Current Lab Members:

Dave Featherstone is the lab's Principal investigator. He is a professor of Biological Sciences and has been at UIC since 2002. He did his postdoctoral work at University of Utah after earning a PhD (ion channel biophysics) from Utah State and MS (toxicology) and BS (zoology) degrees from Iowa State. The best way to contact him is via email: def@uic.edu.

 

Regarding the photo... You might be thinking; "This is not Dave. This is his hand." Should this website show a photo of Dave's head? But Dave's head is just a small part of Dave, like his hand. What makes the head special? Why do we talk to each other's heads? Think about that, the psychosocial consequences of cephalization, and how we define the 'edges' of an individual person.

Alyssa Ray has been a member of the lab since since 2014. As part of her Ph.D. work, she is using patch-clamp electrophysiology to determine the mechanism by which glial cystine-glutamate transporters (xCT) reduce postsynaptic AMPA receptor abundance in mouse hippocampal CA3-CA1 synapses.

Dina Beeler-Muscat has been a lab member since 2014. For her Ph.D., she is using Drosophila to study the function of Optimus prime (OPr). OPr was discovered using a biochemical screen for proteins that interact with glutamate receptor subunit mRNA. OPr is particularly interesting because it is the founding member of a novel, extremely highly-conserved protein family that has never before been studied, although alterations in the human OPr gene are linked to variation in corpus callosum size, which is associated with multiple cognitive and behavioral disorders, including autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity. Another recent study linked SNPs in human OPr to bipolar disorder and comorbid migraine. Clearly, OPr plays an important role in brain development and function. But what exactly is this role? Dina will find out!

Brian Grewe has been a lab member since 2015. He is studying the expression and function of mouse vwa8, which is the mammalian ortholog of Optimus prime (OPr).

Postdoctoral researchers:

 

Kaiyun Chen, 2003-2011 – Faculty Sun Yat-sen Univ. China, 2006; now a dentist

Yael Grosjean, 2004-2007 - CNRS Faculty, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon France, since 2009

 

Graduate students:

 

Faith Liebl, 2002-Ph.D. 2005 – Postdoc UIUC, now tenured faculty at Southern Illinois University

Hrvoje Augustin, 2003- Ph.D. 2007 – Postdoc at University College London

Julie (Karr) Minbiole, 2004-Ph.D. 2009 – Became tenured faculty at Columbia College Chicago

Subhashree Ganesan, 2006-Ph.D. 2011 – Postdoc at Stanford University, now a consultant

Elizabeth (Langer) McCullagh, 2008-Ph.D. 2014 – Postdoc at University of Colorado

Leena (Williams) Walters, 2011-Ph.D. 2014 – Postdoc at University of Geneva, Switzerland

 

Research associates/Technicians:

 

Qi Sheng (2003–2009), Pei-San Ng (2003–2007), Ang Liu (2003–2004), Poonam Bhandari (2016)

 

Undergraduate students:

 

Saima Ashraf (2003), Antonia Navarro (2003), Guadalupe Navarro (2003), Aaron Beyerlein (2003-2004), Nikhil Sheth (2003-2004), Marla Isaacs (2003-2004), Christian Marcelo (2003-2005), Fatoumata Yanoga (2006-2006), Asad Ahmed (Benedictine U, 2006), Jonathan Swancigar (2006-2006), Seth Wescott (2006), Ryne Floresca (2007-2009), Mina Shahrokh (2007), Eliot Bizhga (2008), Martin Zman (2008), Amanda LaBonty (2008), Brian Haddad (2008-2009), Shelagh Meyers (2009-2010), John Hamilton (2010), Shuo Huang (2010-2011), Eva Bici (2010- 2012), Shabbir Safri (2011-2014), Yazan Hussein (2011-2012), Magdalena Paces (Loyola U., 2011-2012), Yesha Patel (2013-2014), Alysha Mancha (2013-2014), Richard Walsh (2013- 2016), Lauren Medendorp (2015-2016), Manmeet Singh (2015-2016), Tracy Barnes (2015-2016), Alexander Sin (2015-2017), Sri Raghurama “Raghu” Somala (2016), Kristin Tekiela (2016-2017)

 

And visiting scientists from all over the world (Belgium, China, Mexico, India…)

 

Previous Lab Members:

Where are they now?

Leena

Brian

Liz

Dina