June 22, 2019
By: Ella Gunady
At my first lab meeting, I was both amused and mildly horrified to watch my PI compete in the Spicy Noodle Challenge. (Think instant noodles whose packaging has pictures of chili peppers with evil eyes. And a chicken breathing fire...
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By: Evelyn Sturrock
Before Dr. Richard Mooney was the George Barth Geller Professor of Neurobiology at Duke, he was a curious five-year-old who knew he preferred facts to opinions. Speaking to me in his office today, he fondly recalled childhood memories being outdoors, fishing...
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By: Shannon Houser
Dr. Sanders is an amazing mentor and I have truly enjoyed getting to know more about her and her incredible research during these last three weeks. I first met Dr. Laurie Sanders when she gave a talk to the SPIRE...
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June 18, 2019
By: Nithin Ragunathan
The great American philosopher Alicia Keys once declared that “Big lights will inspire you” on a track with Jay-Z. It’s this sentiment that I’ll be spending my summer trying to extrapolate to my mice. See, my project involves optogenetic...
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June 16, 2019
By: John Modarres
As everyone by now has heard, the U.S is experiencing an epidemic. I’m not talking about infrastructure or climate change or income inequality, rather I am referring to the current opioid crisis. You see, a couple of decades ago big...
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By: Kathleen Beben
To know how something differs when it's broken, it must first be known how it excels when it's fully functional. Autism is a spectrum disorder characterized by deficits in communication and social behavior, most commonly diagnose in boys. While autism...
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By: Brennan Simon
Hello readers! Welcome to Week 2 of my science blog about my research experience. This week I get to talk about the science that my lab is exploring as well as my specific project. To start, I'll begin with some...
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By: Jaan Nandwani
We have all had various experiences that have had a significant effect on who we are and how we act. Whether it was the childhood memory we will never forget, or the friendships we formed throughout school, our experiences definitely...
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By: Alissa Kong
This summer, I am working in Dr. Gong’s Biomedical Engineering research lab on a project focused on examining place cells in the hippocampus of mice. Place cells play an important role in spatial and episodic memories and the current project...
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By: Catherine Yao
When I first sat down with Lindsey Glickfeld, she explained every unknown neurobiology term with a diagram, which I will try to emulate throughout this blog post. I think trying to explain the Glickfeld Lab’s focus on the synaptic organization...
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By: Eleanor Seo
How many moons does Jupiter have? What is a group of frogs called? How many total steps does the Eiffel Tower have? If you know the answers, congrats! If you don’t, take a guess! If you’re curious about the answers,...
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By: Kacia Anderson
All animals use Wnt growth factors for controlling cell fate decisions as the organism develops. The wingless gene (wg) encodes the Drosophila Wnt growth factor, Wingless (Wg) protein. In Drosophila, a loss of function mutation in the wingless gene causes a disruption...
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By: Sophia Jeffery
Delta-catenin is a protein that was believed to be neuron specific but spoiler alert it is in astrocytes as well! In the catinen-cadherin complex, delta-catenin is important in cell adhesion by cadherins between pre and post synaptic neurons. Literature on...
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By: Claire Yin
As high school biology teachers often remind us, we’re more closely related to other animals than we might generally like to think. We all eventually, when traced back far enough, stem from a single ancestor. And despite our distinct and...
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By: Michael Lee
Cancer pain delivers a message. A vile, biting message to patients that life itself is seeping through their fingers. A disheartening, damning message to medical specialists that even their powers are limited. It thrusts itself as a physical manifestation of...
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By: Simone Wall
Modern clinical medicine relies heavily on the blood-based diagnostic tests that measure the amount of protein biomarkers present in circulation to make clinical decisions. In hospital settings, this is most commonly done by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). While accurate and...
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By: Evelyn Sturrock
Have you ever inhaled helium from a party balloon? Go ahead, admit it. It's funny, right? You laugh because your voice is so high-pitched, it doesn't sound like you anymore. Maybe you try to make your voice lower-pitched to counteract...
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By: Rachel Estrella
When I was placed in the Volkan lab and took a tour back in May I was fascinated, but I had my doubts. What could we possibly learn about human neurobiology by studying Drosophila? Can I get a handle on...
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