Bosco lab, friends and family summer 2019
PRESENT LAB MEMBERS
Giovanni Bosco
Gio was born in the tiny fishing town of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy. Gio and his family immigrated to the US when he was 4-years old and he grew up in New York. He received his BA in Biology from Boston University. While at BU Gio was greatly inspired by the late evolutionary biologist, Lynn Margulis, where he worked in Lynn's lab for about three years. Gio also studied history and theology at the Università Pontificia Gregoriana, Rome, Italy. After Boston, Rome and three years of working as a tech he joined the biology graduate program at Brandeis University. As a grad student Gio trained with James E. Haber at Brandeis, and then he went on to be a Damon Runyon Cancer Foundation post-doctoral fellow at MIT with Terry L. Orr-Weaver. Gio was appointed to his first faculty position at the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 2002, and promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2008. He moved his lab to the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in 2012. Gio was promoted to full professor with tenure in 2016, where he is currently the Oscar M. Cohn Professor in the Department of Molecular and Systems Biology. In 2015 Gio received a 5-year NIH Director's Pioneer Award for high-risk, high-reward research in "Trans-generational inheritance of social behavior." Work in the lab has also been or is currently funded by the American Federation of Aging Research, National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the US Department of Defense.
Gio's other passion is homesteading. Check back soon for a link to the Bosco family Orchard at Blackberry Hill in Thetford, Vermont.
Marek Svoboda.
MD/PhD Student in the Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (QBS) program.
Marek started the MD-PhD program at Dartmouth in 2015 and joined Bosco lab in the spring of 2018 as a student in the Quantitative Biomedical Sciences program. After growing up in Czechia, he received his BA in Neuroscience and Behavior from Columbia University. He is interested in interdisciplinary approaches that combine molecular biology and computational analysis. In his current project in collaboration with Dr. Bryan Luikart, he studies gene interactions in a mouse model of autism in order to identify novel therapeutic targets.
In his spare time, Marek enjoys playing tennis, is a fierce competitor in backyard badminton, and also enjoys escape the room games, eating popcorn, and sharing music with his friends while carpooling.
Vicki Marlar
Vicki joined the lab in 2012. Vicki is our lab tech, manages the lab, and takes very good care of all our precious fly stocks. Vicki was born and raised in New Hampshire; aside from running away from the cold Northeast and living in Puerto Rico in years past, she now lives in NH and is a true New Englander.
Vicki loves to cook and listen to music.
Madhumala Sadanandappa
Madhu joined the lab in 2017 as post-doctoral research fellow. After completing her PhD and NCBS in Bangalore, India, she received a prestigious 3-year research fellowship from the Human Frontiers Research Foundation. Madhu is elucidating neuronal circuitry of the Drosophila brain that controls egglaying and reproductive behavior. Madhu is from Kereyagalahalli (it’s a small village in the district of Chitradurga, Karnataka), and did her Bacholers and Masters studies (in Genetics) at the University of Mysore, Karnataka.
When not in the lab, Madhu likes cooking, gardening, DIY, hiking and love reading KANNADA books.
Jasmine Saunders.
Jasmine is a Dartmouth alumna, and she has been working in the lab for almost 3-years. Jasmine’s collaborative work with Shiva, a former post-doc in the lab, seeks to understand how mutations in the mouse PTEN and Fragile-X genes interact to give abnormal neuronal growth. Jasmine’s project will help us better understand how different genetic factors contribute to human conditions like autism spectrum disorders.
Caliope Marin.
Cali is currently a senior at UCLA majoring in neuroscience. Cali spent the summer of 2019 with us and was mentored by Madhu. Cali used fruit fly genetics to map the expression pattern of nearly all the known neuropeptides. “Nearly all” is actually a lot of genes, a lot of crosses, and lots of microscope time. We really hope Cali decides to apply to Dartmouth when it comes to grad programs. She’s great!
