The Lee lab has three undergraduates graduating this spring 2024 and all will be presenting their honors capstone projects in June! Lola Lang will be presenting “Tets, Blots, and Ligases! Oh My! An undergraduate’s research journey” June 12th at 11am, Hannah Thorp will be presenting “Fem in STEM: a podcast series exploring the experiences of women in fem-dominated research labs” June 13th at 10am, and Toby Traudt will be presenting “Pond scum genome protection program” June 14th at 10am.
Current Lee Lab members Toby Traudt and Hannah Thorp have been named a Hallson Scholar and CSE Elwha Scholar, respectively, to support their research efforts this summer! They will be continuing with some of their current research and taking on new projects as well.
We are excited to share that Lee Lab Alum Briar Jochim will be starting this coming academic year as a PhD Candidate in the M3D (Molecular Medicine and Mechanisms of Disease) Program at the University of Washington! Since his time in the Lee Lab, Briar has been a research assistant in Dana Miller’s lab at UW and Nic Lehrbach’s lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Congratulations to Lee Lab members Lola Lang, Hannah Thorp, Alison Witwer, and Toby Traudt for all their work this summer as part of WWU Biology’s SURP, culminating in a poster session to present their research projects. The Western Today featured stories from all labs participating in the program including the Lee Lab in SURP’s Up: Worms, pond scum and fruit flies make for interesting summer research.
And shoutout to Lola for receiving a Hallson Stipend Award and Alison for receiving a Seagen Stipend Award.
Last month the Lee Lab celebrated the end of summer with a potluck that included many current and former members, and even our very own Team Tetrahymena baby! We congratulated Courtney Yoshiyama on her graduation with a B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology and welcomed former lab member Maya Matsumoto back as a full-time Research Tech. It’s been a busy summer in the lab with many projects ongoing but we’re excited to see what we can get up to once classes start again!
This exciting 5 year award (“Investigating the Role of an RNA Interference Pathway in Safeguarding the Tetrahymena Thermophila Somatic Genome” MCB 2143019) will support us in our ongoing studies of when, where, and how DNA genomes are protected from accumulating DNA damage by RNA interference pathways while also strengthening and expanding research experiences for undergraduate and Masters’ level students! Yippee!! For more about this award, please see our NSF Award Abstract and an article in Western Today.
Congratulations to Fall 2021 graduate Jason Sasser, who has completed a Bachelor of Science in Biology with an emphasis in Cellular and Molecular Biology! Jason was also a member of WWU’s Honors College for which he prepared and presented an Honors Capstone Senior Project on his research with the Lee Lab.
Jason’s research contributed to our understanding of the relationship between RNAi pathways, Twi proteins, and genome integrity in Tetrahymena.
Most immediately, Jason plans to gain experience in clinic settings to help him decide whether to pursue a career focused on biomedical research, becoming a medical provider, or both.
We wish Jason all the best in his next steps!
Congratulations to recent Lee Lab undergraduate alum Maya Matsumoto, who was recognized for her research and presentation skills at the 2021 SACNAS (NDiSTEM) Digital Conference, as an awardee of the Student Presentation Awards! Maya presented her work on developing microscopy image analysis code to quantify extranuclear DNA bodies, which has been performed in collaboration with Lee Lab undergrads Christina Mong, Patrick Pando, and Alison Witwer, and WWU Biology collaborator Dr. Nick Galati. According to SACNAS President Dr. Pamela Padilla, “The Student Presentation Awards recognize the next generation of scientists and STEM leaders from historically excluded populations.”
Two Lee Lab undergraduates, Jason Sasser and Courtney Yoshiyama, were each awarded a WWU Research and Creative Opportunities Award for the 2021-2022 academic year. These awards will support their ongoing research projects in the Lee Lab focusing on Twi proteins in RNAi in Tetrahymena.
Congratulations to Jason Sasser for receiving the WWU CSE Jarvis Memorial Summer Research Award for the summer of 2021. This award provides a summer stipend for undergraduate students within CSE – Jason will be continuing the research he has been working on in the Lee Lab for the past year and a half!