Visitor of the Week: Allan Kalungi

Meet Allan Kalungi! The Ugandan national is affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry at Makerere University (Uganda) and the African Computational Genomics Group at MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit. The postdoctoral researcher joined at us last month’s workshop on Schizophrenia & Related Disorders—his first course at CSHL.

Tell us about your research.
My research is focused on understanding the genetic, biological and environmental factors that underly major and complex psychiatric disorders like depression among African populations from Africa.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
The underrepresentation of Africans in global psychiatric genetics research compelled me to focus on this area. Psychiatric disorders are a growing problem in Africa yet we do not know any of the genes or biological pathways for any of these disorders among populations from Africa, despite recent advances in psychiatric genetics research where the genetic nature of several psychiatric disorder has been illuminated. There is an urgent need to include Africans in global psychiatric genetics research if they are to benefit from recent psychiatric genetics discoveries.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
Africa had generally been left out in psychiatric genetics research. The current global attention to increase the visibility of Africans in global psychiatric research is a big inspiration in my scientific journey. In 2017, I pioneered psychiatric genetics research in East Africa when I produced the first article in the field that reported the association of selected serotonin transporter gene polymorphisms with increased suicidal risk among Uganda adults living with HIV.

Allan hiding in a cactus “forest” somewhere in Cape Town.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
I hope my work will contribute to the understanding of the biology that underlies various psychiatric disorders among populations from Africa. I also hope that my work will refine the global understanding of the biology behind these disorders with the inclusion of the highly diverse genetics data from Africa.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
I see myself as an independent researcher on the forefront of psychiatric genetics research in Africa.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
I love being in an environment where things are not static and your thinking is under stimulation.

What drew you to apply to this course?
I am interested in understanding the nature of the comorbidity between depression and schizophrenia. My desire to understand the phenotypic and genetic nature of schizophrenia and its related disorders compelled me to apply to the course.

What is your key takeaway from the Course; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
It is crucial to understand mechanisms that link genetic variations to disease. I plan to investigate these as well in my genetics studies.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this course?
This is a great course where you will most likely catch up on recent, worldwide breakthroughs in all aspects of schizophrenia research; from Neuroscience approaches to Genetics/Epigenetics and Neuroimmunology.

Enjoying his last dinner of the course, and his first lobster!

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Course?
Meeting with top investigators in schizophrenia research like Robin Murray, Jeremy Hall, Anissa Abi-Dargham and James Walters among others. The most memorable moment was however the schizophrenia case presentation.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I like the serenity around CSHL. It is isolated with no neighborhoods and is surrounded by trees. I enjoyed the breeze from the ocean. The food was nice and I enjoyed the lobster for the first time in my life!

Allan received a scholarship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to cover his course tuition. On behalf of Allan, thank you to HHMI for supporting and enabling our young scientists to attend a CSHL course where they expand their skills, knowledge, and network.

Thank you to Allan for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Images provided by Allan Kalungi

Visitor of the Week: Annie Yao

Meet Annie Yao of the University of Connecticut Health Center. Annie is a MD/PhD Candidate in Dr. Riqiang Yan’s lab and recently trained at last month’s Ion Channels in Synaptic and Neural Circuit Physiology course.

Tell us about your research.
My lab studies the pathophysiological underpinnings of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia worldwide. I’m interested in how beta-secretase, an essential enzyme in the development of AD, regulates neuronal excitability and synaptic plasticity.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
Since high school, I’ve been interested in combining translational research with helping patients. While working at the Broad Institute/MIT after college in Dr. Guoping Feng’s lab, which studies synapse and brain circuitry dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders like autism and schizophrenia, I was inspired to pursue a dual MD/PhD degree with the goal of studying and treating brain disorders. I chose my project after rotating in a couple of labs and being inspired by electrophysiology as a way to study neuronal (dys)function.  

Annie patch-clamp recording of a dendrite in the hippocampal CA1 region.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
My parents are first-generation immigrants that moved to the U.S. to pursue their own graduate education in science. The strength and resilience they possessed to make that sort of leap… they have always been an inspiration to me.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
I hope that my current and future research and clinical training will be able to directly shape patient wellbeing and improve therapeutics.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
One of my favorite parts of being a researcher is that there’s always something more to learn, a new skill to develop, a new perspective to explore.

