Vanderbilt Biological Sciences Graduate Student Association (GSA)

08/30/2021

🧬 Hi! I am Adri Cortee, I am a 4th year Biomedical Sciences PhD student at Vanderbilt University. In this video, I interview three members of Vanderbilt's I...

08/25/2021

Congratulations to Bryan Gitschlag!

Congratulations to Bryan Gitschlag for a successful dissertation defense! Good job Bryan!

07/18/2021

One of our amazing graduate students has a YouTube channel where she talks about graduate school! Check out her videos and subscribe to hear awesome advice and perspective!

🧬 Hi! I am Adri Cortee, I am a 3rd year Biomedical Sciences PhD student at Vanderbilt University. In this video,I discuss the following:1. What is imposter ...

10/27/2020

Congratulations to Justin Critchlow for being GSA’s student of the Month for October! Check out his interview below:

1. Whose lab are you in?
Tate lab
2.What year of your PhD are you in?
4th year
3.What is your thesis project about?
Microbial Adaptation to Varying Immune Resistance
4.What advice would you offer to other graduate students to help them be successful?
One day of planning keeps away a month of failure.
5.What is a fun fact about you?
How about I have the goodest boy ever! (see attached)

09/29/2020

Congratulations to Souhrid Mukherjee for being GSA’s student of the Month for September! Check out his interview below:

1. Whose lab are you in?

I am co-mentored by Prof. Tony Capra, PhD and Prof. Jens Meiler, PhD (Vanderbilt Chemistry dept and Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany)

http://www.capralab.org
http://www.meilerlab.org

2.What year of your PhD are you in?

I am starting my 5th year (I came to Vanderbilt in 2016)

3.What is your thesis project about?

My research focus is digenic diseases, which are phenotypes that are caused / exacerbated by variants in two genes. It has been shown that gene pairs known to cause digenic disease share several biochemical attributes, such as common pathways and co-expression. I was curious whether these shared attributes could be leveraged to develop a high-throughput method to predict whether a gene pair could cause digenic disease if harboring rare variants simultaneously.

I have developed a machine learning algorithm to identify digenic pairs in humans. The machine learning classifier used these shared biochemical attributes and was trained on known digenic pairs and several negative controls. The preprint for our manuscript can be found here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.31.125716v1

I am a member of the Personalized Structural Biology (PSB) team, a part of the Center for Structural Biology (CSB), here at Vanderbilt University. We have been working on combing computational structural biology, systems biology, genomics and human evolution to facilitate better interpretation of the effect of missense variants on protein structure and function.

Our research is in collaboration with the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN), which is a team of clinicians and researchers striving to diagnose patients with very severe, rare and complex phenotypes. We strive to help identify rare variants, in one of more genes, that may affect protein function and could explain the complex and unresolved patient phenotypes.

4.What advice would you offer to other graduate students to help them be successful?

My advice would be (cliched as it is ) : Do what makes you happy. Choose a lab or PI where you feel the most comfortable. Choose your research topic based on what you’re interested in and not what you think will have the highest impact factor publication. Know you, do you, be you, because YOU are awesome.

5.What is a fun fact about you?

My hobbies are learning to cook exciting new foods, playing video games (offline) and reading/performing (non-musical) theater.

Fun fact: I played the role of a lysosome in an allegorical political satirical play, written by my friends and me, during my MS

07/28/2020

Congratulations to Natalie Wallace for being GSA’s student of the Month for July! Check out her interview below:

1. Whose lab are you in?
I'm in Lauren Jackson's Lab

2.What year of your PhD are you in?
I'm a rising 5th year.

3.What is your thesis project about?
My project is focused on elucidating the role of the AP4 membrane coat in autophagy. I use a combinatorial biochemical and cell biology approach to study novel coat protein interactions.

4.What advice would you offer to other graduate students to help them be successful?
Don't be afraid to voice your ideas within the scientific community. Confidence in your scientific thoughts doesn't always come easy. Build yourself a supportive network to help practice and grow your confidence with your scientific voice.

5.What is a fun fact about you?
I co-host a science communication podcast, How Real is that Science, focused on the interface of science with pop-culture media! Other than that I like to relax with my cat, George, and attempting to keep all my houseplants alive.

Find Natalie on Instagram and Twitter:

Find how Real is that Science Podcast on Instagram: and Twitter: .

07/21/2020

GOSTEM seeks to provide a community to LGBTQ+ graduate students in the sciences at Vanderbilt. Our
hope is to use this space to explore the LGBTQ+ identity in science and provide a welcoming community
for all.
The LGBTQ+ science graduate students at Vanderbilt have been lacking a community and space for the
last few years. Over the last month, GOSTEM has been reinvigorated and discussing how we can best
increase visibility and resources for LGBTQ+ STEM graduate students.
As we are working to build up the GOSTEM community, we are having weekly meetings on

Wednesday’s at 4:00PM. All are welcome!

