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NEUROSCIENCE
NEWS
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Issue
No. 2
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April,
28, 2003
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An Electronic Bulletin
distributed to students, faculty, staff, alumni and others
affiliated with the
Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota.
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Greetings! This is the second issue
of "Neuroscience News." We apologize for the delay in
producing this issue, but the past few months have been very busy.
As always, if you have anything you'd like to share in the "News,"
or if you have feedback about the newsletter, you can always send
Paul Maki an e-mail at gpnsc@umn.edu.
Previous issues of the "News" can
be found on our web site at: http://www.neuroscience.umn.edu/news/newshome.html
The "Neuroscience News" is distributed via e-mail in ".html"
format. If you would prefer a text-only version of the e-mail, please
e-mail Paul at gpnsc@umn.edu.
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
THANK YOU
As many of you know, Debra Adams has left the staff of the
Graduate Program to work for the Bone Marrow Transplant Division
in the Department of Pediatrics. Debra joined us over four years
ago and has been a wonderful asset to our program. We will miss
her very much and wish her all the best.
Paul would also like to present Debra with her very own "virtual
snow-globe." You may remember that Debra came up with the
idea for the popular Ebner and Engeland snow-globe "white elephant"
gifts at our Winter Gathering in December. Thank you Debra for all
that you have done for the Graduate Program in Neuroscience.
Finally, we would like to thank all of the Graduate Students
and Graduate Program Faculty who made this year's Campus
Visit a success. Thanks to all who helped escort a prospective student,
met with a student in your lab, took the visiting students out,
or attended one of the many events over the weekend. We could not
have a successful visit without your help and we thank you for helping
us recruit a wonderful class for next year.
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WELCOME
TO THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN NEUROSCIENCE
To begin, we'd like to welcome the Entering
Class of 2003: Sandra
Alcala, Marcela
Barajas, Terrence
Burns, Benjamin
Clark, Steve
Davidson, Mircea-Cristian
Dobre, Cory
Goracke, Eric
Gustafson, Melissa
Hersey, Zeb
Kurth-Nelson and Benjamin
Thwaits.
We would like to welcome Dr.
Lihsia Chen, Department of , Dr.
Richard Di Fabio, Professor, Department of Physical Medicine
and Rehabilitation, Dr.
Carolyn Fairbanks, Assistant Professor, Departments of Pharmaceutics
and Neuroscience, Dr.
Lorene Lanier, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Neuroscience,
Dr. Michael Koob,
Assistant Professor, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology,
Dr. Scott Selleck,
Professor, Departments of Pediatrics and Genetics, Cell Biology
and Development, Dr.
Catherine Verfaille, Department of Medicine, and Dr.
Lance Zirpel, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Neuroscience,
to the faculty of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience.
We would also like to welcome Natalie Thayer to the staff
of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience. Natalie joins us from the
Academic Health Center (AHC) Communications Office where she worked
as a Community Relations Associate for three years. We are happy
to have her as part of our team. Natalie can be reached at 612.626.6438
(voice) and thaye009@umn.edu
(e-mail).
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AWARDS
Student Awards
We would like to congratulate all 2002 and 2003
recipients of the Stark
Award for Advanced Scholarship:
2002 - Murray Blackmore, Joseph Fullmer, and Therissa
Libby
2003 - Amy MacDonald, Andrew Thorpe, Scott Gehler, Nathan Connors,
and J.P Clark
In March, 2003, Lisa Johanek received a Society for Neuroscience
Travel Award to attend Sixth International Brain Research Organization
(IBRO) in Prague.
Lisa Johanek also recently received the Louise
T. Dosdall Fellowship for the 2003-2004 academic year.
Congratulations to Lisa Anderson,
a 2002 recipient of the Lin
Graduate Student Fellowship.
In September, 2002 Andrew Thorpe and Amy MacDonald were
awarded Minnesota Craniofacial Research and Training (MinnCResT) Pre-Doctoral
Fellowships. The fellowships were established to promote craniofacial
and oral health research by scientists in diverse research areas.
Katherine Himes was awarded the Woman's
Club Fellowship for 2003-2004. This Fellowship carries a stipend
of $5000 and was awarded based on Katherine's "excellent academic
record and professional promoise".
In November, 2002, Katherine Himes also received the Agnes
Hansen Travel Award from Sigma Delta Epsilon/Graduate Women in Science.
Katherine used the award to attend the Society for Neuroscience Conference
in Orlando to present her research.
Jason Weick recently received a Pre-doctoral NRSA award from
the NIH.
Jessica Lynch received a pharmaconeuroimmunology (PNI) fellowship
to further her research and training in NeuroBehavior/Neuroimmune
addiction.
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Faculty
Awards
Dr.
Linda McLoon, Depts. of Ophthalmology and Neuroscience, and
Dr. Andrew Harrison, Dept. of Ophthalmology, were recipients
of this year's American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive
Surgery Research Award for their work on the "Effect of Hyperthyroidism
on the Orbicularis Oculi Muscle in Rabbits." The award is given
for the most outstanding original research published in the Journal
of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
Dr. Neal Viemeister,
Dept. of Psychology, was awarded the Silver
Medal in Psychological and Physiological Acoustics by the Acoustical
Society of America at the spring meeting of the society. The award
is for "contributions to the understanding of temporal and intensive
aspects of hearing".
