May 2017: Congratulations graduates! Erin Dankert, Heather Nelson, A.J. Treichel, Maddy Martell, Scott Steele, Allie Trudel, and Bailey Duxbury graduated and are moving on to great things! (see alumni tab)
May 2017: Maddy Martell and A.J. Treichel completed the honors in biology program. Congratulations!
May 2017: Erin Dankert, Samantha Lang, Heather Nelson, and A.J. Treichel submitted abstracts to present at the 2017 Society for Developmental Biology conference.
April 2017: Photos from the WSU Research Celebration day:
Apr 2017: Erin Dankert, Samantha Lang, and Heather Nelson presented their research project at the Winona Health Research Day
Apr 2017: Bailey Duxbury accepted a graduate school position at Michigan Tech where he will study aquatic ecotoxicology. Congrats Bailey!
Apr 2017: Tom Eggers accepted a summer research position at the Mayo Clinic (SURF program). Congrats Tom!
Apr 2017: Rachael Sawyer presents a research study on new avenues for demyelination therapies
Apr 2017: Maddy Martell, class of 2017, accepted a position at the Mayo Clinic. Maddy will work on a clinical trial in nephrology.
Apr 2017: A.J. Treichel, class of 2017, accepted a position at the Mayo Clinic. A.J. will work in the gastroenterology research division.
Mar 2017: Heather Nelson, Erin Dankert, Sam Lang, A.J. Treichel, Hunter Sevenich, Maddy Martell, and Bailey Duxbury submitted abstracts for the 2017 Ramaley Research Celebration.
Mar 2017: Cassie Flachs presents a research study on adhesion molecules involved in initial myelin ensheatment
Mar 2017: Allie Trudel is accepted into multiple medical schools and has accepted an offer to attend Univ. of North Dakota medical school next fall. Congratulations Allie!
Mar 2017: Samantha Lang presents a research study on regulation of myelin sheath length
Feb 2017: AJ Treichel presents a research study on oligodendrocyte and myelin formation in the human adult brain
Feb 2017: Bailey Duxbury receives a scholarship to present his research at a conference
Feb 2017: Scott Steele presents a research study on myelin plasticity
Jan 14 2017: 5th bi-annual research lab boot camp
Nov 2016 Maddy, Scott, AJ, Allie, and Heather shared their SFN experience with the group at the Hines house.
Nov 2016 Scott Steele's travel grant application was funded. Congrats Scott!
Nov 2016 Practice presentations prior to leaving for sunny San Diego to the SFN conference
Oct 2016 Society for Neuroscience Meeting abstracts accepted.
Congrats to Allie Trudel, A. J. Treichel, and Heather Nelson who will all present posters at a Sunday evening session in San Diego.
Oct 2016 Erin Dankert and Heather Nelson receive WSU research supply grants. Congratulations! The grants will enable spinal injury, pharmacologic disruptions, and genetic cell ablation studies for their projects.
Sept 2016 A.J. Treichel receives ThermoFisher Scholarship. Congratulations to A.J.! Click here to see the Fall 2016 recipients of this national scholarship competition.
Sept 2016 WSU Foundation Impact Celebration: Bailey Duxbury, Allie Trudel, and A.J. Treichel gave a tour of the WSU microscopy facility and shared their undergraduate research experiences with WSU scholarship donors.
Sept 2016 Heather Nelson, Allie Trudel, and A.J. Treichel submitted poster abstracts for the 2016 Society for Neuroscience undergraduate neuroscience session. Here they come San Diego!
Sept 2016 Erin Dankert and Heather Nelson submitted supply grant proposals
August 19 2016 the 3rd annual Research Boot Camp was held.
Mandie Kaiser Corey Mikorski
July 22 WSU graduates and lab alumni Mandie Kaiser and Corey Mikorski have started new jobs! Mandie works for Crestovo, a U-MN affiliate company in molecular & cellular therapeutics. Corey works in the Mayo Clinic bio-specimen automated processing and nucleic acid extraction lab.
July 22 Feature articles on our student researchers from the Winona State website: Story 1 (click here) and Fab-five story (student researcher features; click here)
May 31 AJ Treichel, Maddy Martell, Malory Owens, and Heather Nelson all began summer research fellowships.
May 5 Maddy Martell submitted her abstract to present at SFN 2016 in San Diego. Allie Trudel, AJ Treichel, Heather Nelson, and Scott Steele also plan to present their research at SFN.
May 2 Lab ice-cream social
May 2 Congratulations graduates! Mandie Kaiser, Nick Becker, Cyril Thompson, Mariah Robran, Heather Torkelson, and Corey Mikorski all hung up their crocs today and are now officially lab alumni. Each made big contributions to the lab in 2015-2016. Best wishes on your bright futures!
Apr. 28 AJ Treichel is officially a candidate for the honors in biology. AJ's "Fishes and Dishes" thesis proposal was a hit and his cell culture experiments look very promising!
Apr. 21 Maddy Martell is officially a candidate for the honors in biology. Maddy delivered an excellent thesis proposal seminar on her work related to ensheathment sites.
