Alex successfully competed to be one of the UNC nominees put forward in prestigious national fellowship competition.  Alex is now in the running for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellowships for Advanced Study.  She is a terrific candidate with a strong background in research and leadership.  We hope HHMI is able to recognize Alex’s accomplishments and provide her future opportunities for continued development by awarding her with his fellowship.

Two Dowen Lab members have won competitive awards at the 4th Annual UNC Chromatin and Epigenetics Symposium, held virtually on Dec 3, 2020.

Graduate student Nicole Arruda won an award for her talk.

Graduate student Megan Justice won an award for her poster presentation.

Congratulations on being recognized for your presentation skills and your results. Enjoy the prize money!

She is at it again. Riya Gohil has authored another blog post for NC DNA Day, this time shining the spotlight on our very own graduate student Alex Stutzman!  Riya interviews Alex and reveals her path to research, her scientific loves, and other science adjacent interests. In particular, they touch on Black In Genetics (BIG) which Alex founded and is leading in some cool directions. Riya did a great job in this new format (personal interview).

Check out her work here:  http://ncdnaday.org/2020/10/scientist-spotlight-alexis-stutzman/

Alex passed her Oral Exam, where she defended her proposed thesis project to her committee.  They were all very impressed with preliminary results and project plans.  We are excited to see all the future results and progress!

Natalie Rittenhouse was selected for the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology T32 training grant. This grant is from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and will fund Natlie’s graduate work for one year. Congratulations Natlie on receiving this competitive award!

Megan Justice, Zach Carico and Holden Stefan have their WIZ study published in Cell Reports. Their work shows that WIZ forms a complex with the architectural proteins Cohesin and CTCF, which are known to organize the genome into DNA loop structures. WIZ is important for proper genome structure, gene expression and control of embryonic stem cell identity. Congratulations on your exciting work!

Natalie Rittenhouse is joining the Dowen Lab for her thesis studies. She is currently a 1st year graduate student in the BBSP program at UNC. Previously, Natalie earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Bioinformatics from the University of Pittsburgh. Welcome to the lab Natalie!

We are excited to share that Audra Bryan has joined the lab as a postdoctoral researcher. She recently earned her PhD from Vanderbilt University where she studied the role of transcription factors in gene regulation in normal cells and cancer cells. We are glad to have her join our team and apply her skills to the area of 3D genome organization and gene control.

I have been slow to update that Natalie Rittenhouse has been in the lab this winter doing a graduate student rotation project. We have really enjoyed having her around to learn and work with CRISPRed cell lines and help us phenotype them. Glad to have you here Natalie!