2007 Neuroscience News: Congratulations to Zane Zeier - the graduate student selected to represent the Neuroscience IDP Program in the 2007 COM Medical Guild Competition! The Neuroscience IDP program held its annual Medical Guild selection competition this past week. Eight students participated in this event. The Bronze winners were Firas Kobeissy, Amy Chen, Mercedes Prudencio-Alvarez and eMalick Njie. The Silver winners were Ben Nahir, Celeste Karch and Wilda Orisme. Congratulations to Zane Zeier Please join me in congratulating Zane on his excellent research presentation for the Medical Guild Competition. If you had a chance to attend this event, I am certain that you will agree that Zane did an excellent job of representing the Neuroscience IDP program. Zane received a silver medal for his effort - again, congratulations! Congratulations to Firas Kobeissy! Firas will be recognized at the Annual Medical Education Banquet on May 2nd, 2007, for his outstanding teaching contributions to the education mission of the UF College of Medicine. Congratulations to Dr. Lucia Notterpek, Dr. Lou Ritz and Dr. Sue Semple-Rowland! Lucia, Lou and Sue each received outstanding teaching awards from the College of Medicine for 2007. Congratulations to Jonathan Verrier, Kryslaine Lopes and Rabia Zafar! Jonathan, Kryslaine and Rabia each recieved a Medical Guild Research Incentive Award ($1,000 research fund). Three of the five awards given went to Neuroscience program students! The remaining awards were given to a student in immunology and in microbiology and cell science. Congratulations to Yesy Del Valle Pinero! The figure below from her recent research article published in Neuroscience was selected for the cover of the journal. Double labeling of the NMDA receptor NR1 subunit (green) and the neuronal marker, neurofilament protein (red) in rat colon Del Valle-Pinero AY, Suckow SK, Zhou Q, Perez FM, Verne GN, Caudle RM. Expression of the N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor NR1 splice variants and NR2 subunit subtypes in the rat colon. Neuroscience. 2007 May 15 [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 17509768 Congratulations to Dr. Dena Howland! Dena has recently been awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor.