Category: News & Announcements

We were sad to learn about the passing of a former department faculty member, Chuck Stevens. Dr. Stevens had been at the Salk Institute since 1990 following his time on faculty here at UW and also at Yale. Our best wishes to his colleagues, friends, and family. To find out more about his distinguished career, please see the Salk Institute’s article: https://www.salk.edu/news-release/salk-institutes-charles-f-stevens-distinguished-professor-emeritus-dies-at-88/

The Summer Science Program, which was founded by P.Bio faculty Claudia Moreno, assistant professor, and Fred Rieke, professor, just finished its second year. The program was featured in the UW Medicine Huddle: https://huddle.uwmedicine.org/summer-of-science-opens-doors-to-research-careers/

Oscar Vivas, PhD, has accepted a joint assistant professor position with the Department of Physiology & Biophysics and the Department of Pharmacology. He is slated to start in early 2023. Oscar has been a valued member of our community for many years. Oscar first joined the department when he came to Seattle to do postdoctoral work with Bertil Hille (now professor emeritus). He then moved to UC Davis to work with Eamonn Dickson before returning to P.Bio in 2019 as…

We are delighted to announce that Astra Bryant, PhD is joining the department in January 2023 as a tenure-track assistant professor. Her lab will study the thermal physiology of skin-penetrating parasitic nematodes. She will focus her projects on parasite thermosensory neural circuits, parasite thermotransduction cascades, and more. Welcome to P.Bio, Astra!

Congrats to Jessica! Jessica Jones, a neuroscience graduate student in John Tuthill’s lab, was awarded a Gilliam Fellowship from Howard Hughes Medical Institute. More information about the fellowship can be found here: https://www.hhmi.org/news/hhmi-awards-51-new-gilliam-fellowships-advance-diversity-and-inclusion-science

Postdoctoral fellow Liz de la Cruz published a poignant essay in Journal of Cell Science’s May issue: Diversity as the fuel of my scientific career. Dr. de la Cruz is a Weill Neurohub postdoctoral fellow working with Research Assistant Professor Oscar Vivas.

We are thrilled to announce that Beth Buffalo, professor and chair of Physiology & Biophysics, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Our hearty congratulations!

Paul Newman, a long-time member of the department, passed away on Saturday, April 2.  Paul was a prolific and talented artist and writer and superb research technician. He spent more than 30 years in the department, working in several laboratories along the way.  We have collected some memories of Paul below.  Remembrances of Paul Newman, the Science Monitor (Bill Spain) I remember when Paul Newman was first hired into PBio. Wayne Crill needed a tech to take over the lab’s…

We are thrilled to share the first publication from Claudia Moreno’s laboratory, which was published in Frontiers in Physiology. Congrats to everyone who contributed – research scientist Sabrina Choi, postdoctoral fellow Matthias Baudot, research assistant professor Oscar Vivas, and assistant professor Claudia Moreno. You can read the publication here: Aging Alters the Formation and Functionality of Signaling Microdomains Between L-type Calcium Channels and β2-Adrenergic Receptors in Cardiac Pacemaker Cells

We are happy to share Current Biology’s most recent interview with professor Adrienne Fairhall. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)00320-7 Dr. Fairhall is presently in France completing a Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair Award.