics and Epigenetics to present his work at The Allied Genetics Conference in March 2024.
- Congratulations to Han Bit Baek for being selected to present her thesis work as a Talk at The Allied Genetics Conference in Washington DC in March 2024. Han has also received Travel Awards from the MD Anderson UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the Genetics and Epigenetics graduate program to present her work at the meeting. Double congratulations to Han!
2023
- Congratulations to Swathi for being elected member of the University of Texas Kenneth I. Shine Academy of Health Science and Education!
- Congratulations to Han for winning the Platform talk award (2nd place) at the Genetics & Epigenetics Graduate Student Retreat!
- Congratulations to Dr. Kenny Trimmer for being selected as the Trainee Speaker representing the TPEHS Training Program at the upcoming Keck Annual Research Conference on October 20, 2023, sponsored by the Gulf Coast Consortium.
- Congratulations to Nick Newkirk for successfully renewing the American Legion Auxiliary Fellowship in Cancer Research awarded by the dean’s office at UT MD Anderson UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
- Congratulations to Raisa Reyes, who’s work on the role of phosphorylated nuclear Dicer in lineage reprogramming as a mechanism to drive tumor progression was published today in Science Advances.
- Congratulations to Nick Newkirk for receiving the 2023 G&E student service award.
- Congratulations to Dr. Kenny Trimmer on his latest work published at Cell Reports, where he identified transcripts that are acquired by arrested oocytes from neighboring somatic cells. Read about the work here.
- Congratulations to Dr. Deba Das for being invited as a speaker at the Annual Frontiers in Reproduction Alumni symposium at Marine Biological Labs to be held in June 2023.
- Congratulations to Raisa for successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis!
- Check out the latest work from Tokiko Furuta in the lab: Tokiko identified a role for sart-3, a spliceosomal component, in regulating germline sex determination in C. elegans: microPublication Biology
- We welcome Janet Cheng to the lab as a master's student in the Graduate Program in Diagnostic Genetics and Genomics, MD Anderson Cancer Center.
- Congratulations to Dr. Kenny Trimmer for being awarded the Dodie P. Hawn Postdoctoral award from the Department of Genetics for his scientific accomplishments and strengths in mentoring.
2022
- Check out Raisa's latest work on bioRxiv detailing the mechanism of phosphorylated nuclear Dicer1 in regulating cancer spread through non-canonical mechanisms.
- Congratulations to Han Bit Baek for being awarded an MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences travel award to present her work at the American Society of Cell Biology Meeting, in Washington DC, December 2022.
- Congratulations to Jacob Ortega for winning the first-place award for platform presentations at the Southwest Society of Developmental Biology meeting held in Austin. Jacob wins all-expense paid travel to the Annual Society of Developmental Biology Meeting in 2023.
- Congratulations to Nick Newkirk for winning the first-place award for platform presentations at the Genetics and Epigenetics Annual Graduate Student Retreat.
- Congratulations to Raisa Reyes Castro for being awarded the Genetics and Epigenetics Student Travel Award to present her work at the AACR Special Meeting on Cancer Metastasis this November.
- Congratulations to Jacob Ortega and Dr. Deba Das for being selected to present their work as Platform Presentations at the Cold Spring Harbor Germ Cells meeting this October.
- Congratulations to our summer undergraduate student, Sydney Christiansen, from Texas A&M who was in the lab as part of Summer Undergraduate Research Program, funded by the NIH, for her second-place poster award on the work that she performed in the lab over the summer. Way to go Sydney! Sydney returns to Texas A&M to complete her Bachelor's.
- Congratulations to Swathi for being named the Presidential Honoree for Education and Mentorship Advancement at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
- Check out our latest review on the conserved and species specific role of ERK signaling in oocyte maturation across mammals, non-mammalian vertebrates and invertebrates, published in Molecular Reproduction and Development.
- Congratulations to Swathi for being named the National Academy of Medicine Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine Scholar!
- Congratulations to Raisa Reyes for winning the first place in poster presentation at the Graduate Student Research Day for her work on the role of phosphorylated Dicer1 in cancer progression!
