April 2024
Ms India Pursell was awarded a Conference Fellowship by the Alzheimer’s Association in support of her attendance of the annual Alzhiemer’s Association International Conference this summer in Philadelphia.
March 2024
Dr. Liz traveled to Havana Cuba to participate in the 2024 AAAS-Cuban Academy of Sciences “Aging and Disaster Preparation” meeting.
Feburary 2024
Liz’s lab team met at A Studio in the Woods to hold their first annual research retreat, supported by a grant awarded to lab PI, Dr. Liz.
Feburary 2024
Ms. India Pursell was selected to participate in SfN’s 2024 Early Career Policy Ambassadors Program, one of only 10 admitted! The ECPAprogram is a 10-month long commitment which includes monthly meetings and various engagement opportunities throughout the year. The first event was the annual SfN Hill Day, where Ms. Pursell met with Louisiana legislators to advocate for science and funding! Way to represent India!
December 2023
After touring around the country and inspiring the next generation of scientists, Dr. Liz’s statue has come to its permanent display in New Orleans!
November 2023
Graduate student India Pursell has something to be especially thankful for this year. She has successfully completed her qualifying exam, a major milestone in her graduate studies! Congrats India!
October 2023
Lab volunteer, Advaith Subramanian, successfully earned not one but TWO Tulane awards to support undergraduate research! He is now supported with a stipend and supplies funds from the Newcomb College as well as the Center for Engaged Learning and Teaching. Congrats Advaith!
October 2023
Dr. Liz was honored as a Healthcare Hero (by the New Orleans City Business periodical.
Check out the article at:
https://neworleanscitybusiness.com/blog/2023/07/05/announcing-the-2023-health-care-heroes/
September 2023
Liz’s lab is please to welcome the newest US citizen, lab postdoctoral fellow Dr. Raul Freitas. Congrats Dr. Raul!
September 2023
Liz’s lab team is thrilled to announce their most recent funding. Together with Dr. Jiang He, Dr. Liz earned a one year, $250,000 NIH administrative supplement on the Tulane University Translational Sciences Institute COBRE award to study microRNA-34a contributions to Alzheimer’s disease. We cannot wait to start this important work.
September 2023
Graduate student India Pursell has earned the Trainee Professional Development Award from SfN! Great work, India!
August 2023
Liz’s lab collaborator, Dr. Kevin Zwezdaryk, received an NIA R01 to study viral origins of dementia. Dr. Liz and one of her graduate students will contribute to this project as co-investigators. Congrats team!
August 2023
Graduate student India Pursell is on fire this month! She was recently named a BAM! (BIPOC Affirming and Mentoring) participant and was awarded a Tulane School of Science and Engineering Dean’s Travel Fund award to support her travel to SfN!
August 2023
Liz’s Lab undergraduate student, Sharhana Shrestha was selected as a TURN (Tulane Undergraduate Research in Neuroscience) summer fellow and presented her research at the end of program poster symposium.
July 2023
Liz’s Lab was awarded $7,500 from the Tulane Carol Lavin Bernick Faculty Grant to support research activities.
June 2023
Liz’s Lab team members traveled to Boulder Colorado to present research at the annual Psychoneuroimmunology meeting.
March 2023
Lab graduate student India Pursell served as one of only two students chosen to be Tulane’s representatives for the Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering workshop hosted by AAAS in Washington DC
February 2023
Liz’s lab team published their latest paper addressing the long term brain and cognition consequences of repeat intermittent infection experience.
November 2022
In recognition for her significant contributions to community outreach and STEM education, Dr. Liz was awarded the prestigious Next Generation Award by the Society for Neuroscience. She couldn’t be there in person so lab members Habby and India accepted the award on her behalf!
September 2022
Former WVU T32 trainee Dr. Gabby Ponzini had her paper on uncertainty in stroke caregiving (on which Dr. Liz is a co-author) accepted to the Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health! Congrats Gabby on your newest publication.
August 2022
Dr. Liz was named the Tulane Brain Institute Director of Community Outreach and Engagement!
August 2022
Neurosciences graduate student in the lab, India Pursell, has earned not one but TWO travel awards from the Tulane Graduate Studies Student Association. These will support her travel to present posters at both the SENDCon regional Alzheimer’s Association meeting in Florida as well as the Society for Neuroscience conference in San Diego. Congrats India!
