Ataxia Newsletter 1-a copy

Vik was honored to share the inaugural  Karl Golser award with Professor Gabor Kovacs. He attended and spoke at the award ceremony at the Bishop’s Palace in Brixen, Italy, on June 9, 2018. A special thanks to Professor Gregor Wenning, President of the Bishop Golser Foundation, for being such a gracious host!

Vik was awarded the European Karl Golser award for our 2017 Cell Systems paper. He will attend and speak at the award ceremony in Italy in June.

Vik is thrilled to be elected to the Board of the MSA Coalition, a group dedicated to support, education, research and advocacy for the disease Multiple System Atrophy.

Congratulations to Isabel for securing a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship from the PhRMA Foundation!!! The grant will support our efforts with the Vidal lab to identify novel genetic risk factors for Parkinson’s disease, Multiple System Atrophy and other synucleinopathies.

Our back-to-back papers, providing proteome-scale genetic and spatial maps of alpha-synuclein,  make the cover of Cell Systems! Check it out here.“On the cover: By mapping genetic and spatial interactions in yeast and neurons, Khurana et al. (pp. 157–170) and Chung et al. (pp. 242–250) draw relationships between different genetic forms of Parkinson’s disease (stylized as patients in different colors) and the aggregation of the protein, alpha-synuclein. Illustration by Steven Moskowitz.”

Dan Tardiff, Chee Yeun Chung and I fondly remember our mentor, Sue Lindquist, who passed away last October. Read the tribute in Cell Systems here.

Vik and Chee were thrilled to host the lab kick-off party at their house. Here’s a picture: lab members and friends training up the next generation of research technicians!

Fueled by a surprise birthday cake for Vik, the inaugural lab meeting runs 3.5hrs.  Needless to say, no presents for the PI after that, but no one has (yet) left the lab…

Vik was interviewed for this NY Times Article, highlighting potential dangers of exposure to the pesticide paraquat.