- Congratulations to Nick Newkirk for being awarded the American Legion Auxiliary Fellowship in Cancer Research for conducting his graduate studies.
- Amelia Li joins the Arur lab as a technical assistant. Welcome, Amelia!
- Check out our collaborative paper with Jen Wargo and the Traction Team at MD Anderson on “Androgen receptor blockade promotes response to BRAF/MEK targeted therapy” is now published in Nature.
- Check out our collaborative paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences with Drs. Villeneuve and Kim.
- Check out Swathi’s perspective published in Development today with Dr. Margot Williams from a collection of latest preprints, on the role of mechanical forces during gastrulation. Titled: "In Preprints: buckling under pressure during gastrulation” Development, May 10, 2022.
- Congratulations to Dr. Kenny Trimmer for earning a competitive slot on the T32 training grant with TPEHS.
- Check out our collaborative paper with Amanda Minogue, Jake Seeman and Scott Barish, Shinya Yamamoto, Hugo Bellen and the Undiagnosed Disease Network where we identified a deleterious patient mutation in Drosha. Published in Human and Molecular Genetics.
- Our collaborative paper with Dr. Nicola Silva’s lab is published in G3.
- Dr. Debabrata Das was awarded the 2021 Outstanding Publication Award by the Odyssey Program for his work published in Science Advances 2020. Congratulations, Deba!
- Congratulations to Dr. Debabrata Das on his latest paper from the lab in PNAS with Seeman J, Greenstein DI, Schedl T and Arur S.: Reevaluation of the role of LIP-1 as an ERK/MPK-1 dual specificity phosphatase in C. elegans germline. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. January, 2022.
- Congratulations to Swathi for being elected to the Executive Board of the Genetics Society of America.
2021
- Congratulations to Nick for passing his candidacy exam unconditionally!
- Congratulations to Jacob for being awarded the First place in the Flash Talk competition at the Genetics and Epigenetics Retreat.
- Congratulations to Nick for being awarded the Second place in the Flash Talk competition at the Genetics and Epigenetics Retreat.
- Congratulations to Han for being awarded the Third place in the Flash Talk competition at the Genetics and Epigenetics Retreat.
- Congratulations to Jacob Ortega for being appointed as the Early Career Representative on Genetics Society of America Board of Directors!
- Congratulations to Raisa for being awarded the Program in Genetics and Epigenetics Student Service Award for successfully organizing and hosting the virtual G&E Art Showcase.
- Congratulations to Deba for being awarded the Ben F. Love Endowed Fellowship in Innovative Cancer Therapies.
- Congratulations to Swathi for being awarded the Linda and Mark Quick Award for Basic Science!
- Check out Kenny's latest paper on the description of a new method to generate and screen CRISPR edited single point mutants by one-step allele specific PCR.
2020
- Congratulations to Swathi for being elected Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Sciences.
- Congratulations to graduate student Han Bit Baek for winning the First Place and People’s Choice award for her platform session talk at the Genetics and Epigenetics Program annual student retreat.
- Congratulations to graduate student Jacob Ortega for winning the Second Place award for his poster presentation at the Genetics and Epigenetics Program annual student retreat.
- Sava Mounange-Badimi joins the group as a Research Assistant! Welcome aboard Sava!!
- Congratulations to Jacob Ortega for being awarded the Dean’s Award by Baylor College of Medicine Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences for the “wonderful accomplishment in obtaining the competitive Gilliam Fellow for Advanced Study Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute”.
- Deba’s paper on the role of ERK signaling in phosphorylating the chromosomal axis component HORMA domain protein HTP-1 to
control and coordinate meiotic progression and oocyte number was accepted at Science Advances! Congratulations to Deba! - Congratulations to Jacob for being awarded the HHMI-Gilliam Graduate Fellowship for three years!
- Swathi is appointed Academic Editor at Development Journal, Company of Biologists. Congratulations, Swathi!
- We are excited to welcome Heather to the lab as our latest graduate student! Welcome Heather!