Dr. Carolyn Fairbanks,
Depts. of Neuroscience and Pharmaceutics, will receive the John C.
Liebeskind Early Career Scholar Award from the American Pain Society.
The award recognizes exceptional accomplishment and promise in pain
scholarship among those who have completed their terminal degree within
the last seven years.
Dr.
Walter C. Low, Professor of Neurosurgery, recently received
the 2003 Thorne Award for Stroke Research. The award was established
in 1996 by Joseph and Jeri Thorne in honor of George and Clara Sweeny
and is presented for outstanding accomplishments in the area of stroke
research and to encourage stroke research at the University of Minnesota.
The work in Dr. Low's lab on the use of stem cells for treating experimentally
induced ischemic brain injury published in the journal
Experimental
Neurology was cited as the basis of this award.
Dr. Robert Miller,
Department of Neuroscience, received the Brian Boycott Award from
the FASEB retina group this past Summer at the FASEB retina meeting
in Vermont.
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of contents
Alumni Awards
Laura Stone, a
1995 graduate from Bob
Elde's and George
Wilcox's labs, currently a research associate in the Department
of Neuroscience, was awarded a highly competitive travel fellowship
to support her attendance at the Winter Conference of Brain Research
(WCBR), January 25-31, 2003, in Snowbird UT.
Heather Wenk, a 2002 graduate
of Dr. Christopher Honda's
lab, has received the 2003
Bacaner Research Award in Basic Medical Science. The award is
given through the Minnesota Medical Foundation to recognize excellence
in creative research.
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of contents
PUBLICATIONS
Student Publications
Wangcai Gao, Robert
L. Dunbar, Gang Chen, Kenneth C.
Reinert, John Oberdick, and Timothy
J. Ebner. Optical Imaging of Long-Term Depression in
the Mouse Cerebellar Cortex In Vivo. J.
Neurosci. 2003 23: 1859-1866.
Virginia S. Seybold,
Kenneth E. McCarson, Paul
G. Mermelstein, Rachel D. Groth,
and Lia G. Abrahams. Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide Regulates
Expression of Neurokinin1 Receptors by Rat Spinal Neurons. J.
Neurosci. 2003 23: 1816-1824.
Jason P. Weick, Rachel
D. Groth, Ann L. Isaksen, and Paul
G. Mermelstein. Interactions with PDZ Domain Proteins are Required
for L-type Calcium Channels to Activate cAMP Response Element Binding
Protein-Dependent Gene Expression. J.
Neurosci. 2003 23: 3446-3456.
Cheryl Wotus and William
C. Engeland. Differential regulation of adrenal corticosteroids
after restriction-induced drinking in rats. Am.
J. Physiol (Reg. Integr. Compar.), 284(1):R183-91, 2003
table of
contents
Faculty
Publications
Scott O. Murray, Daniel
Kersten, Bruno A. Olshausen, Paul Schrater, and David L.
Woods. Shape perception reduces activity in human primary visual
cortex. PNAS 2002, 99:15164-15169.
Reprints at: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/99/23/15164.pdf
See Dr. Kersten's web-site
for additional
material related to this article.
Boland,
L.M.,
M. Jiang, S-Y. Lee, S. Fahrenkrug, M. T. Harnett, and S. O' Grady.
(2003) Functional properties of a brain-specific N-terminally
spliced modulator of Kv4 channels. American
Journal of Physiology (Cell Physiology), March 19, 2003. In
press article available on-line.
Steidl, J., T. Gomez-Isla, A. Mariash, K.
Hsiao Ashe, and L.M.
Boland. (2003) Altered short-term hippocampal synaptic
plasticity in mutant alpha-synuclein transgenic mice. NeuroReport
14:219-223.
Paul W. Wacnik, Lois J. Kehl,
Thomas M. Trempe, Margaret L. Ramnaraine, Alvin
J. Beitz and George
L. Wilcox. Tumor implantation in mouse humerus evokes
movement-related hyperalgesia exceeding that evoked by intramuscular
carrageenan. Pain, Volume 101, Issues 1-2, January 2003, Pages
175-186.
Eric
A. Newman. Glial Cell Inhibition of Neurons by Release
of ATP. J
Neurosci 2003 Mar 1;23(5):1659-66
Gao W, Dunbar RL,
Chen G, Reinert KC, Oberdick
J, Ebner TJ.
Optical imaging of long-term depression in the mouse cerebellar
cortex in vivo. J
Neurosci 2003 Mar 1;23(5):1859-66
Virginia S. Seybold,
Kenneth E. McCarson, Paul
G. Mermelstein, Rachel D. Groth,
and Lia G. Abrahams. Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide Regulates
Expression of Neurokinin1 Receptors by Rat Spinal Neurons. J.
Neurosci. 2003 23: 1816-1824.
