Education Updates

UVM Photography

Education

New Course: Quantitative Cell Biology Launches This Fall

A half-semester module on image quantification, tracking, and model fitting, co-taught by the Chen and Farrell labs. Open to second-years and above; no prior coding assumed.

Curriculum Committee

EducationInternal

Core Facility Adds Spatial Transcriptomics

The Xenium platform is installed and taking pilot projects. Rates are subsidized for CMB students through June. Training sessions run every other Tuesday; the queue is already three weeks deep, so plan accordingly.

Shared Resources

EducationInternal

Microscopy Workshop: Deconvolution From First Principles

Three sessions, hands-on, limited to twelve. Bring your own dataset or use ours.

Shared Resources

Education

A New Core Curriculum Arrives This Fall

The biggest change to the program in years: an integrated core curriculum (CLBI 7010/7020), a dedicated ethics course, and a grantsmanship course, with 15 credits reserved for electives. Thank you to everyone for your contribution and support over the last twelve months.

Education Committee

Education

Qualifying Exams: Congratulations to Our Students

Almost all of our students have completed the qualifying exam, phase 1 or phase 2. Congratulations to those who were successful — and to those not yet done, believe in yourself and your abilities. You got this. Thank you to every faculty member who helped run the last Phase 1.

Education Committee

Education

A New Format for the Qualifying Exam

The 2025 cohort will still complete Phase 2 under the current format in spring/summer 2027. The 2026 cohort, however, will face a redesigned exam — written and oral components completed by June 30 of their second year (2028). Stay tuned for the new format.

Education Committee

Program Updates

Program

Welcome to the 2026 Cohort

Nineteen students joined us in August from fourteen institutions across nine states and four countries. They arrived to a heat wave and a broken elevator in Given, and seem undeterred.

Program Office

ProgramInternal

Graduate Student Senate Seeks CMB Representative

One-year term, meets monthly, carries a small stipend.

Program Office

Program

Meet the 2026–2027 Education Committee

Serving this year: Nimrat Chatterjee, Dimitry Krementsov, Dev Majumdar, Bruno Martorelli di Genova, Delphine Quenet, Steve Roberts, and Mel Symeonides, with student representatives Olivia Evans, Megan Tarte, and Matthew Owens. Questions? Email cmb@uvm.edu.

Education Committee

Upcoming Events

Event

Thesis Defense: Sofia Marchetti

"Transcriptional Memory in Regenerating Hepatocytes." Thursday, 2:00 PM, Davis Center 413. Reception follows.

Program Office

Event

Annual Retreat Returns to Lake Morey

September 18–19. Keynote from Dr. Yasmin Haddad (Broad Institute) on single-cell approaches to tissue injury. Poster session Friday evening, and the canoes are included this year after last year's complaints.

Program Office

Event

CMB Seminars: The Summer Pause

The seminar calendar is on its summer break; the full schedule will be shared soon. Save the date for the Director meeting on August 25 and the first seminar of the year on September 1.

Program Office

Student & Faculty News

UVM Photography

News

Hargrove Lab Maps the Folding Pathway of a Ribosome Assembly Intermediate

Four years of cryo-EM work resolved a structure that had resisted the field since the early 2000s. The paper, out this week in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, describes an intermediate that appears only under near-physiological magnesium and had been washed out of every prior preparation. First author Priya Raghunathan began the project as a rotation student.

Ellen Hargrove

News

Marcus Bell Named Goldwater Scholar

One of 413 nationwide, selected from more than 5,000 nominees. Marcus works on mitochondrial dynamics in the Okonjo lab and will spend the summer at Cold Spring Harbor.

Program Office

News

NIH R01 Renewed for Cardiovascular Aging Program

The five-year renewal supports continued work on arterial stiffening in the aging heart, and funds three graduate positions beginning this fall.

David Okonjo

News

Chen Lab Paper Selected for F1000 Recommendation

The November Cell Reports paper on macrophage metabolic reprogramming was flagged as "exceptional" by two independent reviewers.

Wei Chen

UVM Photography

News

Retirement: Professor Alan Whitcomb, After 34 Years

Al arrived in 1992 with a freezer full of Drosophila and an argument about kinase specificity he has still not conceded. He trained 41 graduate students, chaired the curriculum committee through three redesigns, and taught the introductory genetics sequence every single year without exception. His lab will close in December. The reception is May 14th, and the stories will be extensive.

Program Office

News

Two CMB Students Win Travel Awards to Keystone

Jamie Fournier and Rosa Delgado will present posters at the Keystone Symposium on Tumor Metabolism in Banff this March.

Program Office

News

New Preprint: Cold Adaptation in Alpine Bumblebee Flight Muscle

Collaboration with the Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Lab. Field collection happened on Mount Mansfield last August, which is a better commute than most structural biology has.

Nina Farrell

News

Okonjo Named Associate Editor at Circulation Research

A three-year term beginning in January.

Program Office

News

Farrell Lab Receives Vermont Genetics Network Pilot Award

Funding supports preliminary work on thermal tolerance loci ahead of a planned R21 submission.

Nina Farrell

News

Priya Raghunathan Defends, Heads to UCSF

Priya successfully defended in October and starts a postdoc with the Cheng lab in January. Her thesis work on ribosome assembly produced three first-author papers and one very memorable committee meeting.

Ellen Hargrove

News

Cover Art: December Issue of Journal of Cell Biology

Confocal section of a regenerating zebrafish fin, imaged by second-year student Tobias Lund. The editors chose it from 60 submissions.

Wei Chen

News

Hargrove Elected AAAS Fellow

Recognized for contributions to the structural biology of RNA-protein assembly and for sustained mentorship of graduate students. The induction ceremony is in February.

Program Office

Upcoming Deadlines

DeadlineInternal

Qualifying Exam Schedule Posted

Second-year written exams run April 6–17; committee assignments are on the internal wiki. Petitions to reschedule are due March 15.

Program Office

Deadline

Travel Award Applications Due March 1

Up to $1,200 toward conference travel for students presenting first-author work. One page, submitted through the program portal.

Program Office

DeadlineInternal

F31 Predoctoral Fellowship — Internal Deadline April 8

Drafts routed to the grants office two weeks before the NIH date. Sign up for a mock study section slot early; they fill fast.

Program Office

DeadlineInternal

Journal Club Sign-Ups Close Friday

Presenting once per year is a program requirement, and the good weeks go fast. Sheet is on the wiki.

Program Office