Daniel J. Schneider, a graduate student in Mike Blackburn's laboratory, was recently awarded a fellowship by the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences at the Health Science Center. This competitive fellowship provides a stipend, travel support, and supply money to conduct his Ph.D. project entitled "Role of osteopontin and adenosine signaling in chronic pulmonary disease." Congratulations Dan.

Jennifer Gonzalez, a student in Dr. Vasanthi Jayaraman's laboratory, and Jordan Bell, a student in Dr. Henry Strobel's laboratory, have each been awarded the NIH Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Award Predoctoral Fellowship.

Kimberly Mankiewicz (Jayaraman Lab), Xi Mo (Li Lab) and Brian Phillips (Spudich Lab) were awarded the 2007 Dean¹s Research Award.  This competitive award is given out by the Dean of the Medical School to graduate students at the Medical School exhibiting outstanding productivity and expertise in their scientific endeavors. More information in Scoop.

Xi Mo, a student in Renhao Li's lab, was awarded a 2007 Cameron Foundation Fellowship by the GSBS.

Eva Ramon, Ph.D., a Research Fellow in Dr. Kevin Ridge's laboratory, received a 2-yr Beatriu de Pinos Fellowship from the Catalan (Catalonia, Spain) government to study the structure and function of human cone visual pigments.

Kimberly Mankiewicz, a student in the Jayaraman laboratory and predoctoral fellow of the Houston Area Molecular Biophysics Training Program, won a poster award at the recent annual Keck Research Conference.  Her poster was titled “Role of ligand-protein interactions in partial agonist activation of AMPA receptors”.

The annual BMB Spring Retreat was held at Camp Allen on March 31-April 1. As in the past years, we gathered during the Monday and Tuesdayto discuss science, network with our peers and play. Such a high level of active participation, for four consecutive years, by program members bespeaks our commitment to excel and provide the best training environment. Congratualtions to all who participated and presented. A list of the competition winners cn be found on the retreat page.