Jason P. Weick, Rachel
D. Groth, Ann L. Isaksen, and Paul
G. Mermelstein. Interactions with PDZ Domain Proteins are Required
for L-type Calcium Channels to Activate cAMP Response Element Binding
Protein-Dependent Gene Expression. J.
Neurosci. 2003 23: 3446-3456.
Henderson, D.
and Miller, R.F.
(in press). Evidence for low-voltage-activated (LVA) calcium
currents in the dendrites of tiger salamander retinal ganglion cells
(RGCs). Visual Neuroscience, 20, 1-12.
Cheryl Wotus and William
C. Engeland. Differential regulation of adrenal corticosteroids
after restriction-induced drinking in rats. Am.
J. Physiol (Reg. Integr. Compar.), 284(1):R183-91, 2003
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Alumni Publications
Henderson,
D. and Miller,
R.F. (in press). Evidence for low-voltage-activated (LVA)
calcium currents in the dendrites of tiger salamander retinal ganglion
cells (RGCs). Visual Neuroscience, 20, 1-12.
Paul W. Wacnik, Lois
J. Kehl, Thomas M. Trempe, Margaret L. Ramnaraine, Alvin
J. Beitz and George
L. Wilcox. Tumor implantation in mouse humerus evokes
movement-related hyperalgesia exceeding that evoked by intramuscular
carrageenan. Pain, Volume 101, Issues 1-2, January 2003, Pages
175-186.
Gao W, Dunbar RL,
Chen G, Reinert KC, Oberdick
J, Ebner TJ.
Optical imaging of long-term depression in the mouse cerebellar
cortex in vivo. J
Neurosci 2003 Mar 1;23(5):1859-66
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ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENTS AND MILESTONES
Dr. George
L. Wilcox was recently elected to the Board of Directors
of the American Pain Society as a Director-At-Large for 2003-2004.
The American Pain Society is the United States' chapter of the International
Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and is a multidisciplinary
organization of basic and clinical scientists, practicing clinicians,
policy analysts, and others. The mission of the American Pain Society
is to advance pain-related research, education, treatment and professional
practice. http://www.ampainsoc.org
Patty Costello, Graduate Student, has accepted a position as
an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Bradley
University in Peoria, Ill (about 2.5 hours from Chicago). Patty
plans on presenting her thesis on Septmenber 24, 2003 before beginning
at Bradley.
Dr. Paul Mermelstein
was named a McKnight
Land-Grant Professor for 2003-2005. Recipients are chosen for
significance of their research, the potential for significant contribution
to the discipline, and the quality of the scholarly publication
records.
Dr. A. David Redish
was named an Alfred
P. Sloan Research Fellow for 2003 - 2005.
Dr. Peter Malen, 1997
Alumn, graduated (Magna Cum Laude) from William Mitchell College
of Law last year. He has since passed the Minnesota Bar and is currently
working as a registered patent attorney at Schwegman,
Lundberg, Woessner and Kluth in Minneapolis.
Dr. Lucy Vulchanova
Hart , 1998 Alumn, has accepted a position as Research Assistant
Professor in the Dept. of Veterinary Pathobiology at the University
of Minnesota.
Dr. Laura Stone , 1999
alumn, has been appointed Research Associate/Assistant Professor
in the Dept. of Neuroscience.
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of contents
Oral Prelims
Congratulations to Neil Schmitzer-Torbert,
Ken Reinert and Leigh Ann Mrotek. They have all successfully
completed their Oral Prelims recently.
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Thesis
Defenses
Kevin Crisp , advisor
Dr. Karen Mesce,
presented and successfully defended his Ph.D. Thesis on January
29, 2003. Kevin's thesis is titled: Biogenic Amines and the Orchestration
of Locomotor Behavior in the Medicinal Leech. Kevin is curently
working as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Robert Sorenson's lab, Department
of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development, University of Minnesota.
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PERSONAL
ACHIEVEMENTS AND MILESTONES
On November 21, 2002, Nina Elle Fullmer was born
to proud parents Joe Fullmer, Graduate Student, and his wife
Mya. Nina weighed 8 lbs, 5 oz and was 20.5 inches long at birth. Wow!
Jadin Jackson, Graduate Student, and his wife Sherry
rang in the New Year together with their daughter Catherine and the
newly arrived Amara
Marie, born on December 29, 2002. Amara weighed 8 lbs - 14 oz,
and was 21 inches at birth. According to their announcement, "Catherine
is taking her new role as a big sister very well, giving Amara the
proper dosage of sister kisses."
Leah Hanson , 2001 Alumn,
and her husband Darin invite you to join them in welcoming their daughter,
Kathryn Grace Hanson, born January 22, 2003 at 1:31 pm. Kathryn weighed
7lbs 11oz, and was 20 1/2 in.
Nathan Connors, Graduate Student, and his wife Dawn are in
the early stages of adopting a baby and hope to have the process completed
within a year.
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of contents
PHOTOGRAPHS
AND IMAGES
Jenni
Nagode, Graduate Program Alumn
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of contents
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