Please contact [email protected] to request
the Meeting ID and password.

06/30/2020

Congratulations to Yakov Pichkar for being GSA’s student of the Month for June! Check out his interview below:

1.Whose lab are you in?
Nicole Creanza

2.What year of your PhD are you in?
Second

3.What is your thesis project about?
I study how culture affects and is affected by people actually practicing it, and whether we can study these population-culture interactions using genetics.

4.What advice would you offer to other graduate students to help them be successful?
For any goal, you can always ask yourself, "What do I need to do for it?" You tend to know what needs to get done. Keep asking yourself what you ought to do, and listen your own response. Works outside of work, too. And if you need a kick in the tukhes, The War of Art ain't bad.

5.What is a fun fact about you?
I've recently started looking more closely at birds. I recommend it. (Pictures attached!)

05/26/2020

Congratulations to Nikita Tsyba for being GSA’s student of the Month for May! Check out his interview below:

1. Whose lab are you in?
Maulik Patel lab

2.What year of your PhD are you in?
Currently, I am in my 4th year

3.What is your thesis project about?
I am studying the dynamics of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations in different tissue types. Mutant mtDNA coexists with the wild type, which can compensate for the mutations effects. The two genotypes compete with each other and the outcome of this competition determines whether the mutation remains asymptomatic or leads to a serious disease. My goal is to examine whether tissue microenvironment has any affect on the competition between wild type and mutant mtDNA. I hope that this project will shed light on tissue-specific differences in mutant mtDNA accumulation.

4.What advice would you offer to other graduate students to help them be successful?
My advice would be to keep your plans flexible and update them regularly. It is highly likely that your goals and scientific interests will change a lot over the course of grad school. Your project might change direction too. So, it is important to be flexible and not get frustrated when things take an unexpected turn.

5.What is a fun fact about you?
I love history, so I spend a good amount of time reading books and listening to podcasts about medieval Europe and ancient Central Asia (my homeland). I also love fishing and kayaking. Both are great ways to explore nature and distract yourself from the working routine. As of fun facts, I once spent a weekend building yurt tents for Central Asian New Year celebration. A yurt is a traditional house of nomadic tribes. Its hard to find them nowadays, so I am glad that I had an opportunity to build one.(see attached picture!)

04/28/2020

Congratulations to Betty Xie for being GSA’s student of the Month for April! Check out her interview below:

1. Whose lab are you in?
The Jackson lab

2.What year of your PhD are you in?
5th year

3.What is your thesis project about?
COPI coated vesicles and its ArfGAP Glo3

4.What advice would you offer to other graduate students to help them be successful?
It’s good to have a work-life balance.
And there are campus resources like the UCC and the graduate student life coach that can be helpful when people need.

5.What is a fun fact about you?
I’m a super taster so I love food! My recent hobby is doing jigsaw puzzles.

03/31/2020

We are thankfully still able to brag about the awesome grad students in our department during these uncertain times. Congratulations to Chunzhu Song for being GSA’s Student of the Month for March! Check out her interview below:

1. Whose lab are you in?
Kendal Broadie Lab

�2.What year of your PhD are you in?
I’m a 2nd year now.

�3.What is your thesis project about?
I’m currently studying the role of the interaction between FMRP and Staufen mRNA in regulating glutamate receptor type II A levels and synaptic structural plasticity at Drosophila neuromuscular junctions. FMRP is an mRNA-binding protein, which has an essential function in intellectual development. It participates in genes translation (e.g. Staufen) by binding to their mRNA. I hope I can uncover the function of this protein-mRNA interaction in neuromuscular junctions, and hopefully in the brain as well.

�4.What advice would you offer to other graduate students to help them be successful?
Be hungry for new knowledge. And NEVER EVER be afraid of challenging yourself!

�5.What is a fun fact about you? �I like drawing cartoon characters, especially an animation called Detective Conan. It accompanied me growing up! (Swipe for a picture!)

01/28/2020

First student spotlight post of 2020, woo! Congratulations to Zi Ye for being GSA’s Student of the Month for January. Check out his interview below:

1. Whose lab are you in?
Zwiebel lab

2.What year of your PhD are you in?
5th year

3.What is your thesis project about?
Functional characterization and localization of ammonium transporter in the chemosensory system of the malaria mosquito

4.What advice would you offer to other graduate students to help them be successful?
Workout at least once a week to refresh your body/mind

5.What is a fun fact about you?
I never say no to spicy food