June 2022
Our team was awarded a one year, $25,000 Tulane Brain Institute Research Fund Award to support our work exploring mechanisms of B cell influence on neurological function.
May 2022
Bittersweet news for the Liz’s Lab. Our lab technician, Kate McDonald will be a graduate student at the University of Michigan! We could not be more thrilled for her as she navigates her next career phase and her steadfast presence in the lab will be missed. Best of luck to the future Dr. Kate in her studies!
As we say goodbye to some members, we also welcome some new faces to the team. India Pursell, graduate student in the Neurosciences PhD program at Tulane has chosen to pursue her doctoral degree in Liz’s Lab! As well, Lucas Garfinkle, former Liz’s Lab undergraduate volunteer, has been promoted to laboratory technician for a gap year as he applies for medical school. Welcome to the team and we look forward to seeing each of you succeed in the coming years.
April 2022
The Liz’s Lab team published their first collective work, an invited review paper in Frontiers of Behavioral Neuroscience!
March 2022
Dr. Liz’s statue, part of her role as Ambassador for the IF/THEN Initiative, was placed in the Smithsonian Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to celebrate Women’s History Month. She and her daughter, Bella, appeared on the segment of the Today Show featuring the exhibit.
January 2022
A $30,000 grant proposal submitted to the Infectious Disease Society of America to investigate the infectious etiology of Alzheimer’s disease, on which Dr. Liz is a Co-Investigator and her Tulane collaborator, Dr. Kevin Zwezdaryk is the Principal Investigator, was selected for funding!
November 2021
Dr. Liz contributed to a CNRC publication addressing the role of integrin modulation in SARS-CoV-2 infection.
September 2021
Dr. Liz was a co-author on a publication in Neurobiology of Aging
June 2021
Liz’s Lab was awarded a 2 year pilot grant from the Tulane University Translational Sciences Institute to study ‘Metabolic and dementia consequences of neuron-specific miR-34a expression’!
May 2021
Along with co-principal investigator, Dr. Kevin Zwezdaryk, Liz’s Lab was awarded a 1 year pilot grant from the Tulane Brain Institute for ‘Exploration of an Infectious Etiology of Age-Related Cognitive Decline’
April/May 2021
Liz’s Lab team members were featured as authors on posters presented at the Tulane University Health Science Research Days (April-virtual) and the Tulane University Clinical Neuroscience Center Poster Symposium (May-social distanced).
April 2021
Dr. Liz contributed to a publication in Biosensors and Bioelectronics
April 2021
Dr. Liz was a co-author on a paper published in the journal Cells.
April 2021
Dr. Liz and CNRC post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Becca Solch, did a neuroscience and nutrition brain awareness outreach presentation to 15 local 2nd graders over zoom
February 2021
Dr. Liz was an author on a recent review paper addressing central nervous system impacts of COVID-19. It feels great to be contributing knowledge to this important cause!
February 2021
Dr. Liz was a panelist discussing “Community Engagement in the Time of COVID” at the 2021 AAAS annual meeting. If you have questions about how to engage in science outreach to the public in a pandemic-safe way, reach out!
February 2021
Dr. Liz attended the 22nd Tulane Brain Institute Retreat and was a featured new investigator in their 5 minute flash talk series.
January 2021
We are thrilled to share that a $1500 grant application to the Dana Foundation to dovetail our Books & Brains - NOLA Libraries project has been selected for funding! This program, with the help of TUNA (Tulane Undergraduate Neuroscience Association); https://tuna.tulane.edu/) will leverage the Free Little Library system to distribute neuroscience books for kids and adults all over the city with the goal to increase brain awareness and access to neuroscience content. Be on the lookout for a neuroscience book coming to a lending library near you soon!
November 2020
The Liz’s Lab team is proud to announce that the Books & Brains - NOLA project will be funded! Special thanks to the IF/THEN Initiative, the AAAS, and Lyda Hill Philanthropies for supporting this exciting new program. The Books & Brains -NOLA program will leverage story time series within the New Orleans Public Library system to bring neuroscience education to the public and provide community outreach opportunities for Tulane and LSU neuroscience trainees. To learn more about this program and how you can support our work, please visit the Blog or the Service pages.
September 2020
Big news; Liz’s Lab has moved! Dr. Liz has taken a position as an Assistant Professor in the Clinical Neuroscience Research Center at Tulane University. We are excited for this change and can’t wait to see what fantastic opportunities this new role will bring.
