PATHAK LAB

2024

February 2024

• Medha presents at the annual BPS meeting in Philadelphia, PA. 

• Gabby presents her poster at the annual BPS meeting.

• Gabby wins the Mechanobiology SRAA poster competition at the annual BPS meeting. Congrats Gabby! Read about it here!

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January 2024

• Gabby is awarded UCI School of Medicine Behrens Fellowship in Medicine. Congrats Gabby!

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2023

December 2023

• Our new pre-print is out! We implemented a new tool, PIEZO1-HaloTag hiPSCs, to follow the spatiotemporal dynamics of endogenous human Piezo1. This technology can bridge molecular-, cellular-, and tissue-scale imaging. Read about it here!

• Updated pre-print! We explore the role of PIEZO1 in leader cell formation and cellular coordination during collective keratinocyte migration. Read about it here!

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November 2023

• JGP selects our paper “Piezo1 regulates cholesterol biosynthesis to influence neural stem cell fate during brain development” for inclusion in a special collection on neuroscience research. Read about it here!

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October 2023​

• Gabby and Beth present posters and Medha gives a talk at the Ion Channel Modulation Symposium at UC Irvine.

• At the SCRC Halloween Contest, Kimberly wins 1st place for most creative desert. Marta and Kimberly also won 3rd place in the costume contest. Congratulations!

• Anh Nguyen joins our lab as a work-study student. Welcome Anh! 

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August 2023

• Marta Cubero joins the lab as a visiting PhD scholar from the University of Glasgow. Welcome, Marta!

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July 2023

• Kianna Satari joins the lab as a summer undergraduate intern. Welcome, Kianna!

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June 2023

• Medha has been granted tenure and is promoted to Associate Professor! Congratulations, Medha!

 

May 2023

• Beth presents a poster at the 2023 Annual ISSCR conference in Boston, MA.

• Naomi is selected for the UROP Distinguished Research Fellowship. Congratulations, Naomi!

• Beth receives the SCRC Golub Travel Fellowship for the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR). Congratulations, Beth! 

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April 2023

• Alan receives UCI Graduate Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship. Congratulations, Alan!
  Jami is awarded the UCI School of Medicine Outstanding Career Scientist Research Award. Congratulations, Jami!

 

March 2023​

• Gabby gives a talk at the UCI Department of Physiology Research in Progress seminar series.

 

February 2023​

• Jami, Jesse, Alan, and Gabby present their work at the 2023 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.

• Congratulations to Elaine for being accepted in the UCI CMB PhD program! 

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January 2023​

• Alan passes his PhD advancement. Congratulations Alan!

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2022

December 2022

• Ignasi is interviewed at the Journal of Cell Science for his PhD research on substrate adhesion in chondrogenesis. Read about it here!

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November 2022

• Congratulations to Beth for giving a talk at the CIRM training grant retreat!

• Our lab wins the best science-themed costume award at the SCRC Costume Contest! Free pizza for everyone! 

• Our collaborator Zheng Shi's paper that we contributed to is accepted in Nature Communications! Read about how membrane curvature regulates Piezo1 localization.

• Jesse successfully defends his dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Holt!

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October 2022

• Our new pre-print is out! We explore the role of PIEZO1 in collective keratinocyte migration. Congratulations to all of the authors! Read it here. 

• New pre-print from the lab! We examine the mobility of endogenous Piezo1 channels. Congratulations to first authors Alan Ly and Vivek Tyagi (from Doug Tobias's lab)! Read it here.

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September 2022

• Our paper linking Piezo1 and cholesterol during brain development has been published in the Journal of General Physiology! Congratulations to all of the authors! Read the paper here. Some news coverage here and tweetstorm here.

• We welcome Ignasi Casanellas, a new postdoc in the lab!

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August 2022

• Medha gives a talk at the European Calcium Society meeting in Cork, Ireland.

• Gabby attends the OMIBS course at Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole.

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July 2022

• Medha gives a talk at the World Congress of Biomechanics (WCB 2022, hybrid meeting) in Taipei, Taiwan.

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June 2022​

• Medha presents at the Biophysical Society Conference on Molecular Biophysics of Membrane in Lake Tahoe, CA. 

• David graduates from UCI with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. Congratulations, David! 

• Laura Williamson joins the lab as an MSTP graduate program rotation student. Welcome, Laura! 

