DEB Student Spotlights

Biotech Research in the Spotlight

 

At any given time, the Designated Emphasis in Biotechnology (DEB) community is comprised of about 200 creative, hard-working PhD students who are striving to discover new knowledge, grow as scientists and engineers, and make the world a better place. On this page, we highlight a few current students and recent alumni to give our stakeholders an idea of the breadth of biotech-related research on-going at UC Davis. If you are a current or past member of the DEB and would like to "spotlight" your work, please reach out to our team. 

Current DEB Student Spotlights

  • Samjhana Khanal (Michelmore Lab) - Samjhana is working on disease resistance in lettuce and was recently awarded a $50,000 grant from the Schlumberger Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports science and technology education. The Plant Sciences department published a September 2024 news article on her awards and work, "Khanal Seeks Resilient Lettuce".
  • Iris Juanico in lab
    Iris is investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying regeneration using Hydra vulgaris as a model.
     

    Iris Juanico (Juliano Lab) - In Iris' own words, "I am a BMCDB graduate student in Dr. Celina Juliano’s lab, a CoMeT mentor in the College of Biological Sciences, and a member of the Diversity Equity Inclusion Committee in the grad group. I am interested in the activation of Wnt signaling after injury in the highly regenerative cnidarian polyp Hydra vulgaris. The injury response is conserved across animals but does not always trigger regeneration. For example, while Hydra vulgaris can regenerate its whole body, other animals like us can experience permanent injury and scarring, such as after losing a finger or a stroke. The key difference is that in regenerative animals, injury activates conserved developmental pathways, such as Wnt, that re-pattern and regrow the lost body part. How transcription factors connect the injury response to the activation of developmental pathways is not well understood. I aim to uncover this link in Hydra vulgaris. The project will serve as a basis for regenerative medicine as they study ways to harness the power of developmental pathways in non-regenerative models."

  • Abelina Jackson (Diepenbrock Lab) - A member of the Plant Biology Graduate Group, Abelina's research focuses on abiotic stress tolerance and crop nutritional quality, including analyses of bioactive plant compounds in leafy greens (e.g., spinach, lettuce). Read more about Abelina's academic interests, current research and future plans in the UC Davis Plant Breeding Center's May 2022 Newsletter.  
  • Abelina Jackson 2022
    Abelina Jackson in the greenhouse. Photo credit: Amanda Saichaie, Plant Breeding Center
     

    Pallavi D. Sambre (Parikh Lab) - Recently awarded a UC National Laboratory In-Residence Graduate Fellowship, Pallavi will be working on synthetic cell membranes at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Read more about her latest research adventures in materials science and engineering.

  • Houston Saxe (Dandekar Lab) - Houston is studying molecular mechanisms of plant pathology and disease resistance using omics-based approaches in a walnut model system. He is honing computational biology skills and had broad interests in both agricultural and medical biotechnology. Houston was featured in the UC Davis Plant Breeding Center's January 2021 Newsletter. 

Past Spotlights and DEB Alumni

Many thanks to the Plant Breeding Center Newsletter writer, Amanda Saichaie, and our former Assistant Director, Marianne Hunter, for authoring many of the Student Spotlights linked below.

Cintia Helena Duarte Sagawa 2019
Cintia Helena Duarte Sagawa working with transgenic walnut seedlings in the Dandekar Lab (2019).

 

Lucas McKinnon
DEB Alum, Dr. Lucas McKinnon, hard at work in the Theg Lab, unraveling the mysteries of photosynthesis (2019). Lucas is currently with Bayer Crop Science.