Etcetera

Brian Paegel Wins Prestigious NSF Career Award

Brian M. Paegel, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The CAREER award is the NSF’s most prestigious award, supporting junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of their organization’s mission, according to the NSF.

The Paegel lab, based on the Florida campus, conducts highly parallel chemical and biological experiments at the ultra-small volume scales of emulsions and bilayer vesicles. As part of his CAREER project, Paegel will investigate the controlled synthesis and characterization of vesicular compartments assembled from various amphiphiles, molecules that harbor both hydrophilic and hydrophobic character. The project will open new collaborative ties, from studies of membrane permeability with colleagues in California to cutting-edge electron microscopy membrane imaging with the neighboring Max Planck Florida Institute.

The CAREER grant will also fund a new quantitative imaging and microscopy-based professional development workshop for Palm Beach County, Florida, high school science teachers.

Katja Lamia Named Kimmel Scholar for Cancer Research

Katja Lamia, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Physiology at TSRI, has been named a 2013 Kimmel Scholar by the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research. Lamia is one of just 15 award recipients from a national pool of 150 applicants.

The Kimmel Scholar program aims to advance the careers of gifted young scientists involved in cancer research. Recipients must be in the early stages of their research career, demonstrate the greatest promise and innovation in their work and have not progressed far enough to have received major grants from the National Cancer Institute or other funding sources.

Lamia’s lab is investigating the molecular basis for the circadian control of metabolism to enable novel therapies to treat metabolic disease. The two-year Kimmel Scholar grant will support her project,

“Circadian transcriptional repressors Cry1 and Cry2 modulate cell growth and transformation.”

Nicolas Grillet Selected as Finalist in GE Image Competition

An image depicting the sensory cells of the inner ear created by Nicolas Grillet, senior postdoctoral fellow in the Mueller lab, was a finalist in the GE Healthcare 2012 Cell Imaging Competition. The image is featured in the competition’s 2013-2014 calendar, providing an illustration for the month of October.

The competition showcases the beauty of cells and the inspiring research conducted by cellular biologists around the world, according to GE Healthcare. The illustrations were created using GE imaging systems. An expert scientific panel of five judges chose a shortlist from the more than 100 international entries, which then were put to an online public vote.

Grillet, who will join Stanford University’s School of Medicine next year as an assistant professor in the Otolaryngology Department, created the image for his research on how the inner ear is sensitive to sound and head motions. Grillet is optimizing the use of transgenic animals to remove genes of interest specifically in the mechanosensitive cells of the inner ear. In the image, titled “Visualization of the sensory cells of the inner ear detecting angular acceleration,” a mouse ampulla was stained for actin (green) and the hair cells were genetically stained with TdTomato (red).

grillet

Send comments to: mikaono[at]scripps.edu

Scripps Florida chemist Brian Paegel has received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award, which supports faulty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars. (Photo by James McEntee.)

Scripps Florida Philanthropy Hosts Luau by the Lake

The event, held to express appreciation for donors, featured a traditional Hawaiian dance troupe. See more photos. (Photo by Lauren Lieberman/LILA PHOTO.)

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Etcetera

Brian Paegel Wins Prestigious NSF Career Award

Katja Lamia Named Kimmel Scholar for Cancer Research

Nicolas Grillet Selected as Finalist in GE Image Competition