What drew you to apply to this course?
I have heard amazing things about the Ion Channels course for many years, from both my mentors in previous labs and peers who have taken the course. I knew that this experience would be formative in my growth as a training electrophysiologist. 

What is your key takeaway from the Course; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
My key takeaway is to be persistent in your troubleshooting of the rig, and as one of our instructors emphasized at the end of our time here, to be rigorous in our practice of electrophysiology and critical about our data.

Patch clamp of a hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neuron while measuring evoked activity.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this course?
You get out of an experience what you put in! When applying for the course, be sure to emphasize how your specific project would benefit from this immersive experience. When at the course, make use of the expertise that surrounds you every day – you have access to incredible teachers/scientists/electrophysiologists who can help you answer any question you have about your project design or execution. And finally, make time for yourself - 3 weeks of nonstop ephys is gratifying but intense!

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Course?
After the last day of hands-on lab work, our cohort went on a sunset sailboat trip together. It felt amazing to be on the water, with beautiful weather and in the company of new friends.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
Being surrounded by beautiful nature the second you step outside your cabin or the lab. Cold Spring Harbor is truly such a scenic place to learn in.

Thank you to Annie for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Images provided by Annie Yao

Visitor of the Week: Philip Salu

Meet Philip Salu of the North Dakota State University! The Ghanaian citizen is a Ph.D. Candidate and member of Prof. Katie Reindl’s lab. He attended the 2022 course on Metabolomics last month; his first in-person course since the pandemic that he found “frankly refreshing”.

Tell us about your research.
The focus of my research is on drug-resistance development in pancreatic cancer. Our main goal is to better understand the underlying mechanisms using appropriately developed cell line models.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
Drug resistance in cancers is a complex phenomenon that is commonly talked about, yet the root cause is not fully understood. There were earlier attempts in my lab at developing specific drug resistance models and so it was a natural thing for me to pick up this project since there is still a lot of discovery to be made.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
My scientific journey began with the desire to work in a field where a lot of exciting discoveries have been made knowing that there are even greater prospects ahead. This is of course fueled by my curiosity and open-minded attitude to solving problems.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
I hope to contribute to scientific knowledge regarding the mechanism of drug resistance development in pancreatic cancer. The disease condition has an abysmal survival rate, therefore, any knowledge that contributes to increased disease susceptibility to therapy will have significant implications for patient survival.  

Where do you see yourself in five years?
Soon, I see myself starting a post-doctoral training to further understand the metabolic needs of cancers and their resistant phenotypes. I would also like to work in a lab that is into biomarker discovery before starting independent research of my own.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
Being a researcher gives me the ability to be open-minded and inquisitive. I derive joy from the successes and channel the failures into an energy of motivation.

What drew you to apply to this course?
I have always wanted to determine changes in metabolic signatures of the cells I work with. So, when I found this course on the CSHL website, I knew I had to take it. 

What is your key takeaway from the Course; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
The field is very diverse and what you do including procedures and equipment are very relevant in obtaining accurate data. I have come to appreciate the importance in finding ways to use instruments that are available to me in answering basic questions. Also, this course has given me insight into things I should consider when preparing my samples and running them to get consistent data that truly answers my questions.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this course?
I will highly recommend this course to anyone interested. But more importantly, make connections, friends and share knowledge. The prospects are just boundless.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Course?
The most memorable moment of the course for me was our “Beeromics” experiment. How we sampled different beer brands each night and the effort it took our instructors to run about 200 samples while making sure all other student projects are taken care of amidst instrument breakdowns.

Is this your first in-person course/workshop since the pandemic? If so, any thoughts you’d like to share?
Yes, this is my first in-person course since the pandemic and it was frankly refreshing to have face-to-face interactions again. It's very interesting how in-person meetings are more fruitful compared to online interactions.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
My favorite thing was our sailing trip on the 138-year-old Oyster Sloop, Christeen. I really did enjoy how the vessel’s history was told by one of the captains.