Apr. 2016 Maddy Martell and AJ Treichel present their honors thesis proposals on 4-22 and 4-29 in SLC 242, 9am. All are welcome to attend!
Apr. 2016 Photos from the 2016 Ramaley Research Celebration Day:
Apr. 2016 Heather Nelson accepted a summer research fellowship at UMass. Congratulations!
Mar. 2016 Maddy Martell, Allie Trudel, and the Society for Neuroscience presentations featured on the WSU HOMEPAGE! Click here for story.
Feb. 2016 A.J. Treichel and Malory Owens have both accepted summer reserach fellowships at the Mayo Clinic (SURF program). Congratulations!
Feb. 2016 - Pizza-making at the Hines house
Feb. 2016 Allie Trudel, AJ Treichel presented at the 2016 WSU Foundation Kick-Off Day
Feb. 2016 Maddy Martell presents her honors thesis reserach
Jan. 2016 AJ Treichel presents his honors thesis research
Jan. 2016 Scott Steele presents on actin-binding proteins in nerve axons.
Jan. 2016 3rd bi-annual Neuro lab Boot Camp! (an abridged version). Cake and ice-cream to celebrate AJ's birthday!
Dec. 2015 Heather Torkelson received a supply grant for her reserach project! She will study morphogens involved in specification & patterning of axon tracts projecting into the spinal cord.
Oct. 2015 Maddy Martell, Heather Nelson, Malory Owens, and Scott Steele made the trip to the University of Minnesota (Neuroscience, Masino group) to share our research
Oct. 2015 Presenting our reserach at the 2015 Society for Neuroscience meeting
Oct. 2015 The fab five ready for Chicago!
Oct. 2015 Practicing with our SFN posters
Oct. 2015 Allie Trudel and A.J. Treichel putting the finishing touches on the Society for Neuroscience posters.
Oct. 2015 New grant recipients! Congratulations to Scott Steele, Allie Trudel, and Nick Becker. All three were awarded supply grants for their projects!
Oct. 2015 We created the best pizza in Winona!
Sept. 2015 A.J. Treichel shared his research with special visitors Mr. and Mrs. Richard and Camille Moll, along with Dean Charla Miertschin and Dr. Ted Wilson.
Sept. 2015 Dr. Jason Rihel visited from University College London. Awesome seminar on zebrafish sleep and a great time together with the lab at Mango's!
Sept. 2015 Mandie Kaiser and Heather Nelson traveled to Mayo to learn spinal cord injury techniques. Thanks to Dr's John Henley, Craig Nelson, and Jarred Nesbitt for training us.
Sept. 2015 Malory Owens acquired our first time-lapse imaging of commissural axon guidance using the confocal microscope.
Sept. 2015 Bailey Duxbury works his magic on the confocal microscope, capturing time-lapse images of myelinated axons with the highest frame rates ever recorded (*to our knowledge)
Sept. 2015 Poster abstracts for the Society for Neuroscience meeting are both officially accepted. Chicago - here comes the fab five!
Aug 2015 Lab boot-camp Fall 2015
July 2015 Mandie Kaiser worked as a visiting student researcher at University College London in the laboratory of Dr. Jason Rihel. The Rihel lab studies neural circuits regulating sleep in zebrafish. Thanks to the Rihel lab for being great hosts for Mandie!
July 2015 AJ Treichel completed his summer research fellowship in the Hines Neural Development lab at Winona State. AJ made great progress on experiments, raised numerous transgenic lines, and became an expert making competent cells!
July 2015 Maddy Martell completed a summer research fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. Maddy studied zebrafish models of polycystic kidney disease in the laboratory of Dr. Caroline Sussman. Maddy presented her work to the Mayo Nephrology/Urology Department, and also traveled to Emory University to present her findings.
January 2015 1st Research Boot Camp
News archive - 2015-17
News archive - 2017-2020
May 2020. Congratulations Taylor Hobbs, WSU class of 2020!
April 2020. Med-school bound!
John Henke will attend medical school at Midwestern University in Fall '20
April 2020. WSU and Neural Development Lab alum A.J. Treichel will attend the prestigious Stowers Institute for Medical Research Ph.D. program in Fall '20. A.J. hopes to find research in developmental, cell, and evolutionary biology.
March 2020. The lab is shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jan 2020. Research boot camp (training day)
Dec 2019. Congratulations to John Henke! John graduated with a degree in Cell and Molecular Biology and was named the Outstanding Graduate in Biology.
Oct 2019. Congrats Taylor Hobbs for being awarded a WSU student research grant.
Oct 2019. Our first bioRxiv pre-print is posted. "Individual neuronal subtypes control initial myelin sheath growth and stabilization". Click here.
Society for Neuroscience
Katrina Pfaffenbach and Taylor Hobbs present their poster "Development of methods to assess exploratory behavior of pre-myelinating oligodendrocytes in vivo" at the Faculty or Undergraduate Neuroscience poster session.
Heather Nelson presents "Axon determination of subtype specific myelin ensheathment and pruning" at the SFN Central and Peripheral Myelinating Cells session.
James Gronseth and John Henke present "Regulation of oligodendrocyte exploratory behavior and sampling of axons by neural activity" at the SFN Central and Peripheral Myelinating Cells" session.
