Elaheh Alizadeh, PhD - a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Curtis Thorne, PhD - is the 2020 recipient of the Sidney Hopkins, Mayola B. Vail, and Patricia Ann Hanson Postdoctoral Fellowship from Community Foundation for Southern Arizona.

The Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine is delighted to welcome the following new Molecular Medicine PhD students to our department: Hao Zhang (Cusanovich Lab) and Yaeren Hernandez (Granzier Lab). We also extend a friendly welcome to the following PhD students who will be working in labs with CMM faculty: Selina Kindelay (Genetics GIDP - Maggert Lab) and Reeba Varghese (Cancer Bio GIDP - Thorne Lab).

More than 70 University of Arizona medical students are helping health care professionals during the COVID-19 crisis by volunteering to provide child care, pet care, grocery shopping and more.

Professor Diana Darnell, PhD has received the 2020 College of Medicine Faculty Teaching Award.

Professor and Department Head Dr. Carol Gregorio was recently elected to the position of Councilor for the Association of Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Neurobiology Chairpersons.

In a new study of organelle biogenesis from the laboratory of Gregory Rogers, PhD, former CMM student and postdoc Tiffany McLamarrah and colleagues characterize an early step in centriole duplication.

Michelle Ennabe, CMM Master's Student, is one of three Masters Awardees of this year's prestigious Centennial Achievement Award.

In this newest study from the laboratory of Gus Mouneimne, PhD, Julieann Puleo and colleagues discovered that EVL, the Ena/VASP protein, is crucial for actin polymerization at focal adhesions (FAs). Importantly, they determined that EVL-mediated FA actin polymerization regulates FA maturation and mechanosensing, which are significant steps in mechanically-directed motility and durotactic invasion. This work is a significant contribution to our understanding of how cells interact with their microenvironment in normal and pathological contexts. PMID:31594807

Work from Donata Vercelli, PhD's laboratory recently featured in the Washington Post shows that living in traditional farming environments means living in a place that is extremely rich in microbes — the right microbes that our immune system has evolved to live with and learn from. The constellation of organisms found in soil and on farm animals programs how a child responds to allergens throughout her lifetime.