The Pharmacology department would like to send our sincere gratitude to Merci Best (Pharmacology Graduate student in George Bloom’s Lab)for her involvement in so many amazing things during the summer!
As part of her participation in the Summer Program in Neuroscience, Excellence and Success (SPINES) course, Merci was recently spotted by some of our faculty all the way out at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. At a joint meeting with other MBL courses, Merci discussed her hypothesis on how tau (an axon-enriched neuronal protein) accumulates in neuronal soma and dendrites in Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Merci was one of 15-20 students selected from across the country to be accepted into and participate in this 3-week intensive immersion experience. Acceptance into SPINES is highly competitive and is largely based on individual scientific merit. The program trains successful neuroscientists from backgrounds underrepresented in neuroscience to be leaders in the field. With the program’s dedication to creating and sustaining an outstanding diverse workforce in neuroscience at the forefront, students learn to hone in a variety of important professional and quantitative skills to communicate their science, win grants, and prepare to be a top notch PI.
The program’s merit criterion and limited cohort size for acceptance truly attests to the outstanding academic prowess, unstoppable commitment to science, and the passion to bring out the best in self and others that we all know that Merci exhibits in her work every day.
Keeping up the amazing work, Merci!
Check out other amazing things Merci is doing and listen to her Ted talk by following the link below:
http://www.steamtrix.com/?fbclid=IwAR3tkf9zA2Lknq2HtLe4T5ibbSVkkD4iACOuJIcpVIXmGRv8C_8Zgikmwm4