Philip received a scholarship from Regeneron to cover a portion of his course tuition. On behalf of Philip, thank you to Regeneron for supporting and enabling our young scientists to attend a CSHL course where they expand their skills, knowledge, and network.

Thank you to Philip for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Image provided by Philip Salu

Visitor of the Week: Kyle McAndrews

Meet Kyle McAndrews of the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC)! Kyle is a 4th year doctoral student in the Cancer Research Graduate Program and a member of Tony Hollingsworth’s lab. He attended our 2022 workshop on Pancreatic Cancer.  

Tell us about your research.
My project is focused on the pancreatic ductal glands, which are a progenitor niche of the main pancreatic duct. We are interested in determining their contribution to pancreatic cancer initiation and progression.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
My undergraduate degree was in Wildlife Ecology and Biology and I actually did not plan to become a lab rat, but I was hired as a lab technician in Dr. Sarah Thayer’s laboratory at UNMC, which is where my project began and I became excited about pancreatic cancer research, especially how and where in the pancreas it is initiated.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
I first became interested in science when I was a child through my father’s (and later my own) aquarium hobby. I found myself wanting to learn more and more about the natural world. I also had a lot of great science teachers and professors throughout my education that were truly excited about science and encouraged me to continue learning.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
I hope that my work can help us understand some of the earliest events in the initiating processes of pancreatic cancer. Any knowledge gained surrounding the earliest stages of disease will have important implications for detecting the disease and intervening sooner.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
Being on the cutting edge of what we know is extremely exciting, the seemingly infinite complexity of Biology is mind boggling and being a part of advancing human knowledge is both fulfilling and important.

What drew you to apply to this course?
Some of my lab mates had attended previously and had an amazing experience.

Kyle sectioning frozen tissue sections of mouse pancreas.

What is your key takeaway from the Course; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
That all of the models which we use to study disease have limitations and that we always need to keep this in mind when making conclusions about data. There are seemingly infinite cell to cell interactions happening at all stages of pancreatic cancer, many of which we are just beginning to scratch the surface. This course has helped broaden my perspective and allowed me to look at my own project from angles that I had never previously considered.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this course?
Ask questions, make friends and connections to everyone here! There is so much knowledge and experience and having such an intimate setting with leaders in the field is truly priceless.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Course?
Honestly the fact that everything was so casual was a relief. I definitely packed too many polos and pants. Seeing experts in the field from around the country just be who they are and not in their normal professional setting was awesome.

Is this your first in-person course/workshop since the pandemic? If so, any thoughts you’d like to share?
This is my second in-person course/workshop since the pandemic. It was nice to interact with people from outside of my normal routine and setting, which has at times been hard or impossible in the last couple of years.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
Playing card games with other attendees after our long days and going for a run down to Lloyd Harbor Road when I could fit it in before dinner was great. As a native Nebraskan I appreciate any second I can spend near salt-water.

Kyle received a scholarship from the Helmsley Charitable Trust to cover a portion of his course tuition. On behalf of Kyle, thank you to the Helmsley Charitable Trust for supporting and enabling our young scientists to attend a CSHL course where they expand their skills, knowledge, and network.

Thank you to Kyle for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Images provided by Kyle McAndrews

Visitor of the Week: Kate Nesbit

Meet Katherine “Kate” Nesbit of San Diego State University! Kate is a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Nicholas Shikuma’s lab and is taking part in the 2022 course of Advanced Bacterial Genetics. This is her first course at CSHL and the first in-person course since COVID-19 began in 2020. Here is what Kate has to say of her experience so far:

I would just like to commend the instructors and the course organizers from CSHL for all of the work they did to ensure the class ran as smoothly as possible. It was so refreshing to come together for an intensive science experience and I have really enjoyed the opportunity to be here and be inspired by everyone’s work.

Tell us about your research.
Bacteria in the ocean play essential roles in the lives of marine animals. I study how larvae (the babies) of marine animals can sense and respond to bacterial cues that drive major changes in development (like turning into an adult).

