Congratulations and farewell to Cecelia Kelly and Jayanth Jawahar on their successful defenses of their Ph.D. dissertations!  Cece is moving on to be a Lab Research Analyst in the Functional Genomics Core at Duke, and… Farewell to Cecelia Kelly and Jayanth Jawahar!

The Rawls lab is happy to welcome Peyton Moore, a new Ph.D. student in Duke’s Molecular Genetics and Microbiology Program.

Congratulations and farewell to Gilberto Padilla Mercado on his new position as an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Fellow and Data Analyst at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Maggie was awarded a F30 NRSA to support her research into how enteroendocrine cells within the gut epithelium sense and adapt to nutritional and microbial stimuli. Matt was awarded a F32 NRSA to support his… Graduate student Maggie Morash and postdoctoral fellow Matt Tillman awarded NIDDK Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Fellowships

This article describes a genetic analysis of all three members of the HNF4 family of transcription factors in zebrafish, uncovering distinct and redundant roles in intestinal development and host-microbiota interactions plus striking conservation with mice.… Jenny Heppert and colleagues publish article in Genetics

This article revealed potential transcriptional mechanisms by which the intestine adapts to diet and microbiota, and how microbiota may modulate intestinal lipid absorption and epithelial cell renewal. Published in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, this… Colin Lickwar and colleagues publish article in CMGH

The Rawls lab is happy to welcome Liza Rassadkina, a new Ph.D. student in Duke’s Molecular Genetics and Microbiology Program.

Published in BMC Genomics, this article reveals that long-term starvation induces progressive changes in microbiome composition and host gene expression in the adult zebrafish intestine, and these changes are rapidly reversed after refeeding.