2024
Dr Mahoney-Crane sadly left the lab- but she is doing postdoc in Dr. Mark Cookson’s lab at the NIH, so we are excited for her!
Dr. Nolwazi Gcwensa earned her PhD.
Dr. Casey Mahoney-Crane earned her PhD.
Nolwazi’s paper, “Excitatory synaptic structural abnormalities produced by templated aggregation of α-syn in the basolateral amygdala” was accepted to Neurobiology of Disease.
Congratulations to Casey Mahoney for receiving the Outstanding Graduate Achievement Award from the UAB Office of Student Involvement!
Dreson Russell will be attending UAB medical school starting this summer to earn an MD/MPH degree (he already has an MBA)! All of future Dr. Russell’s patients will be extremely lucky to have someone who is so thoughtful, dedictated and passionate.
Congratulations to Sumedha Bobba for being named Outstanding Neuroscience undergraduate student of the year! Sumedha is one of the best students Dr. V has encountered.
2023
Dr. Singh’s study “Cellular and subcellular localization of Rab10 and phospho-T73 Rab10 in the mouse and human brain” was accepted in ACTA Neuropathologica Communications.
Laura’s commentary on a recent study by Chocarro et al ‘Neuromelanin accumulation drives endogenous synucleinopathy in non-human primates’ was published in Brain.
Neuroscience undergraduates Harshita Challa and Eli Berry crushed it at UAB Summer Expo!
Harshita Challa, Neuroscience Honors undergraduate was awarded the Presidential Honors Fellowship to perform research in the lab over the summer.
Sumedha Bobba, Neuroscience Honors undergrad, received a Student Presentation award ($300!) from the SENS Research Foundation at the National Conference on Undergraduate research at teh University of Wisconsin.
Charlie Brzozowski, Neuroscience graduate student, was awarded the Parkinson’s Foundation visiting scientist award to perform electrophysiology in the lab of Dr. Mark Moehle at the University of Florida.
Abhi Kamath was awarded Outstanding Student in the Undergraduate Neuroscience Program for 2022-2023!
Casey Mahoney was awarded the UAB Samuel B. Barker Award for Excellence in Graduate Studies at the Doctoral level!
2022
“Neuronopathic GBA1L444P mutation accelerates Glucosylsphingosine levels and formation of hippocampal alpha-synuclein inclusions” was accepted for publication in the Journal of Neuroscience! This was a fantastic collaboration with Merck.
We welcome Giuseppe Madaro as a Battelle Institute scholar to the lab! Giuseppe is a PhD student in the lab of Dr. Kurt De Vos at the University of Sheffield, UK.
Emmanuel Fortuchang, 2021 UAB PARAdiGM summer student, started medical school at Morehouse School of Medicine. We are excited to follow his career path as a physician!
Laura received the honor of the UAB Outstanding Roadmap Scholars Research Mentor award.
The lab was awarded funding by the Michael J. Fox Foundation and Aligning Science across Parkinson’s Disease to provide support and perform further characterization of the alpha-synuclein fibril model to help ASAP researchers obtain robust and reliable results.
Casey Mahoney was awarded the F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral National Research Service Award.
Nolwazi Gcwensa’s creative ideas resulted in the lab being awarded an American Parkinson Disease Association Research Grant.
Dr. Luke Fisher left us for his Medical Fellowship in Cognitive Disorders at UC San Francisco- he will be missed!
Laura was awarded the Dean’s Excellence in Mentoring award.
Charlie Brzozowski was awarded the Parkinson’s Foundation Visiting Scholar Award. She will be in Dr. Mark Moehle’s lab at the University of Florida this summer learning physiology.
Abhi was awarded the Barry Goldwater Scholarship- the highest scientific award for undergraduates studying science, math, and engineering!!
Abhi Kamath, Junior, Neuroscience Honors Program, was selected from a competitive pool of applicants for the 2022 UAB Summer Research Academy.
Lindsay Stoyka PhD, former lab MD/PhD student matched at her top Neurology residency choice- the University of Michigan!
2021
Dr. Luke Fischer won the AAN Futures in Neurologic Research Scholarship for 2022. Well deserved! We will miss Luke when he moves to UCSF for his Cognitive Neurology Fellowship.
Sumedha Bobba is Ms. UAB! Mr. And Ms. UAB is a longstanding scholarship competition at UAB in which students must demonstrate a record of leadership and active participation in extracurricular activities. In addition to do great work in our lab, Sumedha Bobba is a UAB Trailblazer, a member of Alpha Xi Delta, a volunteer for Start the Adventure in Reading Birmingham, or STAIR, and a volunteer for Blazer Kitchen. https://www.uab.edu/news/campus/item/12386-sumedha-bobba-and-banks-stamp-are-mr-and-ms-uab-2022!
Charlie Brzozowski’s manuscript, “Inhibition of LRRK2 kinase activity promotes anterograde axonal transport and presynaptic targeting of α-synuclein” was accepted for publication in Acta Neuropathologica Communications.
Nolwazi Gcwensa, Charlie Brzozowski, and Casey Mahoney won the Young Investigator Award for their presentations at the Inaugural International Research Conference on Neurodegenerative Diseases.
Sumedha Bobba was one of the few freshman awarded the UAB Honors College Presidential Summer Fellowship!
Dr. Rachel Coleman was awarded the American Parkinson Disease Association’s postdoctoral fellowship.
Casey Mahoney was awarded the UAB T32 NIH T32 training award in neurodegeneration
Dr. Lindsay Stoyka’s manuscript was published in eNeuro “Templated α-synuclein inclusion formation is independent of endogenous tau”
Nolwazi Gcwensa’s manuscript was published in Frontiers of Cellular Neuroscience “Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Synaptic and Axon Degeneration in Parkinson's Disease”
2020
Dreson Russell’s poster on the role of GBA in alpha-synuclein pathology was accepted for presentation at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in April
Neuroscience Graduate Student Casey Mahoney was named the Parkinson Association of Alabama Scholar.
Dr. Laura Volpicelli-Daley’s promotion to associate professor with tenure at UAB was approved by President Watts.
Nolwazi Gcwensa was awarded UAB’s Alzheimer’s of Central Alabama Predoctoral Scholarship.
Lindsay Stoyka, Neuroscience MSTP and Harry Potter expert, successfully defended her thesis project and earned her PhD. Now it’s off to third year med school! We will miss you Lindsay!
Megha Viswanathan, Research assistant, decided to attend Oregon Health Sciences University for her Neuroscience PhD
Charlie Brzozowski, Research assistant, decided to attend UAB for her Neuroscience PhD
Anner Harris, PREP student, decided to attend UT San Antonio for her Neuroscience PhD
Baraa Hijaz, Neuroscience Honors undergraduate student, decided to attend Harvard Medical School.
Virginia Cobbs, Mountain Brook High School student, decided to attend Princeton.
Graduate student Charlie Brzozowski and undergraduate student Harshita Challa presented their work at Society for Neuroscience in Chicago 2024.
Dr. Nolwazi Gcwensa and Dr. Casey Mahoney at UAB commencement 2024.
Cole presenting his work at the annual UAB GBS symposium.
Former Trainees
Anner Harris was a UAB PREP scholar and is a PhD student at University of Texas in San Antonio.
Jennifer Freire was a UAB PREP scholar and is a PhD student at Boston University.
Allen Yazdi was a Honors Biomedical undergraduate student and is currently a medical student at UAB.
Aseel Dib was a Neuroscience Honors undergraduate student and is a medical student at UAB.