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
Life evolved in the worlds’ oceans, the epicenter for microbial life. The microbes around us play major roles in our biology. Relationships with bacteria, often thought of as “good” or “bad”, in reality, exist on a spectrum. At the end of my PhD, I was curious to learn more about the context surrounding microbes and their relationships with marine invertebrates. So many marine larvae rely on bacteria during their life cycles and have diverse interactions with bacteria. The opportunity to work with the Shikuma Group and our model system, the tube worm Hydroides and its microbes, was an exciting opportunity. This humble worm is actually a powerful model for understanding symbioses. Bacteria are required for the larva of the worm to undergo metamorphosis which is a process where they transition to the adult body plan. My interests in marine invertebrates, developmental biology, and how animals interact with bacteria all led me to build my research questions around this area.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
I have been very fortunate to work with some fantastic mentors during my training, and of course my family has been immeasurably supportive. I also have been learning alongside some really amazing peers, and the summation of my interactions with all of these people have helped keep my excited and motivated to continue moving forward towards a career in science.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
I hope that the work I do will encourage other minority women in science to embrace their curiosity and make new discoveries that help us understand fundamental processes of life. I also hope my work can impact others by encouraging them to protect our oceans and all of the amazing biology that happens within them. Finally, I hope to impact others by making some meaningful scientific discoveries, leaving behind a legacy of collaboration and of creating opportunities for others to be part of science.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
In five years, I would love to be starting up my own lab. I hope to establish an independent research program that works on answering questions at the interface of marine cell-, developmental-, and micro- biology.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
The thing that I love the most about being a researcher is that my days are always different. I never get bored doing the same thing because some days I am reading, some days I am writing papers or working on a presentation for a conference, and still other days I get to be at the bench doing experiments or imaging on the microscope. It never gets dull because there is always something new to do and learn. Also, I have a soft spot in my heart for all the squishy, crunchy, gooey critters of the ocean. There’s so much interesting biology going on in these critters that is understudied.

What drew you to apply to this course?
When I started in research as an undergraduate, I immediately fell in love with developmental biology, but it wasn’t until much later that I started learning about the ways that microbes influence development. The course on Advanced Bacterial Genetics is the ideal way to learn modern tools and techniques for understanding the relationships between bacteria and the animals that they interact with. Without tools for manipulating microbes, we can’t fully grasp the contributions they make at the molecular and genetic level to the biology of their symbionts and hosts. The reputation of CSHL as being an immersive and inspiring place, as well as the fact that I know colleagues who spoke highly of the course, were all contributing factors in my desire to attend this course.

What is your key takeaway from the Course; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
I think one of the most influential lessons that I have learned in the course is that bacterial genetics offers a multitude of approaches for answering big questions in biology, and these tools can be applied in various permutations to all sorts of different systems. This experience has helped me to brainstorm new ideas for experiments in my own work. For example, I would love to take the tools I’ve learned about here (like generating gDNA libraries, transposon libraries, CRISPRi, and RIVET) and apply them in marine bacteria – which currently lack a lot of the accessible tools that are available to more widely studied model microbes. This would help us to better understand what genes in diverse marine microbes contribute to their ability to induce developmental changes in the tube worm model (and maybe even other invertebrates too).

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this course?
My biggest piece of advice would be to come with an open mind. You will meet so many people with diverse scientific backgrounds and with diverse identities. You can learn so much from your peers and the instructors if you approach the experience with the goal of learning from everyone.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Course?
The most memorable moment of the course for me so far has been the unbridled enthusiasm of one of our instructors over their model microbe – it’s not uncommon to hear her shout “Staphylococcus!” and I think it’s so awesome that people can build their careers and still maintain that level of excitement for their work!

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
My favorite thing about my time at CSHL so far has been the campus. It’s just beautiful and it has been a real treat to see this part of the state, especially since I have never been to New York before!

Kate received a scholarship from the Regeneron to cover a portion of her course tuition. On behalf of Kate, thank you to Regeneron for supporting and enabling our young scientists to attend a CSHL course where they expand their skills, knowledge, and network.

Thank you to Kate for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Images provided by Kate Nesbit