Jacob Slaughter.
Jacob is a recent high school graduate of Thetford Academy in Vermont. After taking a gap year, he has started his college studies at Yale in the Fall of 2020. Jacob is an image analysis machine, and together with Shiva and Jasmine, is producing very impressive analysis of mutant and wild-type mouse hippocampus cells. Jacob is helping us understand whether addition of Fragile-X mutations in cells that are already missing PTEN function do better or worse over time. Mutations in each of these genes are known to cause autism in humans, but no one knows how having both mutations might affect behavior and cognition.
PAST MEMBERS OF THE BOSCO LAB
Shivaprasad Sathyanarayana, Former Post-doc. Now pathology fellow at D-H Medical Center.
Vibhuti Rana, Former MCB graduate student. Now working in biotech in Austin, TX.
Katie Edwards, Former MCB graduate student. Now working at the Haven.
Emily Weyburne, Former Post-doc. Now senior scientist at Celdara Biomedical.
Elle Nutter, Former QBS Student. Currently post-doc at Case Western Reserve University with William Bush.
Julianna Lita Bozler, Former MCB Student. Currently Jane Coffin Childs post-doc at UPENN Medical School with Roberto Bonasio.
Balint Kacsoh, Former MCB Student. Currently post-doc at UPENN Medical School with Shelley Berger.
Sassan Hodge, Former Research Assistant. Currently working at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital Diagnostic Labs.
Stephen Barton, Former Research Tech. Currently science research in Maine.
Huy Nguyen, Former Grad Student. Currently post-doctoral fellow with Ting Wu at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Heather Wallace, Former Post-Doc. Currently senior science writer and communications specialist at Harvard/MIT Broad Institute.
Tom A. Hartl, Former Grad Student. Damon Runyon Fellow, Post-Doctoral Associate, Stanford University with Matthew P. Scott. Currently: Senior Scientist II, BioMarin pharmaceutical, California.
Helen F. Smith, Former Grad Student. Currently: Lecturer-AT, Gonzaga University, Spokane Washington.
Christopher R. Bauer, Former Grad Student. Currently: Senior Scientist I, BioMarin pharmaceutical, California.
Joseph Ahlander, Former Grad Student. Went off to teach and be Associate Professor (with tenure), Northeastern Sate University, OK. Now somewhere in medical school or residency saving lives.
Maureen Peterson, Former Grad Student. Currently: Working SF Bay Area Biotech.
Celine Hayden, Former Post-Doc. Currently: Research and Development Manager at bioLytical Laboratories, BC, Canada. Previously Director of Vaccine R&D, Applied Biotechnology Institute, San Luis Obispo, CA.
Xiao-Jun Wang, Former Post-Doc. Currently: Senior Scientist, Exemplar Genetics, Coralville, Iowa
Sarah Sweeney, Former Undergraduate Student. Currently: UCLA Medical School
Vivian Lien, Former Undergraduate Student. Currently: MD from U of Arizona Medical School. Specialist in Cornea, Refractive, and Anterior Segment Fellow at Baylor College of Medicine.
Joy Meserve, Former Undergraduate Student. Currently: Post-doc at UPENN Medical School after graduating with a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology at UNC Chapel Hill.
Livia Zarnescu, Former Undergraduate Student. Currently: Making big bucks somewhere in Silicon Valley after getting her PhD in Bioengineering from Stanford University.
Meredith Roberts, Former Undergraduate Student. Currently: Engineering somewhere after graduating in Bioengineering PhD, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
Nathan May, Former Undergraduate Student. Currently: Attorney somewhere in the US Southwest. Graduate Student in Bioethics, Wake Forest University
Carolyn George, Former Post-Doc. Currently: Instructor at Messiah College, Grantham, PA.
Rhiannon Greywolf, Former high-school student and lab tech in the Bosco lab, Rhiannon is a recent graduate of Landmark College and artist/designer at large.