 

May 2022​

• Michael presents at the UROP Symposium. Great job, Michael!

• Gabriella is accepted into the MBL Microscopy course (OMIBS) at Woods Hole! Congratulations, Gabriella! 

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April 2022​

• Medha gives a talk at the global Cell Migration Seminar series. Watch it on YouTube here!

• Alan is awarded the NIH Diversity F31 grant. Congratulations, Alan!

• Elaine is awarded the 2022 Excellence in Biochemistry award from CSU Fullerton. Congratulations, Elaine!

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March 2022​

• We are awarded a Stem Cell Research Center Seed grant. Thanks to the SCRC for supporting our work!

• Medha hosts the first of a 4-part HHMI Gilliam Workshop to support diversity at the graduate level. The workshop titled "Improv to Improve Your Science" with Bri McWhorter explore how techniques from Improv can be used in science. 

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February 2022​

• Gabby gives a talk at the UCI Department of Physiology Research in Progress seminar series.

• Medha is awarded the 2022 Early Investigator Award by the Mechanobiology Subgroup of the Biophysical Society. Congratulations, Medha! 

• Alan Ly and Vivek Tyagi from collaborator Doug Tobias's lab present their work at a platform presentation at the Biophysical Society Meeting.

 

January 2022​

• Michael receives a UROP grant award. Congratulations, Michael! 

• Beth is awarded the CIRM post-doctoral fellowship. Congratulations, Beth! 

• Graduate student Jazmine Moore joins the lab as a rotation student from UCI Inter-departmental Program in Neurosciences. Welcome, Jazmine! 

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2021

December 2021​

• Jesse receives an opportunity award (in collaboration with Jinghao Chen from John Lowengrub's group) from the Center for Multiscale Cell Fate. Congrats, Jesse! 

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November 2021

• Beth serves as Program Co-Chair of the Intersections Science Fellows Symposium 2021, a national conference to showcase research of postdocs on the job market! Great job, Beth! Read more about it here.

• Kelly Garcia Camacho, Alicia Lin, and Sophia Tran join the lab as workstudy students. Welcome to the lab! 

 

October 2021

• Collaborator Ardem Patapoutian (along with David Julius) is awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery of receptors for temperature (Trpv1 and Trpm8) and touch (Piezo1 and Piezo2). Congratulations!

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September 2021

• Our paper on Piezo1 in keratinocyte wound healing has been accepted in eLife! Congratulations! Read the paper here. Some news coverage here and a tweetorial here.  

• Medha hosts part II of the HHMI Workshop: Improv to Improve Your Science with Bri McWhorter to support diversity at the graduate level. Thank you, Bri, for a fun and helpful workshop. Check out photos here!

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August 2021

• Ria Bahadur joins the lab as a high school student intern. Welcome, Ria!

• Medha hosts an HHMI Workshop: Improv to Improve Your Science with Bri McWhorter to support diversity at the graduate level. 

• Our collaborative review article with Wendy Liu and Mike Cahalan's labs has been accepted in Current Opinion in Solid State & Material Science! Beth contributed to this work. Congratulations! Read about it here.

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July 2021

• Our collaborative manuscript with Mike Cahalan's lab on the role of Piezo1 in T cells has been published in Science Advances! Jesse and Jami contributed to this work. Congratulations! Read about it here.

• Elaine presents a poster presentation at the CIRM Bridges meeting. Good work, Elaine!

• Gabby receives a Stem Cell T32 Training grant fellowship! Congratulations, Gabby!

 

June 2021

• Congratulations to Michael for his SURP grant getting funded!

• Gabby gives a talk at the UCI Department of Physiology Research in Progress seminar series.

• Jesse presents a poster at the FASEB Ion Channel Regulation Conference.

• Medha gives a talk at Janelia Biomechanics Workshop. Watch the recording here. 

 

May 2021

• Our collaborative paper with Wendy Liu and Mike Cahalan's labs on the role of Piezo1 in macrophages is published at Nature Communications. Read about it here.

• Medha gives a presentation at the Department of Pharmacology & Regenerative Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago.

 

April 2021

• Medha gives a talk at the UCI Annual Stem Cell Science Symposium.

 

March 2021

• Graduate student Jack Corrette joins our lab for a research rotation. Welcome, Jack!