August 2020
In collaboration with the WVU Stroke CoBRE-funded laboratories of Dr. Edwin Wan and Dr. Sophie Ren, our lab team published an invited review paper in Geroscience addressing the impact of the aging humoral immune system on stroke injury and recovery.
July 2020
Dr. Liz spoke about her career, her research and her roller derby alter ego as part of the Carnegie Science Center of Pittsburgh Women in STEM summer speaker series. The event was live streamed on Facebook. It was a great way to spend her birthday and inspiring would-be scientists was a very rewarding present indeed!
June 2020
Back in February, pre-pandemic, Dr. Liz and her friend/colleague Dr Shari Steinman submitted a grant proposal entitled ‘B cells as a predictor for postpartum mood and anxiety disturbances in mice and humans’, also affectionately referred to as the M.A.D.P.I.G. (Mood/Anxiety Disorders & Perinatal Immunology Grant).
Great news, their proposal has been selected for funding! This grant will study whether immune cell biomarkers, like the ratio of T:B cells, can serve as predictors of pre- and/or postpartum disrupted mood. Read more about it by visiting the Blog or the Research page.
Congrats Dr. Liz and Dr. Shari!
May 2020
Dr. Liz was featured as part of the 1 Million Women In STEM campaign. Visit their website for the full feature.
May 2020
Members of Liz’s Lab, Dr. Liz, Debbie, Brishti along with Dr. Liz’s mom and daughter, prepared 2300 neuroscience activity packets to continue social distanced neuroscience community engagement and help underprivileged Monongalia County school families during the quarantine. Check out the whole story and video below.
May 2020
Dr. Liz was featured as part of the STEM Gems & STEAM Queens program lead by fellow AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador, Samantha Wynns (IG @steambossammie).
May 2020
Dr. Liz was invited to present for at the WVU neurology Grand Rounds, which met virtually on May 8th, 2020. The presentation was entitled “Sick as a mouse: interrogating mechanims of immune influence on brain function, behavior, mental health, and neurological diseases.”
April 2020
Liz’s Lab team member, Josie Gilbert presented at a professional scientific conference, the 2020 WVU Undergraduate Spring Symposium. In light of the temporary institutional closure due to corona virus pandemic, this year’s symposium was conducted in a virtual format. Click the button below to hear Josie’s presentation. Congratulations to Josie as well as all the other student presenters and mentors on their hard work!
April 2020
An article detailing a collaborative project Dr. Liz contributed to was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. Great work, Dominic!
If you are interested in learning more about this project and/or reading the paper, send us an email via the Connect tab.
February 2020
Dr. Liz attended the 2020 International Stroke Conference in her hometown of sunny Los Angeles, CA to participate as an invited speaker in the “Long-term Consequences of Ischemic Stroke in Preclinical Models” symposium. Her talk “Stroke-induced Addictive Behaviors” addressed an understudied but potentially important area of research. The symposium was moderated by stroke research leaders Drs. Sohrabji and Bake; other session presenters included Drs. Buckwalter, Verma, and Zhang. Dr. Liz says “It was a privilege to be speaking alongside these accomplished stroke researchers!”
February 2020
An article detailing an exciting project Dr. Liz supported in the WVU Rodent Behavior Core was published in the Journal of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. Congratulations on your publication, Divine!
If you are interested in learning more about this project and/or reading the paper, send us an email via the Connect tab.
January 2020
On a frigid winter day, Dr. Liz and members of the WVU Neuroscience Department’s outreach team traveled to the state capitol building in Charleston, WV to participate in 2020 WVU Day at the Legislature. We spoke with ~ 250 West Virginian families and legislators about the wonders of the brain and the exciting research ongoing at the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute.
December 2019
Liz’s Lab team member, Brishti White, presented her Psychology capstone project at the WVU Psychology Fall 2019 Capstone Poster Session. Congrats to Brishti on her poster presentation and graduation from WVU; we know you will go on to great things!
November 2019
Amazing news! Dr. Liz’s NIMH K01 grant proposal addressing the role of B cells in modulating the response to stress has been funded! We are grateful for the investment and excited to begin addressing this important research area. For more information and descriptions of experiments in each aim, please see the Research tab.
October 2020
Members of the WVU Neuroscience Outreach team present a poster about their efforts at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago Illinois. To learn more about these activities, please see the Service tab.