<![CDATA[Balciunas Lab - News]]>Sun, 13 Jul 2025 18:32:18 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Congrats 2023 Graduates!]]>Sat, 08 Jul 2023 14:25:12 GMThttp://www.balciunaslab.com/news/congrats-2023-graduatesSpring 2023 is when we congratulate our first intercontinental cohort. In alphabetical order:
 
Sofija Gabrilavičiūtė, Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology, Vilnius University, magna cum laude. Sofija has worked on generating and validating a Cre-inducible epitope tagged tcf21 transgenic line.
 
Emilija Gečaitė, Bachelor of Science in Genetics, Vilnius University, magna cum laude. Emilija has made a much-improved ubiquitous CreERT2 driver for conditional mutagenesis in zebrafish. She will be presenting a poster at the European Zebrafish Meeting in Krakow. Emilija plans to pursue her PhD degree in the US.
 
Karolina Limanovskaja, Bachelor of Science in Genetics, Vilnius University. Karolina has identified several new conserved enhancers of the zebrafish tbx5a. She will be presenting a poster at the European Zebrafish Meeting in Krakow. Karolina is has been accepted into the Master of Life Sciences in Molecular Biology program at Vilnius University Life Sciences Center.
 
Gerda Matuškevičiūtė, Master of Life Sciences in Genetics, Vilnius University, cum laude. Gerda has worked on characterizing the heart regeneration defect observed in tbx5a conditional gene trap mutants. Gerda has accepted a job offer from ThermoFisher Scientific Lithuania.
 
Christopher Merlo, Bachelor of Science in Biology, Temple University. Chris has mainly worked on engineering epitope tags into the zebrafish genome. Chris continues in the 4+1 Professional Science Masters Program in Biotechnology at Temple.
 
Bilal Zia, Bachelor of Science in Biology, Temple University, magna cum laude. Bill has worked on inducing a conditional aldh1a2 mutation in adult zebrafish hearts. Bill is taking a gap year applying to Medical Schools.
]]><![CDATA[Congrats 2022 Graduates!]]>Sat, 08 Jul 2023 08:13:52 GMThttp://www.balciunaslab.com/news/congrats-2022-graduatesNicholas Fry, Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, May 2022. Nick has worked on deleting tbx20 in adult zebrafish hearts among other things. Upon graduation he accepted a job offer as a Scientist at the Office of Forensic Science, City of Philadelphia.
 
Leah Graham, Bachelor of Science in Biology, December 2022. Leah has worked on improving prime editing in zebrafish. Upon graduation she accepted a job as a Research Specialist at the University of Pennsylvania.
]]><![CDATA[Congratulations 2021 graduates!]]>Sat, 08 May 2021 12:38:53 GMThttp://www.balciunaslab.com/news/congratulations-2020-gradsCongratulations to our 2021 graduates! 

In the picture below left to right:

Joshua Schaaf, Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry. Josh received the Nathan Luehrmann-Cowen Memmorial Award from CST. He has worked on a number of projects in the lab, including floxing tcf21 and, more recently, analysis of ChIP-seq data. Josh will stick around Temple for a 4+1 PSM in Bioinformatics.

Shannan Lowe, Bachelor of Science in Biology. Shannan received the Dr. Nina W. Hillman Memmorial Award from CST. She has mostly worked on structure-function analysis of tbx20 in vivo, isolating and analyzing mutants in the two repressor domains and - perhaps - the activation domain. Shanna is off to Texas to prep for Vet School.

Carlee MacPherson Cunningham, Doctor of Philosophy. Carlee was a graduate student in Ray Habas' lab, but I will gladly claim her as an honorary member of my own lab since she published with us. Carlee has already started her new job at Envision Pharma.

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]]><![CDATA[How can one be sure that the Morphant phenotype is real?]]>Tue, 22 Sep 2020 01:57:13 GMThttp://www.balciunaslab.com/news/how-can-one-be-sure-that-the-morphant-phenotype-is-realWell, mutations in the morpholino binding site should suppress the phenotype - and they do! The origins of this paper go back to the 2018 Zebrafish Meeting in Madison, WI, where Carlee and I were discussing the challenges of ascertaining morphant phenotypes and decided to give this particular solution a try. Short 2.5 years later (no irony here!), the paper is out. I hope you find it interesting and useful: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71708-1
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Darius]]><![CDATA[Congrats Dr. Lenny Burg!]]>Mon, 21 Sep 2020 02:44:42 GMThttp://www.balciunaslab.com/news/congrats-dr-lenny-burgBack in June our main genome editor, cardiac surgeon and the boss of the fish facility Leonard Burg has earned his PhD. On Monday Lenny is starting his postdoc at CHOP. Best of luck - miss you already!
]]><![CDATA[Alumni update: moving on to Grad School]]>Mon, 21 Sep 2020 02:41:59 GMThttp://www.balciunaslab.com/news/alumni-update-moving-on-to-grad-schoolThree of our recent undergrad alumni started Graduate Schools this fall. In the order in which they joined the lab:
Karen Zhang (2014-2016, second author of Burg et al., 2016) has joined the Chemistry PhD program at U Penn.
Nick Palmer (2016-2018, second author of Burg et al., 2016) has joined the Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics  PhD program at U Penn.
Helen Rueckert (2017-2018, co-author of Burg et al., 2018) has joined the Developmental and Stem Cell  Biology PhD program at Duke.

Congratulations! Very proud of you guys! But do keep in mind this was the easy part :-)]]><![CDATA[Congrats to Shannan Lowe!]]>Fri, 22 May 2020 20:17:26 GMThttp://www.balciunaslab.com/news/congrats-to-shannan-loweWay back in the day when research conferences were face-to-face, Shannan Lowe presented her work  deciphering the function of the two repressor domains of Tbx20 at the Temple CST URP symposium. The word "presented" does not do Shannan justice here: she took home the  second place award ! There were over 60 posters presented, ranging in topics from Biology to Physics and Computer Science. Way to go Shannan!
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More info about the event can be found on CST URP website.
]]><![CDATA[An alternative hypothesis on a hot topic]]>Mon, 10 Jun 2019 18:23:28 GMThttp://www.balciunaslab.com/news/an-alternative-hypothesis-on-a-hot-topicA paper published in PNAS late last year claims proof of paternal inheritance of mitochondria. As every student who took Genetics at Temple will tell you, that would be quite a paradigm-shifting discovery. But perhaps there is a difference between evidence for mtDNA and evidence for mitochondria themselves? Very glad to have been offered an opportunity to contribute to this discussion.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2019.00518/full
​]]><![CDATA[Congrats to Noah Goff!]]>Mon, 10 Jun 2019 17:39:53 GMThttp://www.balciunaslab.com/news/congrats-to-noah-goffNoah Goff has graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry. Noah has worked on two very different projects in the lab: epitope tagging of Tbx5a and assessment of CRISPR/Cas9-induced homology directed repair. As if that was not enough, Noah is now helping out on the Tbx20 project before he moves to Michigan State to start in their PhD program.
Noah received the Debra and Stanley Lefkowitz Undergraduate Research Award for his accomplishments. Well deserved and congrats!
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]]><![CDATA[Collaborative paper with the Madesh lab published]]>Wed, 27 Mar 2019 12:31:52 GMThttp://www.balciunaslab.com/news/collaborative-paper-with-the-madesh-lab-publishedAs far as I go, this paper is one more proof of how similar fish and mice are. Tip of the hat goes to Anuj Mehta, Temple undergrad (now Medical Student at Penn State) who worked on this project shuttling between the Main Campus and the Medical School, and to CST Undergraduate Research Program for supporting him. 

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