From left: Lisa Cashman, Jane Rhett, Alan Saghatelian and Brian Tauber.
On October 27, 2021, Professor Alan Saghatelian and Postdoctoral Researcher and 2021 Salkexcellerators Fellow Jacob Tremblay shared highlights from their labs with the Salkexcellerators group in an outdoor mixer. Salkexcellerators are the next generation of community members who support scientific discovery at Salk and engage with scientists through a full schedule of activities.
Christina Towers
On December 1, 2021, Salk Women & Science celebrated its 10-year anniversary of engaging women in the community with leaders in biological science and technology.
This year’s event was held in honor of Swati Tyagi, a postdoctoral researcher in the Hetzer lab who was tragically killed in June 2021. A Women & Science endowed fund has been established in her name.
In addition, the Salk Women & Science Special Awards were presented. Every year, the awards provide crucial support to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to pursue high-risk, high-reward research in stages too early to attract traditional funding. The awards support future scientific leaders who will also actively encourage women and girls in science.
Awardees pictured above starting from left.
Ying Sun
Busch Lab
Identify the genes and regulatory factors that control root growth in legumes—ultimately to optimize roots that capture excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Helen McRae
Hargreaves Lab
Profile epigenomics—chemical changes to the genome—in tumor-associated immune cells called macrophages
Veronica Scerra
Reynolds Lab
Develop new methods to probe changes in synapses—connections between neurons—that could play a role in neurological diseases
Xiaochun Cai
Jin Lab
Discover how two brain regions, the thalamus and striatum, work together to control the way animals perform actions in sequence
Wen Mai Wong
Chalasani Lab
Characterize ultrasound-sensitive proteins from single-celled organisms for use in sonogenetics—a new method for activating cells with sound waves
Katia Troha
Ayres Lab
Determine how amino acid supplementation promotes renal growth to increase survival of infection
Nuttida Rungratsameetaweemana
Sejnowski Lab
Determine how neurons work together to take in sensory information and form a schema—a conceptual picture of a task or environment, which can help shape future learning
Payel Mondal
Towers Lab
Use new light-based tools to inhibit autophagy—the process cells use to remove and recycle their “junk”—and visualize the resulting metabolic changes over time
Suzanne Dufresne
Towers Lab
Investigate how cancer cells can survive and bypass the deletion of autophagy—the way cells remove and recycle their “junk”—in animal models, and how we might treat it
The Salk Institute and Lustgarten Foundation form strategic pancreatic cancer research partnershipSupported by a $5 million grant, the partnership aims to identify and validate potential targets for new pancreatic cancer drugs. Four participating labs, led by Salk Professors Reuben Shaw, Ronald Evans, Tony Hunter and Assistant Professor Dannielle Engle, will bring their individual areas of complementary expertise to bear on the collaborative goal.
The weed that changed the worldHow Arabidopsis thaliana became one of the most important tools in science—and how the information the small weed has revealed over decades of research now enables the development of Salk Ideal PlantsTM, a new generation of food crops that are better equipped to both thrive in a changing climate and help mitigate it.
Courtney Glavis-Bloom — Shining the spotlight on aging to find a cure for Alzheimer’s diseaseSenior Staff Scientist Courtney Glavis-Bloom’s work is driven by her experience caring for her grandparents, who were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease when she was in high school. She saw firsthand how dementia robs individuals of their connections to the world—now she studies the brain areas affected in aging in the hope of finding a cure.
Helen McRae — Leveraging the body’s own immune response for more effective cancer therapiesHelen McRae was a graduate student when her cousin was diagnosed with lung cancer and received immunotherapy—an approach that empowers a patient’s own immune system to destroy tumors. McRae saw the promise of this newer treatment, but also how much more research is needed to help it work for more people.
Kenta Asahina – Flying into the future of technology and innovationOriginally from Japan, Associate Professor Kenta Asahina grew up exploring nearby farmlands with his two brothers in search of insects and plants. Their dad enjoyed taking them to the mountains and national parks. These experiences inspired his interest in the natural world, and Asahina now studies how genetics impact fruit fly behavior.