- Congratulations to the lab for being funded by the Undiagnosed Disease Network Gene Function studies to pursue the function of DROSHA as a disease-causing variant.
- Congratulations to Amanda for successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis today! Congratulations Dr. Minogue.
- Congratulations to Deba for being awarded the Dodie P. Hawn Postdoctoral research award in Genetics.
- Check out our latest work on the Drosha-microRNA circuit that regulates oogenesis in C. elegans. Excellent work from Amanda Minogue, Kenneth Trimmer and Jacob Seeman.
- Congratulations to Swathi on being awarded the UT STARS award by University of Texas Regents.
- Swathi featured in MD Anderson's Messenger magazine article discussing CPRIT funding and its impact on research.
2019
- Congratulations to Jacob Ortega for being awarded the First Place and People’s Choice Award at the platform session talks of Genetics and Epigenetics Student Retreat!
- Graduate student Amanda Minogue was featured in Baylor College of Medicine's Student Voices video.
- Congratulations to Jacob for being elected President of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americas in Science (SACNAS), Baylor College of Medicine Chapter.
- Deba Das was just awarded the Odyssey Postdoctoral Fellowship for three years! Congratulations, Deba!!
- Congratulations to Jacob on passing his qualifying exam with an unconditional pass!
- NIGMS approved a Diversity Supplement support for Jacob’s graduate work. Congratulations to Jacob. We are very thankful for the support from NIGMS.
- Paper accepted! Amanda Minogue developed an in situ hybridization method to detect miRNAs in vivo in dissected tissue. This method was accepted for publication in Current Protocols in Molecular Biology. Congratulations, Amanda!
- Han Bit Baek joins the lab as a graduate student! Welcome aboard, Han!
- Congratulations to Amanda for winning the First place in poster presentation at the Annual Retreat for Program in Developmental Biology, BCM.
- Congratulations to Kenny on successfully defending his thesis.
- Raisa Castro, an M.D./Ph.D. student joins the lab. Welcome, Raisa!
- Our paper showing (a) the constitutive (heterozygous) phospho-Dicer1 drives tumor progression and dissemination in mice and (b) phosphorylated Dicer1 correlates with invasive endometrioid tumors in women, was accepted in Cancer Research. Congratulations to Neeraj Aryal, Gigi Lozano and Paul Goodfellow (OHSU) our awesome collaborators for helping take a discovery made in worms to mouse models and human cancers.
2018
- Congratulations to Swathi for being elected to the Board of Directors of the Genetics of Society of America.
- Paper accepted! Congratulations to Amanda and our team of collaborators Mike Tackett and Elnaz Atabaksh from Abcam on our latest study accepted for publication at Nature Communications. The study identifies a small repertoire of miRNAs that are expressed and functional in meiosis I oocytes. Amanda further finds that over half of these are generated even in the absence of Drosha activity, uncovering new layers of complexity in RNA landscape underlying oocyte development.
- Paper accepted! Our collaborative paper on the role of constitutive Dicer phosphorylation in accelerating aging and metabolism in mice is accepted at PNAS! Congratulations to Neeraj Aryal and Gigi Lozano on this study and for being awesome collaborators.
- Congratulations to Amanda on winning the second place for Platform talks at the Baylor Graduate Student Symposium!
- Congratulations to Amanda for winning second place at the Platform presentations at the Genetics and Epigenetics Program Retreat!
- Congratulations to Swathi and the lab for being awarded the NIGMS Equipment Supplement to purchase a Zeiss LSM 800 Confocal Microscope! Thank you NIGMS!!
- New Grant! Swathi is awarded a one year Institutional Research Grant! Congratulations to the lab!
- Congratulations to Jacob Ortega for passing his oral qualifying exam with flying colors.
- Congratulations to Tokiko, Hyoe-Jin and Kenny on their latest discovery on the regulation of G1 in germline stem cells. Check out the paper published in the journal Development.
- Congratulations to Debabrata Das, Ph.D., for being awarded an AAISCR-Legacy Scholarship for attending the MBL course in Frontiers in Reproduction!
