IBiS Graduate Program at Northwestern University

Congratulations to IBiS Preceptor Dr. Keara Lane for receiving a prestigious NSF CAREER award!

Promising young researchers receive NSF CAREER awards Four Northwestern University assistant professors — James Gaynor, Junsoo Kim, Keara Lane and Jen Munson — have received the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the foundation’s most prestigious honor for junior faculty members.

Our IBiS Director is on fire! Congrats to Dr. Sadie Wignall for also being awarded a 2026 Northwestern University Teaching Award!

Read more about Sadie's award here: https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2026/4/northwestern-announces-university-teaching-awards

Congratulations to IBiS Preceptor Dr. Carole LaBonne for being named as a 2025 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science!

Read more about it here: https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2026/03/aaas-honors-two-northwestern-researchers-as-lifetime-fellows

Congratulations to Dr. Sadie Wignall, the Director of our IBiS Program, for winning the 2026 inaugural DGS Excellence Award from The Graduate School at Northwestern!

Sadie has been our steadfast leader over the last three years, and this honor is well-deserved! We are so lucky to have Sadie as our DGS!

Pub alert! New study out with IBiS grad student Daniel Kranz as the first-author from the Klein Lab entitled “Identification of a glia-associated amyloid β oligomer subtype and the rescue from reactive astrogliosis by inhibitor NU-9.” Congratulations to Daniel and all the authors!

Publication link: https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.70968

Northwestern Now article link: https://news.feinberg.northwestern.edu/2025/12/19/nu-9-halts-alzheimers-disease-in-animal-model-before-symptoms-begin/

Crain's Chicago Business article link: https://www.chicagobusiness.com/health-pulse/northwestern-scientists-develop-experimental-alzheimers-drug

Overview: This study identifies a distinct amyloid-β oligomer subtype that accumulates early within vulnerable neurons and associates with reactive astrocyte processes during the initial stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Pharmacological inhibition of this oligomer using small molecule NU-9 markedly reduces early astrocyte reactivity and toxic protein burden in a pre-symptomatic animal model, highlighting a potential window for preventive intervention.

Happy Holidays from IBiS!

We had our 2025 IBiS holiday party last Friday, where we celebrated the end of the fall quarter and start of the holiday season. It is cold and snowy this year in Chicago, that's for sure!

Thanks to ISO for organizing such a lovely event! All the best to everyone in 2026!

A big shout-out to IBiS grad student Tim Kim (Mirkin Lab) who was named a 2025 Ryan Fellow! He also has a co-first author paper now out in JACS. Cheers to both achievements!

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jacs.5c15110

Tisha Dash, one of our new IBiS students, was named a 2025 Quad Fellow from the Institute of International Education!

The fellowship is supported by the governments of the United States, India, Japan, and Australia, and administered by the Institute of International Education (IIE). It supports individuals committed to advancing innovation and scientific collaboration throughout the Indo-Pacific region.

Congratulations on this big honor!

Dr. Omar Payán Parra, an IBiS student who graduated last Spring from the Yang Lab, just published a first-author paper in Epigenetics and Chromatin. Congrats!

See the full version here: https://epigeneticsandchromatin.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13072-025-00625-2

Congratulations to our stellar graduate student Feihong Xu (Amaral Lab) for winning the 2025 IBiS Rappaport Award for Research Excellence!