Congratulations to Professor Vicki Bautch whose article titled “Endoglin moves and shapes endothelial cells” appeared in Nature Cell Biology’s ‘News and Views.”

Zhixian Yu (former grad student), Dana L. Ruter (current postdoc), Erich J. Kushner (former postdoc), and Victoria L. Bautch published a paper titled “Excess centrosomes induce p53-dependent senescence without DNA damage in endothelial cells” in The FASEB Journal (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology).

Joshua Boucher (former postdoc), Ryan Clark (former undergrad/postbac), Diana Chong (current graduate student), Kathryn Citrin (current undergrad/postbac), Lyndsay Wylie (current graduate student), and Victoria L. Bautch published a paper titled “Dynamic alterations in decoy VEGF receptor-1 stability regulate angiogenesis,” in Nature Communications. The paper was also recommended by Faculty of 1000.

Congratulations to Danielle Berlin (graduate student in Vicki Bautch’s lab) who was awarded a slot on the Integrated Vascular Biology Training Grant. “By implementing an integrative approach to studies of complex model systems through multidisciplinary collaborations, the IVB program unites students who are working in the field of vascular biology and provides an environment that encourages collaborations and research involving more than one laboratory.”

Congratulations to Professor Robert Peet, who is the recipient of the International Association of Vegetation Sciences (IAVS) Honorary Membership Award. “Honorary Membership is the highest award the IAVS can bestow and recognizes sustained contributions of extraordinary merit to the Association or the field of Vegetation Science.” Bob’s career is chronicled in the Bulletin of the International Association for Vegetation Science.

Congratulations to PhD students John Noto and Casey Schmidt, and faculty member Greg Matera for their publication in RNA Biology entitled “Engineering and expressing circular RNAs via tRNA splicing.” In this paper, they focus on the biogenesis of tRNA intronic circular RNAs (tricRNAs) in archaea and animals, and detail their use as research tools for orthogonal, directed circRNA expression in vivo. [Noto JJ, Schmidt CA, Matera AG.RNA Biol. 2017 Apr 12:0. doi:10.1080/15476286.2017.1317911. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 284012213]

Congratulations to the Daniel McKay Lab (Biology, Genetics, Integrative Program for Biological and Genome Sciences) for their manuscript “Hormone-dependent control of developmental timing through regulation of chromatin accessibility,” recently published in the journal Genes & Development. The work described in the paper provides new insight into how information regulating gene expression is accessed by transcription factors to drive developing tissues forward in time. GMB graduate students Chris Uyehara, Spencer Nystrom, and Matt Niederhuber were all authors on the paper. Make sure to also check out the UNC Press Release!

Jiyue Huang, a postdoctoral associate in Gregory Copenhaver’s lab, has published a collaborative PLOS Genetics paper with colleagues at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. The article provides evidence that the three proteins RAD51, RAD51C and XRCC3 interact to facilitate meiotic recombination in plants.

Paul Maddox is among the seventeen innovative scientists who are recipients of the 2017 Whitman Center Research Awards at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL). Paul will continue to develop his amazing new LITE Sheet Imaging, a high numerical aperture low photobleaching fluroescence image technology.

Congratulations to Gregory Copenhaver, Talia Hatkevich (Jeff Sekelsky’s lab), Nick Levis (David Pfennig’s lab) and Jeff Sekelsky who were inducted into The Frank Porter Graham Graduate and Professional Student Honor Society on April 19, 2017. “The Society recognizes outstanding service to the University and community by graduate and professional students enrolled at UNC Chapel Hill as well as faculty, staff, and friends who have made outstanding contributions to the development of graduate and professional education at the University.”