- Congratulations to Amanda Gervaise for winning the "Best Platform Talk" at the Program in Developmental Biology Retreat, Baylor College of Medicine.
- Congratulations to Debabrata Das, Ph.D., for being selected for the Frontiers in Reproduction course at the Marine Biological Labs.
- Amanda presents her work in a platform talk at the Noncoding RNA: physiology, form and function.
2017
- Swathi is named the Faculty Educator of the Month!
- Swathi Arur, Ph.D., is the winner of the MD Anderson Distinguished Research Faculty Mentoring Award! Arur, nominated by faculty, is the recipient of this prestigious award recognizing her dedication to mentoring.
- Swathi Arur, Ph.D. selected as a Sabin Fellow! Arur, one of MD Anderson’s brightest young researchers, was selected as a member of the second annual class of Andrew Sabin Family Fellows, a prestigious program established through the generosity of MD Anderson Board of Visitors member Andrew Sabin. The program encourages ingenuity, creativity, independent thinking and high-risk, high-impact research. Arur’s genetics research focuses on the interplay of RAS signaling and small RNA biogenesis enzymes in promoting tumor progression and metastasis.
- Check out our latest review on the role of Insulin signaling in governing oocyte development and maturation from worms to human in Molecular Reproduction and Development.
- Check out our latest collaborative paper in Nature Cell Biology with the Horvitz Lab on the role of insulin like signaling in regulating maternal germline and response to progeny stress!
2016
- Check out our latest paper in Methods in Molecular Biology. Discovering Functional ERK Substrates Regulating Caenorhabditis elegans Germline Development.
- New paper! Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Active ERK in the C. elegans Germline 2016 Gervaise, A, Arur, S. Journal of Visualized Experiments.. Check out this paper on performing controlled and careful germ line dissections for obtaining reproducible active ERK patterns. Watch the accompanying video!
- New grant! Congratulations to Swathi for being awarded the Anna Fuller Foundation Scholar Award.
2015
- Congratulations to Henry and Jessica! Our latest collaborative paper, with the Shvartsman group at Princeton University, describing a mathematical model on ERK activation dynamics in the C. elegans germ line is published in Biophysical Journal!
- New Grant!!! Congratulations to the lab on getting a new three year CPRIT Award on Investigating the RAS/ERK Substrate Network!!
- Check out our latest review in Worm on the context dependent regulation of Dicer activity during oocyte to embryo transition.
- Caitlyn presented her beautiful summer internship research at the CPRIT Summer Scholars Poster Competition. Congratulations to Caitlyn on a very successful internship!
- We had a great time showing high school students C. elegans as part of MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Outreach! Each student got to take home their very own C. elegans!
- Kenny wins the Genes and Development, Cookie Decorating Contest - woohoo!
- Congratulations to Jessica for being named the Genetics Society of America Poster Winner at the 20th International C. elegans Meeting, held in UCLA from June 24-28th, 2015.
- Congratulations to Jessica, for winning the best Talk award at the Genes and Development and Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis Joint Spring Retreat!
- Congratulations to Jessica for being awarded the Dean's Excellence Scholarship for her graduate work!
2014
- Our paper on Dicer regulation by ERK was just picked as Editors Choice at Science Signaling!
- Congratulations to the lab and our wonderful collaborators on unraveling the impact of ERK mediated phosphorylation on Dicer function, published in Developmental Cell, with an accompanying commentary.
- Our article has been recommended by the Faculty of 1000.
- Congratulations to Kin Suen and John Ladbury, on Kin’s successful defense! Congratulations Dr. Suen.
- Congratulations to Dr. Swathi Arur for being awarded the American Cancer Society Research Scholar Grant.
- Our paper describing the detailed protocol for generation of antibodies that detect highly specific post-translationally modified proteins in vivo is now published in Nature Protocols.
2013
- Congratulations to Dr. Swathi Arur for the Outstanding Faculty Member Award from the Genes and Development Program.
- Congratulations to Kenny for winning the Pre-candidacy Research Achievement Award from the Genes and Development Program.
- Our paper on the role of DAF-2 / insulin like signaling was uploaded today at the Developmental Cell website.
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