Burdine Lab

Congratulations Aleena!

Graduate student researcher hits the lights on cells' development Combining light and a protein linked to cancer, researchers at Princeton, with a graduate student as lead research author, have created a biological switch to conduct an unprecedented exploration of cellular development in the embryo.

Congratulations to Dr. Meagan Grant on her wonderful thesis presentation today!

Zebrafish P*s meet every other year to exchange science, technical expertise, and support. This is a group tweeting the meeting for those who can't be here (or are in other concurrent sessions!). See for updates.

So this happened on Friday! So very proud of Dr. Pelliccia and his wonderful defense. Celebration lunch today!

Extremely honored to be named as a Fellow of the AAAS. Thanks to all the lab members past and present who have contributed to the work behind this honor.

Burdine and Weber named AAAS Fellows Princeton University professors Rebecca Burdine and Elke Weber have been named 2018 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Generally good advice in science in general.

Twenty things I wish I’d known when I started my PhD Recent PhD graduate Lucy A. Taylor shares the advice she and her colleagues wish they had received.

This is a decent read with some good information.

CBD, the super-popular cannabis compound, explained Is your CBD latte a scam?

Note one of the breakthrough prizes is oligonucleotide therapy for SMA (Spinraza). Award to Adrian Krainer of CSH Laboratory and Frank Bennett of Ionis. Congrats! Let's get Angelman Syndrome up and going!

Breakthrough Prizes Recognize Aneuploidy Researcher, Biochemist This year's winners also include the developers of nusinersen, an oligonucleotide therapeutic for spinal muscular atrophy.

Burdynamite alumni Brianna Christophers' perspective published as part of the "She Roars" conference here at Princeton. Keep your eye on this incredible young woman.

Panelist Point of View Briana “Bri” Christophers, Class of 2017, shares some of the perspectives she will cover on the “Activism and Movement Building” panel at "She Roars," as well as her hopes for what she will gain during this extraordinary gathering of Princeton alumnae.

Congratulations to Postdoctoral Scholar Victoria Patterson on winning the 2018 Teaching award at the Princeton Molecular Biology Retreat! Vicki has some of the highest ratings from her students I have ever seen. She's an amazing teacher and highly deserving of this award. Vicki helps Danelle Devenport and I teach Mol348 - Cell and Developmental Biology to undergraduates at PU.

I'm a broken record on this, but get your flu shot. The flu is a serious illness. Depending on how it mutates each season, it can be mild or devastating. It can kill you by putting your immune system into overdrive which is why the 1918 flu killed so many young people. If can kill you by making you more susceptible to pneumonia, which can overtax your heart and body. It's also damned miserable to suffer through the high fever, muscle aches, chills, etc.

Please note - children with neurological conditions, like Angelman Syndrome or Pitt Hopkins Syndrome are more likely to suffer complications from the flu.

From the article:
"Dr. William Schaffner, medical director for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, said that those who get flu after receiving vaccine are less likely to require hospitalization and they're less likely to die."

Also note: IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO CONTRACT THE FLU FROM THE SHOT. Incubation can take up to 10 days after a real exposure, so if you get the flu right after getting the shot, you already had the flu. You may experience a mild reaction to the vaccine (with fever and some aches) because that's your immune system doing its job.

Flu season deaths top 80,000 last year, CDC says The 2017-2018 flu season was one of the deadliest in decades according to the CDC. An estimated 80,000 Americans died of flu and its complications last winter.

In Angelman Syndrome, those affected have a lot of gut issues: constipation, slow peristalsis, cyclical vomiting, lack of appetite, hyperphagia, to name a few. Like everything in AS it varies from child to child. Scientists say the peripheral nervous system does not imprint UBE3A, so the enteric (gut) nerves should work fine. But circuits between the gut and brain are likely affected. Here's a new study on identifying new connections between the gut and brain.

Your gut is directly connected to your brain, by a newly discovered neuron circuit Find could lead to new treatments for obesity, depression