Life in the Cvetanovic Lab
Congratulations to our high school summer interns, Ben Wurst and Eshaan Parnerkar, who presented at the Neuroscience Retreat last week on their research on deep cerebellar nuclei (DCN).
Ben Wurst worked on DCN characterization with Gavin Fuchs. He is a senior this year at Liberty Classical Academy and will be applying to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities Class of 2030- to hopefully pursue neuroscience or other biological sciences!
Eshaan Parnerkar worked on TMEM119-cre characterization with Gavin Fuchs. He is a junior this year at Wayzata High School who is also hoping to pursue neuroscience or other biological science fields! Initially, he was pre-med. However, an outside source said that this summer internship has made him consider a career in research!
Congratulations, again, to Ben and Eshaan for their amazing work this summer as well as a thanks to Gavin Fuchs who mentored both of them and cultivated two future scientists!!!
A welcome to Christina Jackson who is rotating as part of the MINDS program!
Christina Jackson is a first year MINDS scholar rotating in the Cvetanovic lab who graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana in Spring 2025, earning a bachelor of science degree in Neuroscience with a minor in Education. Her interest in neuroscience stemmed from personal experiences with witnessing the effects of Alzheimer's Disease and dementia, which inspires her research ambitions of understanding more about neurodegenerative disease mechanisms and hopefully contributing to the development of targeted disease-modifying therapies. Throughout her time in undergrad, she developed a love of mentorship and outreach through engagement in various extracurricular activities involving teaching young students about science and getting them excited about what a career in the field has to offer. Outside of the lab, she can be found taking walks by the river or around lakes and enjoying nature. She is looking forward to continuing outreach initiatives and inspiring others during her time in the MINDS program.
Congratulations to our undergraduate student, Kalybe VanWatermeulen for his time at UNC - Chapel Hill and coming in first place at the poster session in the Carolina Summer Fellows Program!
Congratulations to our summer intern Catrina Pereda, a neuroscience and psychology student from Indiana University!
Congratulations to our lab manager, Kaelin Sbrocco, on winning at the Minnesota Inclusive Neuroscience Development Scholars (MINDS) Symposium!! Kaelin presented her research on "Cerebellar contribution to cognitive deficits and prefrontal cortex dysfunction in Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 1 (SCA1)." Her poster dives into prefrontal cortex cellular and molecular dysfunction caused by cerebellar degeneration in SCA1 mouse models. She received an "Outstanding Poster Presentation" award for her work and presentation.
Congratulations Kaelin! We are all so proud of you!!!
A huge congratulations to three of our lab members having big life moments recently. Katie became Dr. Katie after she defended her thesis, Stephen moved to Connecticut to start his Neuroscience PhD at Yale University, and Ferris started Pharmacy school at the University of Minnesota. Congratulations to you all, the Cvetanovic lab wished you the best in all of your future endeavors!
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Big moves!!!
Big Congratulations!!!
2022 has been a year of big milestones in the Cvetanovic Lab. Carrie (left) successfully defended her thesis in August, Fares (right) is officially a U.S. citizen, Katie (not pictured) is engaged to her lovely partner Katrina, and Adem (not pictured) officially passed his written prelim AND got married in the same month.
Here's looking forward to what comes next!
As the world learns how to function in a COVID world, scientists begin to gather again to share science in person! It's been a fun year of posters so far with Fares and Kaelin presenting at the MINDS program poster day in June 2022 (far left and upper left). Extra congratulations to Fares for winning a prize for his awesome presentation! Carrie (upper middle) had a great time presenting some recent work at the Cold Spring Harbor Glia conference in July 2022. Finally, our visiting summer student Ryan Kang (upper right) presented his summer project in August of 2022. Can't wait to keep up the trend at ICAR in November! See you there!
We've been kicking off 2021 with a number of conferences! So excited to be able to participate as a lab in the rescheduled Ataxia Investigators' Meeting (formerly of 2020), the UK Dementia Institute's CAG Repeat Disorders Conference, and the Society for Research on the Cerebellum and Ataxias. Lots of posters to present! Lots of interesting talks.
In a bittersweet party, we celebrated the start of several new lab members and the last summer of two very special lab techs (soon to be newly minted graduate students!!). It's been an absolute pleasure having Juao and Ella in the lab and we can't wait to see where you end up next!
Happy Holidays (2021) from the Cvetanovic Lab!
Left: The lab celebrates with our classic holiday potluck with the Orr and Koob labs. A delicious spread with plenty of safety gear for good measure.
Right: Enjoying the GPN's annual holiday party during a surprising warm snap!
With all of the birthdays and lab snacks that we've missed in the past year and a half, we decided to celebrate everyone's special moments with an outdoor lunch! As always, lab celebrations are more fun with more people, so we were glad that the Orr Lab could join.
Marija, Carrie, and Katie spent a week at the Itasca State Park Biological Station teaching the Development Module of Neuroscience at Itasca, an event that occurs every summer for the incoming class of students. A warm welcome to the Graduate Program of Neuroscience's Class of 2019!
Summer LSSURP Student Adanna Ekekwe recently presented her summer research at the LSSURP Summer Research Symposium 2019. We will sorely miss her, but wish her the best of luck as she starts her sophomore year at the University of Maryland, Baltimore College!
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2019 Conferences:
The Cvetanovic Lab has attended a variety of conferences and workshops in 2019. In January, Carrie attended the Wellcome Genome Center's Course on Molecular Degeneration in Cambridge, England. This summer, Austin and Marija attended the Gordon Conference on the Cerebellum in Switzerland.
Happy 2019 from the Cvetanovic Lab! Let's do some science!