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.
Cellular, Molecular & Biomedical SciencesUniversity of Vermont
The Culture
July 2026
News and summer perspectives from the CMB Education Committee.
Education Updates
Education · Internal
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.
Education · Internal
Microscopy Workshop: Deconvolution From First Principles
Three sessions, hands-on, limited to twelve. Bring your own dataset or use ours.
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
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
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.
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 · Internal
Graduate Student Senate Seeks CMB Representative
One-year term, meets monthly, carries a small stipend.
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.
Upcoming Events
Event
Thesis Defense: Sofia Marchetti
"Transcriptional Memory in Regenerating Hepatocytes." Thursday, 2:00 PM, Davis Center 413. Reception follows.
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.
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.
Student & Faculty News
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
News
Okonjo Named Associate Editor at Circulation Research
A three-year term beginning in January.
News
Farrell Lab Receives Vermont Genetics Network Pilot Award
Funding supports preliminary work on thermal tolerance loci ahead of a planned R21 submission.
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.
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.
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.
Upcoming Deadlines
Deadline · Internal
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.
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.
Deadline · Internal
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.
Deadline · Internal
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.