Congratulations to Erin O’Leary, Neuroscience Graduate Student, who won an award of $500 for her lightning talk and poster presentation entitled Effects of Noncanonical Genomic Imprinting in the Brain Monoamine System on Social Dominance at the College of Veterinary Medicine Research Day on April 27th, 2022.
Congratulations to Sam Rahman who was awarded the Highest Distinction for his undergraduate research project and thesis. Sam presented his written thesis and talk, titled A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DEEPLABCUT AND SIMPLE BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS, to his distinction committee and colleagues at the VetMed Basic Science building on April 18th, 2022 . Sam’s distinction committee (Professor Justin Rhodes, Psychology; Assist. Professor Jake Hinman, Psychology; and Assist. Professor Paul Bonthuis, Comparative Biosciences) unanimously and without reservation recommended Sam for literally the highest distinction possible for his Individual Plan of Study in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Sam’s future plan is to pursue a PhD in the field of Neuroeconomics.
I’m honored and extremely thankful to have the opportunity of partaking in Mayo Clinic’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF). The internship is a 10 week program on Mayo Clinic’s campus in Rochester, Minnesota. Throughout the summer, I’ll have the opportunity to learn and work alongside scientists and physicians in their research endeavors. Personally, I’ll be working with Dr. Saranya Wyles in Regenerative Sciences. I’m very excited for this opportunity and can’t wait to get started! Of course, none of this would have been possible without the support of my amazing family at the Bonthuis Lab. Shoutout Paul, Daryl, Erin, Leah, Jill, and Sam!
Figure contributed by Coni Hoerndli
“The revelation that maternal and paternal alleles of the same gene along the brain-adrenal axis could have disparate, or possibly even antagonistic, phenotypic consequences on behavior is an intriguing observation,” says the paper’s first author, Paul Bonthuis, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Comparative Biosciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Best Use of Lab Supplies
Congratulations to the Bonthuis Lab for winning the “Best Use of Lab Supplies” award for the Comparative Biosciences Halloween Decorations contest! Special thanks to Daryl Meling for anchoring the decoration team.
On September 10th, the Bonthuis lab took all its’ villainous members to Champaign-Urbana Adventures in Time and Space. Our super-evil overlord tricked and betrayed his fellow villains and left us with only one hour and our wits to escape from the clutches of his trap and prevent our certain doom! Is no super-evil overlord to be trusted? Our logic skills were put to the test, but we escaped and saved ourselves just in the nick of time with only 6 minutes and 55 seconds to spare! Our maniacal laughter filled the air upon our triumphant escape and proved that we would live to villain another day … and enjoy doing it.
