My interest in science developed during my undergraduate career, where I worked in the Sewanee Herbarium and Landscape Analysis Lab under the guidance of Dr. Jon Evans at the University of the South (Sewanee) in Sewanee, TN. My main contributions were in the development of the Domain Flora Project. Since the Domain Flora Project was launched in 1995, the Sewanee Herbarium has worked to catalog all of the vascular plant species on the Domain (the university's 13,000-acre landholdings). Most of my undergraduate study was dedicated to assisting the herbarium staff in the preparation of the Vascular Flora of the Domain. After graduating with a B.S. in biology from Sewanee, I worked as a lab technician in Dr. Daniel Promislow's lab at the University of Georgia. It was here that I gained a greater interest in genetics, studying the effects of aging on biological networks in fruit flies. In 2012, I entered the cell and molecular iCMB graduate program at the University of Texas at Austin. Although I was initially unsure of the lab I wanted to join, I have always had a particular interest in research with implications on human disease; and it was this interest that led me to the Eberhart lab. The Eberhart lab studies the genetic mechanisms underlying craniofacial defects in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). I recently chose the Eberhart lab as my permanent home and will be examining 1) the interaction between ethanol and members of the planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway and 2) whether ethanol-sensitive miRNAs modulate at least part of this pathway.

Alfire Sidik

Desirè Buckley

My interest in science initiated after being hospitalized for kidney failure as a young child, and instantly, I wanted to pursue medicine. However, it was not until college that I experienced my first formal research venture, and ultimately confirmed my passion for scientific research.

As an undergraduate assistant in Dr. Christian Lorson's lab at the University of Missouri, I utilized a mouse model of spinal muscular atrophy, a neurodegenerative disease, to determine if muscle atrophy contributes to disease pathogenesis (Rindt and Buckley et al., Neuromuscular Disorders 22 (2012) 277–285). This served as my introduction to neurobiology, and helped refine my research interests prior to graduate school. For my doctoral degree, I continued studying at the University of Missouri under the mentorship of Dr. Samuel T. Waters, where I functionally characterized the Gbx1 transcription factor in formation of mouse hindlimb locomotor patterning during embryogenesis (Buckley et al., PLos ONE 8 (2013) 1-16). Through this work, I found my place as a developmental neuroscientist. Following my Ph.D., I sought to incorporate my original medical interests from childhood with my newly developed expertise and passion for developmental neurobiology from my research training.

Currently I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Eberhart lab exploring how gene-ethanol interactions give rise to neural defects associated with FASD. I utilize ethanol-sensitive zebrafish mutants combined with transgenics to perform in depth analyses of neural development, including: 1) examining how gene-ethanol interactions disrupt neurogenesis and 2) determining the extent to which ethanol alters neuronal migration.

Ranjeet Kar

I am a homegrown Longhorn, having earned a B.S. in Biochemistry and a B.S. in Public Health here at the University of Texas. As an undergraduate, I worked in Dr. Hans Hofmann's lab, where I used bioinformatics techniques to explore the evolution of monogamous behavior in diverse taxa. This research project motivated me to pursue a graduate degree so that I could further understand how genomics approaches are used to answer biological questions. I remained at UT Austin for graduate school through the Cell and Molecular Biology program. After a year of rotations, I joined the Eberhart lab. Under the co-advisement of Dr. Eberhart and Dr. Vishy Iyer, I will use a combination of experimental genetics and bioinformatics techniques to explore the Gata3 regulatory network.

Tim Kuka

I started research as an undergraduate in the Largaespada lab at the University of Minnesota studying the genetics of hepatocellular carcinoma. My initial interest in biology was in genetics, but my time spent studying cancer introduced me to the field of cell communication. Specifically, I was interested in how a cell interpreted the many stimuli in its environment to make cell fate, growth, and survival decisions.  Upon graduation, I remained in the lab as a staff scientist for one year before joining the CMB program and eventually the Eberhart lab. My work in the lab has focused on how cells in the developing face make fate decisions based on signals from neighboring cells and the environment, specifically ethanol exposure. My primary projects are on members of the low-density lipoprotein receptor related proteins, a family of receptors and co-receptors involved in many cell signaling pathways. I am also studying the role of receptor-mediated endocytosis on how these signals are interpreted.

Josh Everson

I received my B.S. in Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.  During my studies I began working in the lab of Dr. Wade Bushman, a urological surgeon, where I examined the function of a critical regulator of development and cancer called Sonic Hedgehog in the prostate.  Following graduation, I moved down to North Carolina where I worked for the eminent embryologist Dr. Kathy Sulik at UNC – Chapel Hill, studying the interplay between Sonic Hedgehog pathway mutations and prenatal alcohol exposure using mouse models.

I became enamored with genetics and developmental biology—the enigmatic complex and intertwining signaling transduction cascades that drive cell type specification through differential gene expression to transform a trilaminar disc of cells into a near-complete body form in only a matter of weeks for humans or days for mice.  Equally amazing is that these events follow strict timelines, which define so-called critical periods/windows of development—points of development where a cellular or molecular event must occur or it never will, which can lead to devastating birth defects.  This is the concept that drove my interests to toxicology, since in utero exposure to environmental agents at the right time can disrupt these normal genetic programs and cause birth defects.  But critically, unlike genetic mutations, each of us has the ability to control and avoid environmental exposures—provided we know what to avoid and when.  

I therefore pursued a PhD in molecular and environmental toxicology at UW-Madison, where I studied the genetic and environmental underpinnings of cleft lip/palate and a common brain malformation known as holoprosencephaly under Dr. Rob Lipinski.  

With my PhD completed, I have now returned to examining the effects of embryonic alcohol exposure, since it is arguably most common environmental cause of human birth defects.  I moved down to the University of Texas at Austin where I now work as a post-doc for Dr. Johann Eberhart using a powerful and relatively new model organism—the zebrafish—which provides high-throughput screening capacities.  The goal of this work is to identify genetic mutations or common environmental agents to which humans are frequently exposed that can either increase or decrease the embryo's susceptibility to ethanol's effects.  Ultimately this work will aid our ability to (1) identify human populations with heightened risk to ethanol-induced birth defects and (2) enable more comprehensive risk communication for environmental agents that pose a risk to developing embryos.