Lab News

October 2023: Congratulations to Anish Bose for winning an Outstanding Talk Award at the Midwest Drosophila Research Conference, and Snigdha Mathure and Surabhi Sonam for wining outstanding poster awards as well!

October 2023: Rachel and co-PIs across MCB are awarded funding from the Roy J. Carver Foundation for a new Zeiss LSM 900 confocal microscope!

May 2023: Congratulations to undergraduate Brian Park for Graduating!

December 2022: Rachel receives the MCB Teaching Excellence Award.

August 2022: Rachel is named the Norman P. Jones Professorial Scholar.

May 2022: Congratulations to undergrad Le’Mark Russell for graduating with Distinction in Biochemistry!

March 2022: Congratulations to Felicity Hsu for passing her Preliminary Exams!

January 2022: Rachel is named to the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students

November 2021: Postdoc Surabhi Sonam joins the lab. Welcome!

September 2021: Congratulations to Anish Bose for passing his Preliminary Exams!

August 2021: Smith-Bolton lab tech Angel Martinez is awarded Outstanding Poster Presentation at the Illinois Summer Research Symposium for his work in the Nowak lab.

August 2021: Rachel is named Assistant Director of the School of MCB for Diversity, Equity, and Inlcusion

May 2021: Le’Mark Russell is awarded the Abbvie/Black Business Network summer research fellowship

January 2021: Rachel Smith-Bolton is named to the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students

January 2021: Yuan Tian‘s work on chromatin remodeling and the role of SWI/SNF in regeneration is published here .

December 2020: Snigdha Mathure joins the Smith-Bolton lab! Welcome!

June 2020: Yuan Tian defends her thesis! Fantastic seminar. Congratulations Yuan!

May 2020: Nicholas Griffith graduates with Highest Distinction, with an Undergraduate Research Achievement Award, and is awarded the Roderick MacLeod Award for Academic Excellence

May 2020: Le’Mark Russell is awarded a CDB summer research fellowship.

April 2020: Rachel Smith-Bolton and Don Fox’s review on Drosophila as a model system for regeneration is published here

January 2020: Rachel Smith-Bolton is named to the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students

December 2019: Anish Bose and Felicity Hsu join the Smith-Bolton lab. Welcome!

December 2019: Congratulations to Syeda Nayab Abidi for being awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student Award in the Department of Cell and Develomental Biology.

December 2019: Ewelina Nowak and Nicole Sazonov graduate with Distinction

July 2019: Nayab Abidi defended her thesis! Yay!

May 2019: Congratulations to Nicholas Griffith for being named 2019 Jenner Family Summer Research Fellow

May 2019: Congratulations for Matthew Contreras for Graduating with High Distinction, being awarded a Cell and Developmental Biology Undergraduate Research Achievement Award, and receiving NIH funding to work as a technician in the lab for the next year.

May 2019: Congratulations to Syeda Nayab Fatima Abidi for being awarded the Cell and Developmental Biology Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award

August 2018: Rachel Smith-Bolton is promoted to Associate Professor with tenure, and named UIUC’s I.C. Gunsalus Scholar

June 2018: The lab has received a diversity supplement from NIH NIGMS to support undergraduate research.

April 2018: Congratulations to undergraduate Aria Darbandi for receiving an Undergraduate Research Achievement Award.

April 2018: Former undergraduate Amanda Sul will be attending the PhD program at Scripps. Congratulations Amanda!

March 2018: Nayab Abidi’s paper on cell fate changes caused by the commonly used Dll-GAL4 line is published in Scientific Reports here

December 2017: Undergraduate Aria Darbandi graduates with Distinction.

August 2017: Amanda Brock is chosen to give a Hilde Mangold talk and the annual meeting for the Society for Developmental Biology.

July 2017: Sumbul Khan’s paper on the transciptional profile of regeneratin tissue and a positive feedback loop that regulates regeneration signaling is published in PLoS Genetics here

May 2017: Amanda Brock’s paper on the genetic screen and the role of Cap-n-collar/Nrf2 in regulating regeneration is published in Genetics online here.

Undergraduate Benjamin Wang is awarded the 2017 Undergraduate Research Achievement Award

April 2017: Congratulations to Keaton Schuster for being awarded the Oyetunji A. Toogun Memorial Award for excellence in Cell and Developmental Biology research

June 2016: Sumbul Jawed Khan’s and Keaton Schuster’s review on Regeneration in Crustaceans and Insects is published here

May 2016 Amanda Sul graduates with High Distinction – congratulations!

April 2016: Sumbul Jawed Khan’s and Syeda Nayab Fatima Abidi’s joint paper on sorting and isolating blastema cells is published online here

April 2016 Undergraduate Amanda Sul is awarded the 2016 Undergraduate Research Achievement Award.

April 2016 Graduate Student Syeda Nayab Fatima Abidi is awarded “Best Poster” at the Midwest Regenerative Medicine Conference.

March 2016 Undergraduate Benjamin Wang is awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research fellowship.

October 2015 Lab manager Andrea Skinner’s paper is published online: http://dev.biologists.org/content/142/20/3500

October 2015: Amanda Brock has been selected to give a talk at the Midwest Drosophila Conference.

June 2015: Graduate student Keaton Schuster’s paper is published online: DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2015.04.017

June 2015: Yuan Tian has been awarded a travel grand to the SDB meeting in August.

May 2015: Congratulations to Mabel Seto, who has been awarded an Undergraduate Research Achievement Award for her Senior Thesis and will be graduating with High Distinction. Mabel will be attending graduate school at Vanderbilt University in the fall.

Also, congratulations to Amanda Sul for being awarded a Summer Undergraduate                                 Research Fellowship.

April 2015: Keaton Schuster has been selected to give a talk at the Gordon Research Seminar preceding the Gordon Research Conference on Tissue Regeneration.

March 2015: Rachel Smith-Bolton has been awarded an Arnold O. Beckman Research Award.

March 2015: Andrea Skinner gave a selected platform talk at the Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Chicago.

March 2015: Congratulations to Amanda Sul for being awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship.

November 2014: Congratulations to Yuan Tian, who was awarded Outstanding Talk at the Midwest Drosophila Conference.

October 2014: Keaton Schuster and Yuan Tian have been selected to give talks at the Midwest Drosophila Conference.

October 2014: Andrea Skinner has been selected to give a talk at the Midwest Society for Developmental Biology Meeting in St. Louis.

June 2014: Rachel Smith-Bolton’s review “Drosophila Imaginal Discs as a Model of Epithelial Wound Repair and Regeneration” is published online for Advances in Wound Care. http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/wound.2014.0547

May 2014: Congratulations to Mabel Seto and Amanda Sul for being awarded Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships for their work in the Smith-Bolton lab.

September 2013:  Andrea Skinner’s work  prior to joining the Smith-Bolton lab is published. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23798316

June 2013: Sumbul Jawed Khan’s PhD work is published. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3683752/

May 2013: Congratulations to Cristina Gratton for being awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship for her work in the Smith-Bolton lab.

May 2013: Congratulations to Brenten Popiel and Peter deJongh for graduating from UIUC.

January 2012: Rachel Smith-Bolton is awarded the Roy J. Carver Young Investigator Award.