Lab News

2026

April 2026: Alex is awarded a Wrenn PhD Fellowship from the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences. Congratulations, Alex!
April 2026: Caitlin and Nico present posters at Glia Camp 2026.
April 2026: Tracy passes her preliminary exam! Congratulations!
April 2026: Charlotte defends her undergraduate thesis. Congratulations, Charlotte!
March 2026: Alex passes her preliminary exam! Congratulations!
February 2026: The lab publishes “Microglia and Myeloid Cell Populations of the Developing Mouse Retina” in Glia.

2025

December 2025: Sarah is elected as the Duke University Postdoctoral Association President.
September 2025: Juan, Ekta, Adam, and Jeremy publish a review, “Development of Retinal Astroglia”, in Annual Review of Vision Science.
July 2025: Caitlin presents her poster at the 2025 European Glia Meeting in Marseille, France.
June 2025: Ekta presents her poster @FASEB2025.
May 2025: Tracy and Alex join the lab. Welcome Alex and Tracy!
May 2025: Ekta and Mayur present posters @ARVO2025.
April 2025: Caitlin was invited to give a talk at the annual GliaCamp meeting and won an award for the best talk.
March – April 2025: Tracy Lee (Neuro) and Alex Barker (DSCB) rotate in the lab.
February – March 2025: Andrew Wang (CMB) rotates in the lab.
January– February 2025: Meredith Stewart (CMB) rotates in the lab.

2024

November 2024: Markus Cheng joins the lab. Welcome, Markus!
October 2024: Rashmi Dubey joins the lab. Welcome, Rashmi!
September 2024: Mayur gives a talk at CSHL Molecular Mechanisms of Neuronal Connectivity.
September 2024: Sarah and Jeremy publish a review, “The dynamic development of dendrites”, in Current Biology.
August 2024: Cora Bright successfully defends her thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Bright!
August 2024: The lab publishes “Retinal neurons establish mosaic patterning by excluding homotypic somata from their dendritic territories” in Cell Reports.
July 2024: Nico Zerda joins the lab. Welcome, Nico!
May 2024: Jeremy, Caitlin, and Sarah attend the 2024 Gordon Research Conference in Visual System Development in Lucca, Italy.
March 2024: Elise Edgar joins the lab. Welcome, Elise!

2023

October 2023: The lab publishes “Rejection of inappropriate synaptic partners in mouse retina mediated by transcellular FLRT2-UNC5 signaling” in Developmental Cell.
September 2023: Ekta selected for Neurobiology Department Retreat talk.
August 2023: Charlotte Reedy joins the lab. Welcome, Charlotte!
July 2023: Ekta received Ruth K. Broad Biomedical Foundation Fellowship award for the year 2023-2024
July 2023: Sarah presented a poster at the Society for Developmental Biology 82nd annual meeting.
June 2023: Caitlin Paisley successfully defends her thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Paisley!
June 2023: Sarah received The Hartwell Biomedical Research Fellowship award for the class of 2022.

2022

September 2022: Sarah Hadyniak joins the lab. Welcome, Sarah!
September 2022: Mayur presents a poster CSHL Molecular Mechanisms of Neuronal Connectivity.
July 2022: Caitlin Paisley is invited to give a talk at Cold Spring Harbor’s Glia in Health and Disease Conference.
June 2022: Lab alumna Vanessa Puñal returns to run the Duke Pre-College Program Neuroscience Lab. Caitlin Paisley and Juan Valdez-Lopez give a guest lecture on the visual system.
Spring 2022: Jordan Schneider rotates in the lab.
January 2022: Adam Miltner joins the lab. Welcome, Adam!

2021

October 2021: Caitlin and Jeremy publish a review, “Seeing Stars: Development and function of retinal astrocytes”, in Developmental Biology
September – October 2021: Phoebe Lee (Neuro) rotates in the lab.
September 2021: Caitlin Paisley is selected for a Neurobiology Departmental Retreat Talk.
June 2021: Sage Martineau joins the lab. Welcome, Sage!
May 2021: The lab publishes “Environmental oxygen regulates astrocyte proliferation to guide angiogenesis during retinal development” in Development.
February 2021: Ekta Dembla joins the lab. Welcome, Ekta!
January – February 2021: Michael Sindoni (Neuro) rotates in the lab.

2020

November – December 2020: Justin Savage (Neuro) rotates in the lab.
September 2020: Caitlin is invited to give a talk at the inaugural VisionFest meeting at Duke.
August – October 2020: Helen Rueckert (DSCB) rotates in the lab.
July 2020: The lab publishes “Comprehensive identification of mRNA isoforms reveals the diversity of neural cell-surface molecules with roles in retinal development and disease.” in Nature Communications.
July 2020: Juan Valdez-Lopez joins the lab. Welcome, Juan!
February 2020: Mayur Dembla joins the lab. Welcome Mayur!

2019

November 2019: Caitlin is selected for the 2019-2020 Holland-Trice Graduate Student Fellowship.
October 25, 2019: Christopher Kozlowski successfully defends his thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Kozlowski!
October 2019: The lab publishes “Large-scale death of retinal astrocytes during normal development is non-apoptotic and implemented by microglia” in PLoS Biology.
September 2019: Caitlin wins a Best Graduate Student Poster award at the Neurobiology Department Annual Retreat.
July 2019: Jingjing Wang successfully defends her thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Wang!
June 2019: Caitlin Paisley attends Cold Spring Harbor’s Advanced Techniques in Molecular Neuroscience Course.
June 2019: Sam Zarnick joins the lab. Welcome, Sam!
March 12, 2019: Vanessa Puñal successfully defends her thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Puñal!

2018

December 2018: Cameron and Jeremy publish a review, “Dendrite morphogenesis from birth to adulthood”, in Current Opinions in Neurobiology.
April 2018: The lab publishes “Formation of retinal direction-selective circuitry initiated by starburst amacrine cell homotypic contact” in eLife.

2017

October 2017: The lab publishes “Astrocytes follow ganglion cell axons to establish an angiogenic template during retinal development” in Glia.
August 2017: Caitlin Paisley joins the lab. Welcome, Caitlin!
April 2017: Robin Perelli joins the lab. Welcome, Robin!
January 2017: The lab publishes “Anatomy and spatial organization of Müller glia in mouse retina” in the Journal of Comparative Neurology.

2016

June 2016: Federica Brecha joins the lab as a research technician after working in the lab as a Duke undergraduate researcher. Welcome back, Federica!

2015

2014

2013

2012