Diane O'Dowd, HHMI Professor

Undergraduates and postdoctoral scholars working together

2008: Spring Freshman Research Experience at UCI

At UCI all freshman biology majors take, and all bio faculty teach, a 1 unit freshman seminar each spring. The important goal of this program is to make a large school feel small. I was unsatisfied by the level of interaction I was able to have with the student in a standard seminar format (1 hr/week for 10 weeks). Therefore this year we concentrated the 10 hrs of interaction into a single weekend.  I got to know all the students, by name, and they had a science experience unique to a research institution. (pdf of weekend schedule). My postdocs and graduate students also participated and benefited by gaining teaching experience as well as identifying students interested in participating as members of their summer research teams.

All 18 freshman scientists and their mentors….

2007: Summer Undergraduate Research in Chile

We established a partnership with the faculty at Universidad Andres Bello that allows undergraduates at UCI to conduct a summer research project while they are taking coursework in English. In 2007 we had 8 students participate.
The lab of Dr. Guido Mora can be found here: http://www.unab.cl/fern/palabras.htm
The lab of Dr. Claudia Reidel can be found here: http://www.unab.cl/dcb/lab_bio_cel_farmacologia.asp

Some of the students and faculty in the program….

2006: Summer Postdoctoral Fellow Undergraduate Research Teams.

We recruited 7 undergraduates to work in the lab in three teams. Three postdoctoral fellows headed the teams.

What these undergrads accomplished and where are they now:

Spring 2008 Update for 2006 Summer HHMI-UCI Undergraduate Researchers

Two of the postdoctoral fellows working with the summer students made video publications to teach others to use the techniques they had developed.

O’Dowd*, D.K., Sicaeros, B. and Campusano**, J.M. “Primary neuronal cultures from brains of late stage Drosophila pupae” (05/28/2007) Journal of Visualized Experiments, 4, http://www.jove.com/Details.htm?ID=200&VID=178

 

Gu**, H., and O’Dowd*, D.K. “Whole cell recordings from brain of adult Drosophila” (07/29/2007) Journal of Visualized Experiments, 6, http://www.jove.com/index/Details.stp?ID=248 

Publications in 2006-2008 by Lab Personnel involved in training undergraduates (faculty*, postdocs**)

1. Gu, H. and D.K. O’Dowd* (2006) Cholinergic synaptic transmission in Drosophila Kenyon cells in situ. J. Neurosci. 26: 265-272.

 

2. Hilgenberg**, L.G.W, H. Su, H. Gu**, D.K.O’Dowd*, and M.A. Smith (2006) a3Na+/K+-ATPase is a neuronal receptor for agrin. Cell 125: 359-369.

 

3. Campusano**, J.M., H. Su, S.A. Jiang, B. Sicaeros, D. K. O’Dowd* (2007) nAChR-mediated calcium responses and plasticity in Drosophila Kenyon cells. Dev. Neurobiology 67: 1520-1532.

 

4. Tan, Z, X. Sun, F.S. Hou, H-W Oh, L.G.W. Hilgenberg**, E.M. Hol, F.W. Van Leeuwen, M.A. Smith, D.K. O’Dowd*, S.S. Schreiber (2007) Mutant ubiquitin found in Alzheimer’s disease causes neuritic beading of mitochondria in association with neuronal degeneration. Cell Death and Differentiation 14:1721-1732.

 

5. Oh, Hyun-Woo, Jorge M. Campusano, Lutz G.W. Hilgenberg, Xicui Sun, Martin A. Smith, and Diane K. O’Dowd (2008) Ultrastructural analysis of chemical synapses and gap junctions between Drosophila brain neurons in culture. Dev. Neurobiology 68: 281-294.

 

6. Vasu, S., V.K. Sharma, H. Gu**, Y-T Chou, D.K. O’Dowd*, and T. Holmes (2008) Pigment Dispersing factor-dependent and –independent circadian locomoter behavioral rhythms. J. Neurosci, 28: 217-227.

 

7. Vasu, S.#, H. Gu#*, V.K. Sharma, D.K.O’Dowd, and T. Holmes (2008) Circadian- and light-dependent regulation of resting membrane potential and spontaneous action potential firing of Drosophila  circadian pacemaker neurons. J. Neurophysiol. 99: 976-88. (# authors contributed equally to the work).