Lauren Walker, PhD, assistant professor of Molecular and Systems Biology, has been named the Frank and Myra Weiser Scholar in the Neurosciences at the Geisel School of Medicine.
Funding for this award comes from the Frank M. Weiser, MD, (D ’54, M’55) and Myra A. Weiser Endowed Fund, which was established to support basic and translational research in the neurosciences by a faculty member at the Geisel School of Medicine, with a preference for support of younger faculty members undertaking promising work.
“It’s really exciting to receive this award, especially as someone who is just starting their career, and to get this recognition and support,” says Walker, who joined Geisel last winter and will receive $75,000 of research funding over three years beginning this month.
Walker’s lab uses a zebrafish model to study how motor neurons find their correct muscle targets to enable coordinated movement. Using a combination of genetics, molecular biology, live imaging, and transcriptomics, she seeks to understand how neurons interact with cells and signals in their environment to form appropriate connections during development and regeneration.
To date, Walker’s studies have focused on the development of larvae or young zebrafish. “This funding award will provide the resources we need to move our research into older animals, so we can better understand their process of nerve regeneration,” she explains “We’re grateful for this opportunity to expand on our work and to start gathering essential preliminary data that we hope will serve as a foundation for larger grant funding in the future.”
Dr. Esteban Orellana (MSB), in collaboration with Dr. Soni
Lacefield (BCB), launched The International Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (ISURE), which brings undergraduate students from partner universities in Africa and Ecuador to Dartmouth to perform research in biomedical labs for 8 weeks during the summer. Through ISURE, Dartmouth serves as a leader in the role of broadening the global network of STEM researchers. The program aims to promote exchange and collaboration between Dartmouth College and disadvantaged countries in Africa (Kenya) and Latin America (Ecuador) to promote advances in research and STEM student retention. STEM researchers in developing countries often lack opportunities for state-of-the-art research, limiting students' exposure to career options. These issues often represent a roadblock that slows down the scientific advancement of a developing country, which could be addressed by collaboration with investigators/laboratories in the United States.
The 2024 Tenney Fellowship has been awarded to Dr. Shannon Paquette, from the Kasper lab. The fellowship was created in 2002 to honor the memory of Dr. Stephen Marsh Tenney, MD. Dr. Paquette is exploring how a specific transcriptional regulator, IRF8, establishes functionally distinct macrophage subsets in the context of tissue development and hematopoietic balance. Genetic mutations of IRF8 have been identified in hematologic cancers and several autoimmune disorders, but it is unknown how perturbed macrophage heterogeneity drives these pathologies. By capitalizing on the advantages of zebrafish as a developmental model system, Dr. Paquette will address the knowledge gap between the known consequences of IRF8 loss and its unknown functions in dictating hematopoietic diversity.
