2023 Retreat

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Chris Q. Doe

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The Department of Cell & Developmental Biology held its annual retreat on November 11, 2023, at Allerton Park in Monticello. The keynote speaker was Dr. Chris Q. Doe, director of the developmental biology program at the University of Oregon and a former faculty member at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

“I was delighted to invite Dr. Chris Doe to our retreat this year. I am interested in building a strong relationship with CDB alumni, from students and postdocs to faculty,” said Dr. Supriya Prasanth, professor and head of the department.

“Chris Doe is a preeminent scholar in our field who has expanded our understanding of the central nervous system,” she said. “Specifically, his work has shed light on the intricate processes by which neural stem cells produce a diverse array of neurons. Moreover, he has elucidated how these precisely generated neurons establish neural circuits, contributing to our understanding of motor behavior.”

In his remarks to retreat attendees, Doe provided an overview and update on his research advances in developmental neurobiology, and he reflected on his time at Illinois. In 1989, when Doe joined the department, then called the Department of Cell and Structural Biology, the head at the time was Dr. Rick Horwitz. Doe
credits Horwitz with helping him launch a successful research lab.

During his time as an assistant professor at Illinois, Doe identified the essential factors and mechanisms involved in asymmetric cell division and neural lineage specification and pioneered the field of neural stem cell development. In 1990, he was awarded the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Young Investigator Award for his groundbreaking work on the molecular mechanisms controlling the determination and interactions
of developing neurons. His work has pushed our understanding of lineage specification further. In 1993, his research on the role of the wingless gene in neuroblast diversity was featured on the cover of Science magazine. In 1994, Dr. Doe named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

At the University of Oregon, Doe and members of his lab continue to advance their brain development research. He was the first to discover the cascade of temporal transcription factors in neural stem cells that are crucial for embryonic and larval neuronal identity specification. His lab has been making high-impact discoveries in a broad aspect of neural stem cell biology, neural fate specification and neural circuit assembly. Dr. Doe has won numerous prestigious awards, including elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.

Congratulations to the graduate students who won research presentation awards at our 2023 departmental retreat

Research Poster Award

Tejas Mahadevan Padmanabhan (Anna Marie Sokac Lab)
Andrew Riley (William Brieher Lab)
Anish Bose (Rachel Smith-Bolton Lab)

Research Talk Award

Tejas Mahadevan Padmanabhan (Anna Marie Sokac Lab)
Temirlan Shilikbay (Stephanie Ceman Lab)
Neha Chetlangia (Supriya Prasanth Lab)

Eli Lilly CDB Graduate Student Seminar Award

Madhura Duttagupta (William Brieher Lab)
You-Jin Song  (KV Prasanth Lab)
Natalie Biel (Anna Marie Sokac Lab)
Hailun Zhu (Xin Li Lab)
Pradeep Kumar (Andrew Belmont Lab)

Canceled for safety reasons during COVID-19 pandemic.

2019 CDB Retreat

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Cyril Ramathal, Principal Research Scientist, AbbVie

Student Talk and Poster Presentation Awards

Best Student Talk:

1. Qinyu Sun (Dr. KV Prasanth lab)
2. Rosaline Hsu (Dr. Supriya Prasanth lab)

Best Poster:

1. Madhura Duttagupta (Dr. William Brieher lab)
2. Surabhi Sonam (Dr. Jonathan Henry lab)
3. Neha Chivukula (Dr. Andrew Belmont lab)

Corporate Sponsors

VectorBuilder • QIAGEN • HydroPeptide • MilliporeSigma • National Diagnostics • Avantor

2018 CDB Retreat

Student Talk and Poster Presentation Awards

Best Student Talk:

1. Yuou Wang (Dr. William Brieher lab)

Best Poster:

1. Rosaline Hsu (Dr. Supriya Prasanth lab)
2. Qinyu Hao (Dr. KV Prasanth lab)

CDB Retreat Sponsors

Corporate Sponsors:

VectorBuilder • VWR • Fisher Scientific • IDT • Santa Cruz Biotechnology • Intact Genomics

Local Sponsors:

Manolo’s Pizza & Empanadas • Espresso Royale • The Bread Company • Signature Grill