August 2019. Last day of summer research.
James, Katrina, and Taylor put the finishing touches on their summer projects, and look forward to preparing posters for the 2019 Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago this October.
May 2019. Students Katrina Pfaffenbach, Taylor Hobbs, and James Gronseth started their summer internships in the lab.
May 2019. Welcome Heather Nelson (WSU Cell and Molecular Biology Class of '17). Heather began her position as research analyst in the lab.
April 2019. Emily Menges featured in the Winona Post! Emily, Taryn Mallon, and James Gronseth presented their research in poster format at the Winona Health Research Fair.
April 2019. As we wrap up final data analysis and progress reports for the National MS Society funded project, happy to officially announce that we received 5 years of funding from the National Science Foundation (CAREER) to study mechanisms of adaptive myelination. Honored and excited to continue this project. This would never be possible without the hard work and investment by currrent and former lab members, as well as support from the MS Society, WSU Biology Department, College of Science and Engineering, and WSU Foundation.
Nick accepted admission to the Physician Assistant Program at Augsburg University (starts May '19, Class of 2021)
Feb 2019.
Congratulations
lab alum (2017)
Nick Becker!
Feb 2019. Congratulations John Henke! John received multiple summer pre-medical internship / research offers and will be the 2019 Arnold Fenske intern at Winona Health.
Jan 2019.
Congratulations
Emily Menges!
Emily received multiple offers for Doctorate of Physical Therapy programs and will attend University of Iowa.
Jan. 2019. Summer Undergraduate Research Positions. Students interested in positions in the WSU Neural Development Lab click here. Students interested in other neuroscience-related positions click here. Click here for a broad overview/collection of summer opportunities.
Dec. 2018. Taryn Mallon, Emily Menges, James Gronseth, and John Henke presented their research findings at the 2018 American Society for Cell Biology - European Molecular Biology Organization Annual Meeting (ASCB-EMBO) in San Diego, CA.
Oct. 2018. Congratulations to A.J. Treichel, WSU '17, a new published author! Part of A.J.'s undergraduate work was officially published in the journal Zebrafish. Click here.
Oct. 2018. A new paper on oligodendrocyte development (click here) led by Bruce Appel and Andy Ravanelli, published in Developmental Biology. Click here.
Oct 2018. 2018 ASCB-EMBO
Both teams - Taryn Mallon and James Gronseth, and Emily Menges and John Henke - submitted abstracts that were formally accepted for the annual society for cell biology / molecular biology conference.
Sept. 2018.
Lab alumnus Maddy Martell started medical school at the Medical School of Wisconsin.
Sept. 2018.
Lab alumnus Malory Owens started dental school at the University of Minnesota.
April 2018. Congrats to lab alumni Scott Steele for accepting a graduate position at Brock University in Ontario.
May 2018. Taryn Mallon, Emily Menges, James Gronseth, and John Henke begin their summer research fellowships on May 30th.
May 2018. An expansion to the zebrafish aquarium was installed by Eric Stone with Aquarius Fish Systems.
May 2018. Congratulations Spring 2018 graduates Cassie Flachs, Tom Eggers, Hunter Sevenich, Taylor Collins, and Rachael Sawyer!
June 2018. Summer research proposal day! John Henke, Taryn Mallon, James Gronseth, and Emily Menges outlined their hypotheses, methods, and potential outcomes.
April 2018. Cassie Flachs and Taryn Mallon presented their posters at the WSU Ramaley Celebration of Research and at the Winona Health Research Fair. Congrats to Cassie for being awarded 3rd prize in the best poster contest.
April 2018. Congrats to lab alumni Mandie Kaiser for being accepted into the University of Minnesota PharmD program.
April 2018. Congrats to lab alumni Heather Nelson for accepting a position in Dr. Ann Parr's stem cell lab at the University of Minnesota.
April 2018. Congrats to lab alumni A.J. Treichel for submitting his first (first-author) manuscript for peer review.
Apr 2018. Congratulations lab alumni. Erin Dankert was accepted and will attend medical school at Des Moines University starting in Fall 2018.
Congrats Erin!
Mar 2018. The lab received a grant from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society to study "The role of axon caliber in the selective myelination of nerve axons".
Mar 2018. Congratulations lab alumni. Malory Owens was accepted and will attend the University of Minnesota dental school. Maddy Martell was accepted and will attend medical school at Medical School of Wisconsin (MCW).
Malory Owens
Maddy Martell
Jan. 2018. Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships. Students interested in positions in the WSU Neural Development Lab click here. Students interested in other positions click here.
Dec. 2017 Congratulations to Hunter Sevenich for being accepted to the College of Chiropractic at Northwestern Health Sciences University (MN).
Oct 2017 Congratulations! Emily Menges, Samantha Lang, and Hunter Sevenich were all awarded WSU research supply grants.
August 2017 Photos from the 6th bi-annual research boot camp.
July 2017: SDB 2017! Erin Dankert, Heather Nelson, A.J. Treichel, and Samantha Lang presented their research at the 76th Annual Society for Developmental Biology conference.