• Medha gives a talk at the Bioengineering Department Colloquium Series at UC Riverside.

 

February 2021

• Medha gives a talk in the Neuroscience seminar series at Brandeis University. Thanks to the grad students of the Brandeis Women in Science Initiative for the invitation!

• Jesse presents our work on Piezo1 in keratinocyte migration at the Biophysical Society Meeting.

• We receive a seed grant for an organoid project (LOVA) with Elliot Hui's lab at UCI Biomedical Engineering and David Eddington's lab at University of Illinois Chicago!

• Jesse gives a poster presentation at the 2021 BPS Annual Meeting.

• Our former workstudy student, Marize Rizkalla, receives the Undergraduate First Place award in Medicine and Public Health at the 2021 Virtual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. Congratulations, Marize!

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January 2021

• Elaine Lai from Cal State Fullerton joins the lab for a CIRM Bridges Scholar internship. Welcome Elaine!

• Michael Vu joins the lab as an undergraduate researcher. Welcome Michael!

• Jesse Holt talks about Piezo1 and skin wound healing in the Physiology & Biophysics Research in Progress seminar series.

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2020

December 2020​

• Alan presents his work on Piezo1 diffusion in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics Research in Progress series.

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November 2020​

• Medha gives a talk at the Department of Biomedical Engineering seminar series at Purdue University.

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October 2020​

• Our bioRxiv, a collaboration with Ardem Patapoutian's lab, has posted!! Read about how Piezo1 regulates skin wound healing here.

• Medha presents the lab's work at the Arizona State University's Biological Physics Seminar Series.

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September 2020​

• Graduate student Cherie Lepe joins the lab for a research rotation. Welcome, Cherie!

• Medha gives a talk at Rutgers University's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Colloquim Series

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August 2020​

• Alan and Gabby are recognized by the SOM Office of Graduate Studies for their service in the UCI NIH Grad Fair! Congratulations and good work in recruiting the next set of grad students!

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July 2020

• Gabriella Bertaccini (Gabby) from the CMB program joins the lab as a graduate student. Welcome, Gabby!

• Undergraduate researcher Shayan Fini is awarded the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) fellowship. Congratulations, Shayan!

• We bid adieu to Hamid, Harsh, Samantha, Nguyen, and Vivian over a fun game night on Zoom. We will miss you! Good luck with your future adventures!

• Our review article on Mechanobiology of Neural Development is published in Current Opinion in Cell Biology. Read about it here.

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June 2020​

• Undergraduate students Harsh Bhavsar, Samantha Smith, Nguyen Truong, and Vivian Leung graduate from UCI. Congratulations!!

• Graduate student Gabriella Bertaccini passes the CMB Prelim exams. Congratulations, Gabby!

• We receive an administrative supplement grant from the NIH to study the role of Piezo1 in Alzheimer's Disease using brain organoids. Look forward to doing more fun science!

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May 2020

• Jacob Deyell joins the lab as an MSTP graduate program rotation student. Welcome, Jacob!

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April 2020

• Alan and Medha receive a Diversity Supplement award from the NIH. Congratulations, Alan!

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March 2020

• Medha gives a talk at the "Bridges to Stem Cell Research" Symposium at Cal State University, Fullerton

• Kaitlyn Manh presents a poster on her project at the Stem Cell Symposium at Cal State University, Fullerton

• Our paper (Ellefsen et al. 2019) is featured as an editor's pick article!

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February 2020

• Medha (@phataks on Twitter) does a Twitter "takeover" for JGP and provides on-the ground coverage of the Biophysical Society Meeting from Feb 15 - 19. Check out the hashtag #MMPjgp.

• Medha, Alan, and Beth attend the Biophysical Society Meeting in San Diego, CA. 

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January 2020

• Mulatwa Haile from the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Graduate Program joins the lab for a research rotation. Welcome, Mulatwa!

• Gabriella Bertaccini from the Cellular and Molecular Biology Graduate Program joins the lab for a research rotation. Welcome, Gabriella!

• Kaitlyn Manh from Cal State Fullerton joins the lab for a CIRM Bridges Scholar internship. Welcome, Kaitlyn!

• Nguyen is awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program grant. Congratulations, Nguyen!

• Sami and Harsh are awarded a joint Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program grant. Congratulations!

• Beth Evans joins the lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Welcome, Beth!