Lillian leaped over the obstacles her qualifying exam committee members HOUNDed her with to become the ulti-MUTT DOG-toral candidate! Congratulations on the PhD candidacy, Lillian!

Vivian passed their qualifying exam! Their time in HELL-en Wills Neuroscience Institute was a true Dante's Inferno of trials and tribulations, but now they have completed their Masters in Neuroscience and are no longer a graduate student! Freedom is sweet.

Our resident bird-lover passed her qualifying exam with flying colors! As is tradition, we celebrated this with awful puns in an email circulated to the entire MCB department and a big party! We'll spare you from any more bird-related puns this time.

The weather might not be festive, but we had a festive time watching Elf at the New Park Way Theater together! The owner's dog was very friendly and was especially fond of Diana.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the nation’s largest biomedical research foundation, announced the appointment of Diana Bautista as a Howard Hughes Investigator today, alongside Greg Barton and David Savage.

Howard Hughes Investigators receive roughly $9 million over a seven-year period; which can be renewed after a successful scientific review of the researcher’s work. Diana Bautista was selected from more than 800 eligible applicants for this honor.

“HHMI is committed to giving outstanding biomedical scientists the time, resources and freedom they need to explore uncharted scientific territory,” said HHMI President Erin O’Shea. By employing scientists as HHMI Investigators, rather than by awarding them research grants, she said, the institute is guided by the principle of “people, not projects.”

Bautista was selected by HHMI as a capable cell and molecular neurobiologist for her work on untangling the complex cellular and molecular interactions that contribute to chronic inflammation.

Bautista first tackled this issue in eczema, a chronic itch disorder. She found that a signaling molecule released by epithelial skin cells directly activates immune cells and triggers neurons to send out inflammatory signals that makes eczema flare up. Many children with eczema go on to develop asthma and allergies, and her team found similar signaling in airway neurons and lung epithelial cells. 

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Bautista’s lab began to research the new threat, because COVID-19 can also cause deadly lung inflammation.

“As a woman of color, with a diverse group of trainees in my lab, we felt firsthand the disparities of COVID-19 in our own families and communities,” said Bautista.

By looking at cellular-level changes that take place between infection and the time breathing problems develop, she hopes to untangle the ways SARS-CoV-2 impacts the nervous system and triggers inflammation.


Adapted from Three new investigators named by Howard Hughes Medical Insitute by Robert Sanders.

It was hard to keep up morale in 2020 and 2021, but with vaccinations and effective PPE, we made the most of it! 

Congratulations to Ifechukwu for graduating from UC Berkeley, Class of 2021! She will be pursuing her MD/PhD at UCSF. We'll miss you!