Congratulations to our summer intern, Tyra Dennis, for her completion of UCI’s Summer Institute in Neuroscience internship in our laboratory!

We are so grateful to have her join us for the summer. Hailing from North Carolina A&T State University, Tyra worked alongside her mentor, Laura Tennis, to conduct her project, “Examining the Involvement of Yap in N-Glycan Branching Mediated NSPC Fate Bias” over the course of 8 weeks. Tyra learned many skills during her time here, including immunocytochemistry, microscopy, and PCR before successfully presenting her findings at the Summer Institute in Neuroscience conference.

We grateful to have Tyra join us, and we are excited to see what she will go on to accomplish in the years to come!

 

Congratulations to our amazing undergraduates Kirsten Ha, Nicole Lav, and Lauren Nishitani for successfully presenting their research at this year’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)! They have all worked amazingly hard on their respective projects for the past school year.

Kirsten Ha beside her poster, “Inhibition of Fucosyltransferase Activity Reduces Astrogenesis of Neural Stem Cells”

Nicole Lav beside her poster, “Rapidly Assessing the Cellular Composition of Neural Stem and Progenitor Cells using qRT-PCR”

Lauren Nishitani beside her poster, “Characterization of Dielectrophoresis-sorted Neuron Subtype Populations using Immunocytochemistry”
Special thanks to her research mentor, Jazmine Moore.

We were so lucky to have Abril Romero (from New Mexico State University) and Jadah Forbes (from Delaware State University) join us this summer as part of UC Irvine’s Summer Institute of Neuroscience program. Within 8 weeks, these two stellar student researchers worked with their mentors, Vi Dang and Nini Liu, to complete a research project and present it at the Summer Institute of Neuroscience conference.

Abril and Jadah have become a part of the Flanagan Lab family and we will miss them as they journey home. We wish them the best and know they will be doing great thing in the years to come!

 

Click here to read the article!

Congratulations Kirsten Ha and Nicole Lav!

We seriously have some of the hardest working, high achieving undergraduate researchers. Here are some captures of Kirsten and Lav at the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Symposium! We already that you’ll be doing amazing things in the future. A special shoutout to their mentor, Dr. Alan Jiang, for both training and inspiring these undergrads to accomplish such amazing work.

 

Congratulations to Kirsten Ha for being awarded the UROP fellowship!

 AND Nicole Lav for being chosen as a finalist in the UROP Symposium plus being awarded the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) fellowship!

Congratulations Dr. Gutierrez!! 🎉

One of our MSTP graduate students, Brenda Gutierrez, defended her thesis in April 2023! We are so proud of all of the accomplishments that she has had both in our lab and as an advocate for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the UC Irvine community. This summer, Brenda is going back to medical school and we will miss her fun and loving energy.

Wishing you the best, Brenda!

Congratulations Dr. Alan Jiang!!

Alan Jiang successfully defended his thesis on November 10th, 2022. Alan has been a pivotal member of the Flanagan Lab since he entered the lab during his undergraduate career. His mentorship and scientific intellect has taught and inspired past and present undergraduate and graduate students. We are so proud of Alan and all he has accomplished in the field of neural stem cells, cancer research and dielectrophoresis (DEP). Best of luck, Alan, in your future endeavors ~

This year, we had the grandest Halloween our lab has ever seen! Our day started off with the Halloween desk decorating competition where we got to see our creative sides shine. We also entered many a costume contest where dressed up as different members from Kim Possible and as none other than our own PI for the SCRC Halloween potluck!! (So many Lisas!) After winning said competitions, we’d like to give a special thanks to Jazmine Moore who organized all the events and costumes!! Can’t wait to see what we can do next year.

 

 

Brenda Gutierrez has recently received the MD/PhD Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Champion Award from UCI School of Medicine. We are so proud of her commitment to the recruitment and retention of students, faculty and senior administrative staff who represent our diverse communities!

One of our new graduate students, Vi Dang, is already making waves in the Flanagan Lab. She has just received the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) Training Grant and will be continuing her work on glioblastoma and cancer stem cells! Best of luck to you Vi and all the great work that you’re doing!!