2008 Neuroscience News: Congratulations to Linda Lee who successfully defended her doctoral thesis work titled "Neuroplasticity in an Animal Model of Abnormal Stereotyped Motor Behavior: Effects of Environmental Enrichment " on July 17th. Linda was mentored by Dr. Mark Lewis. Congratulations to Marcella Coutts who successfully defended her masters thesis work titled "Descending medullary projections to the phrenic motoneuron pool following high cervical spinal hemisection" on July 10th. Marcella was mentored by Dr. Paul Reier. Congratulations to Arseima Yesenia Del Valle Pinero who recently was awarded a National Research Service Award! The topic of her research will be studies of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors in the enteric nervous system. The award was made by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIH-NIDDK). Yesy is mentored by Dr. Robert Caudle and is a graduate student in the Neuroscience IDP program. Congratulations to Jonathan Verrier who recently was awarded a two year National Research Service Award! The topic of his research will be studies on the post-transcriptional regulation of peripheral myelin protein 22 by microRNAs. The award was made by the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Jonathan is mentored by Dr. Lucia Notterpek and is a graduate student in the Neuroscience IDP Program. Congratulations to Kryslaine Lopes who successfully defended her doctoral thesis work titled "Morphological analysis of senescent microglia in human and rodent brains under conditions of disease and injury" on June 16th. Kryslaine was mentored by Dr. Wolfgang Streit. Congratulations to Kryslaine Lopes who has published her first first-author manuscript! Kryslaine joined the Neuroscience IDP graduate program in 2004 and is mentored by Dr. Wolfgang Streit. Her paper is titled "Microglial dystrophy in the aged and alzheimer's disease brain is associated with ferritin immunoreactivity" was accepted March 10th and will be published in Glia. It is available online PMID: 18442088. Congratulations to Shelby Suckow who has published her first first-author manuscript! Shelby joined the Neuroscience IDP graduate program in 2005 and is mentored by Dr. Robert Caudle. Her paper is titled "Identification and immunohistochemical characterization of colospinal afferent neurons in the rat"was accepted February 14th and will be published in Neuroscience. It is available online PMID: 18424003. Congratulations to our 2008 Exemplary Teacher Award Winners! Drs. Dena Howland, Ron Mandel, Lucia Notterpek, Lou Ritz, Sue Semple-Rowland and Jake Streit have each received Exemplary Teaching Awards from the College of Medicine for 2008. In addition, the Medical Neurosciences Course under the direction of Dr. Lou Ritz has, for the second year in a row, won the College of Medicine Golden Apple Award, an award that is given to the Best Science Course offered each year! Congratulations to Celeste Karch who has published her first first-author manuscript! Celeste joined the Neuroscience IDP graduate program in 2005 and is mentored by Dr. David Borchelt. Her paper is titled "A Limited Role for Disulfide Cross-linking in the Aggregation of Mutant SOD1 Linked to Familial Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis" and appeared in the Journal of Biological Chemistry papers in press March 3rd. It will appear in volume 283. Congratulations to Firas Kobiassy, PhD, who was recently named has been named UF's Sigma Xi Graduate Research Award recipient for 2008! Firas received his doctoral degree in Neuroscience in the Spring of 2007 (mentor: Kevin Wang, Ph.D., Psychiatry). Sigma Xi is the honor society of research scientists and engineers. It is an international, multidisciplinary society whose programs and activities promote the health of the scientific enterprise, reward excellence in scientific research and encourage a sense of companionship and cooperation among scientists in all fields. More than 200 members have won the Nobel Prize. Congratulations to Wilde Orisme who was recently selected to participate in the 2008 St. Jude National Graduate Student Symposium! Wilde is one of 43 graduate students selected out of 700 applicants to participate in this annual research event that will held this year at St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, TN, from March 25-29th. To showcase their research, all participants present a poster at the beginning of the week and then an oral presentation later in the week. Please join me in recognizing Wilde for this important achievement. Congratulations to Stephanie Jefferson - the winner of the 2008 Neuroscience IDP Medical Guild Competition! Selection of the winner this year's competition was very difficult as all seven participants gave excellent presentations. The faculty who served as judges for this year's competition wish to thank each student for taking time to participate in this very important annual event. Please join me in supporting Stephanie on April 23rd 8-10:30 am at the COM 2008 Medical Guild Research Competition (HPNP auditorium). Congratulations to the Neuroscience IDP Program 2008 McKnight Brain Institute Graduate Student Investigators Research Grant Awardees! GRACE HA, Psychiatry, College of Medicine Mentor:  John Petitto, Ph.D., Psychiatry STEPHANIE JEFFERSON, Neuroscience, College of Medicine Mentor:  Dena Howland, Ph.D., Neuroscience AARON RISING, Neuroscience, College of Medicine Mentor:  Ronald Mandel, Ph.D., Neuroscience JONATHAN VERRIER, Neuroscience, College of Medicine Mentor:  Lucia Notterpek, Ph.D., Neuroscience