Lo Graduate Fellowship for Excellence in Stem Cell Research

Yale Stem Cell Center is pleased to announce the 13th year of “The Lo Graduate Fellowship for Excellence in Stem Cell Research” (abbreviated as “The Lo Fellowship”). This one-year fellowship is made possible by a generous gift of endowment from the KS & Feili Lo Foundation. It is Yale Stem Cell Center’s most prestigious graduate award and is designed to recognize and support graduate students with demonstrated passion and achievement in stem cell research. Up to four Lo Fellowship awards will be given to outstanding senior graduate students pursuing stem cell research at Yale University, to partially defray the recipient’s stipend, with funding beginning on September 1, 2024. Each recipient will receive $30,000 in stipend support.

The applicant should be a Ph.D. or M.D./Ph.D. candidate who has successfully passed the Ph.D. qualifying exam and will be in their 4th or 5th year of graduate study by September 1, 2024. The applicant’s thesis research should be in the stem cell field in the laboratory of a Yale Stem Cell Center faculty member. Selection will be limited to one student per lab.

Application deadline is May 31, 2024 at 11:59pm.

Applications should contain the following four components:

1. NIH Biosketch of the applicant.
2. Information on the applicant that includes:
   1. The applicant’s year of study as of the September 1 start date.
   2. The name, title, and department of the student’s advisor.
   3. The field of study in which the degree will be granted.
3. A brief (two-page maximum) description of the applicant’s thesis project, including a title and a hypothesis, and summarizing past accomplishments (i.e. preliminary data) and future research. Figures are encouraged, but not required. References are not included in the 2- page limit.
4. Three letters of reference: one letter from the applicant’s thesis mentor and two letters from other faculty who know the candidate’s research and can fairly evaluate the candidate. One or both of these individuals should be members of the candidate’s thesis committee.

The applicant should send all materials, with the exception of reference letters, as a single PDF file to Valancia Ariyanayagam, Operations Manager at valancia.ariyanayagam@yale.edu. The three reference letters should be sent directly from the faculty members to Valancia Ariyanayagam.

For questions about eligibility for this award, please contact Valancia Ariyanayagam at valancia.ariyanayagam@yale.edu.

Kim Luttik is a graduate student in the laboratory of Janghoo Lim, in the Departments of Genetics and Neuroscience. Using mouse and human stem cell models, she is investigating the mechanisms in which astrocytes contribute towards neurodegeneration in spinocerebellar ataxias.

Yuqi Wang, graduate student in the laboratory of Haifan Lin in the Department of Cell Biology, is studying the post-transcriptional regulation of mouse germline stem cells by MILI.

In the laboratory of Stephen Waxman in the Department of Neurology, using stem cell-derived neurons and electrophysiology tools, Matthew Alsaloum investigates mechanisms underlying the development of neuropathic pain and the roles of voltage-gated sodium channels in pain signalling. Alsaloum is an MD/PhD student.

Dennis May, graduate student in the laboratory of Valentina Greco in the Department of Genetics, is using intravital imaging to study the chromatin/genome architecture as stem cells exist and differentiate within the skin.

Paul Renauer, a graduate student in the laboratory of Sidi Chen in the Department of Genetics, is investigating the cell fate decisions of stem-like memory T cells with in vivo functional genetics.

Jessica Moore, graduate student in the laboratory of Valentina Greco in the Department of Genetics, is investigating the signaling mechanisms regulating epidermal stem cell homeostasis via intravital imaging.

Leon Tejwani, graduate student in the laboratory of Janghoo Lim in the Departments of Neuroscience and Genetics, is using mouse and human stem cell models to investigate how glial populations contribute to the pathogenesis of spinocerebellar ataxias.

Anna Baccei, graduate student in the laboratory of Shangqin Guo in the Department of Cell Biology, is working on the development of a new fluorescence-based reporter to measure cell cycle speed in live cells with a single snapshot.

Bomiao Hu, graduate student in the laboratory of Katerina Politi in the Department of Pathology, is investigating the mechanisms of drug tolerance using mouse models of mutant EGFR-driven lung cancer.

Benjamin Patterson, graduate student in the laboratory of In-Hyun Park in the Department of Genetics, is using stem cells to model how humans regulate X chromosomes in early development and how this process can fail outside of the body.

Elise Jeffery, a student in the laboratory of Matthew Rodeheffer in the Section of Comparative Medicine and the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, was selected for her work on the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which resident adipocyte precursor cells respond to high fat diet. Elise’s work identified that adipocyte stem cells are activated to increase adipocyte number in obesity by a mechanism that is distinct from adipocyte formation during development. This is a major advance in the obesity field and our understanding of the mechanisms that lead to weight gain.

Rachel Zwick, a student in the laboratory of Valerie Horsley in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, was selected for her work on a fundamental question of how adipocytes grow and shrink, which occurs during obesity and in other tissues such as the skin. Rachel developed a novel proposal that would employ techniques the laboratory developed to analyze adipocytes in the skin and the power of mouse genetics to lineage trace adipocyte lineage cells in the mammary gland. These studies have implications for multiple tissues where adipocytes reside and may have implications for mammary gland biology during pregnancy and tumorigenesis.