Another year has passed—time for a website update! Here is some of what has happened in the past year:
- First, The Vance Lab has welcomed a new postdoctoral fellow, Tong Zhang. Tong completed her graduate work in Michael Laub’s lab at MIT where she worked on phage defense systems in bacteria (paper, paper). Prior to her time in Boston, Tong was a undergraduate at Cal—so, welcome home Tong! Tong is joining the lab as the lab’s first ever Miller Fellow.
- It will be a banner year for PhD students—two students, Brenna and Elizabeth, walked in the May commencement (see photo below); and Marian plans to submit her thesis by the end of the year.
- Arthur Cheng passed his qualifying exam (of course he did!). He also got married! So it has been a big year for doctoral candidate Arthur.
- Speaking of weddings…the lab just celebrated the nuptials of Charlotte and her now husband Ben at Tuolumne Camp in Yosemite (photos below). What a terrific event! Tong was also just married, and at least 2 more weddings are in the works (stay posted!).
- The lab underwent a long overdue renovation/refresh. New paint, new benches, new shelves, refinished cabinets—same crowded and messy conditions! But it has been a definite improvement.
- The lab bid farewell to Dmitri Kotov, who has started his own lab at Washington University. His lab is off to a fast start (he even has his first senior-authored paper on bioRxiv already!) Congrats Dmitri!
- The lab also bid farewell to Kristen Witt, who has started a postdoc in the Stetson Lab at UW. Kristen’s most recent paper from her PhD was also just published. We are all excited to see what she does next!
- We are having a joint 20 year Vance-Barton Lab Reunion this coming weekend. Over 70 former trainees are returning to campus for a symposium, picnic, and Bocce Tournament of Champions.
