Riccio Award Winners
Through the generosity of Mr. Dan Riccio and Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences alum, Dr. Diane Riccio, we are fortunate to be able to recognize Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences students with an award for participation in a scientific conference. The award shall be used to provide a differentiating research dissemination opportunity.
This is a merit award to recognize a student who has excelled in graduate study. However, in order to have maximum impact in alignment with the intent of the donors, we hope that the award will be used to catalyze opportunities that are out of the ordinary. This would include attendance at a meeting that is not regularly attended by the members of the student’s thesis lab, attendance at an international meeting, or attendance at any scientific meeting which provides a unique opportunity for the awardee. The applicants will be asked to explain the significance of the meeting for their career, and the Awards and Recognition committee will consider this along with the applicant’s record of accomplishment.
2024 Fall
Sydney Fischer
Extracellular metalloproteinase mediated TMEM67 extracellular domain cleavage is a prerequisite for regulating the composition of the ciliary transition zone and formation of primary and motile cilia
Mentor: Sumeda Nandadasa, PhD
Nicholas Harper
Pol II degradation activates cell death independently from the loss of Pol II activity.
Mentor: Michael Lee, PhD
Chaitanya Naimesh Parikh
Modulating the immunosuppressive pancreas tumor microenvironment through intratumoral delivery of cytokine-encoding mRNAs
Mentor: Marcus Ruscetti, PhD
Max Zinter
Mbnl1, an RNA splicing factor, associates with the arc capsid in an activity-dependent manner
Mentor: Travis Thomson, PhD
2023 Fall
Esther Boama-Nyarko
Marce of North America Regional Group Meeting (MONA 2023 Conference)
Mentor: Nancy Byatt, DO
Ailsa Jeffries
Functional disruptions in aging human neurons revealed by single-cell transcriptomics
Mentor: Michael Lodato, PhD
Hao-Ching Jiang
CD20 functions as a mammalian odorant receptor that mediates innate avoidance of predator-derived compounds
Mentor: Paul Greer, PhD
Karthik Ramesh
Connecting basic mechanisms of antigen presentation to Translational Research
Mentor: Lawrence Stern, PhD
2023 Spring
Gaurav Chauhan
A rapid and economical tool for the comprehensive identification of ticks, pathogens, and hosts, and their infection dynamics
Mentor: Elinor Karlsson, PhD
Emily Lowry
Genetic screens of colibactin toxicity in E. coli confirm genotoxicity and suggest entry by diffusion
Mentor: Amir Mitchell, PhD
Karthikeyan Ponnienselvan
Reducing the Inherent Auto-Inhibitory Interaction within the pegRNA Enhances Prime Editing Efficiency
Mentor: Scot Wolfe, PhD
Yuqing Wang
Comparative scRNA-Seq profiling of four autoimmune skin diseases points to CXCL13 as a potential player in skin autoimmunity
Mentor: Manuel Garber, PhD
2022 - Fall
Megan Honeywell
Removal of p53 causes the mechanism of DNA-damage induced cell death to switch from apoptotic to non-apoptotic
Mentor: Michael Lee, PhD
Ekaterina Korobkina
The role of cytosolic acetyl-CoA synthesis in brown fat function
Mentor: David Guertin, PhD
2022 - Spring
Kevin Gao
Radioresistant Cells Initiate Lymphocyte-dependent Lung Inflammation and IFNγ-dependent Mortality in STING Gain-of-function Mice
Mentor: Ann Rothstein, PhD
Xuqiu Lei
Epithelial HNF4A shapes the intraepithelial lymphocyte compartment via direct regulation of immune signaling molecules
Mentor: Kate Fitzgerald, PhD
Kathleen Morrill
Genomic interrogation of cultural stereotypes connecting dog breed and behavior
Mentor: Elinor Karlsson, PhD
Shivani Nanda
Systems-level transcriptional regulation of C. elegans metabolism
Mentor: Marian Walhout, PhD
2021 - Fall
Jillian Gallagher
Sialidosis: From Gene Editing to Gene Therapy
Mentor: Heather Gray-Edwards, PhD
Havisha Honwad
A novel PHOX/CD38/NAADP/TFEB axis important for macrophage activation during bacterial phagocytosis
Mentor: Javier Irazoqui, PhD
2021 - Spring
Mehmet Hakan Guney
MDA5 is the innate immune sensor of HIV-1 provirus transcripts in human myeloid cells
Mentor: Jeremy Luban, MD
Xue (Shirley) Li
Investigating the genetics of social behavior in wolf-dog hybrids
Mentor: Elinor Karlsson, PhD
2019 - Fall
Revati Darp
Investigating the role of tetraploid intermediates in melanoma progression.
Mentor: Craig Ceol, PhD
2018 - Fall
Heather Loring
SARM1 Mutagenesis Studies Reveal Key Residues Involved in Catalysis
Mentor: Paul Thompson, PhD
2018 - Spring
Elizabeth Allen
Discovery of a myotubularin phosphatase in autophagy
Mentor: Eric Baehrecke, PhD
Noah Cohen
Non-native Structure Present in the Unfolded Ensemble May Initiate Aggregation of ALS variants of Superoxide Dismutase (SOD1)
Mentor: C. Robert Matthews, PhD
Kyusik Kim
Cyclophilin A protects HIV-1 from restriction by human TRIM5α
Mentor: Jeremy Luban, MD
James Strassner
Validation and discovery of mechanisms that promote Vitiligo pathogenesis using single-cell RNA-sequencing of cells isolated from skin interstitial fluid.
Mentor: John Harris, MD, PhD
2017 - Fall
Anubhab Nandy
The Role of the NF-κB factor Relish and Immune Receptors in Autophagy
Mentor: Neal Silverman,PhD
Wen-Yu Hsiao
Selective loss of mTORC2 in subcutaneous adipocyte precursors causes partial lipoatrophy by impairing PPARÉ£ transcriptional activity
Mentor: David Guertin, PhD
Xin (Daniel) Gao
C-Berst: Defining Subnuclear Proteomic Landscapes at Genomic Elements with dCas9-APEX2
Mentor: Erik Sontheimer, PhD
Xinyang (David) Bing
Regulation of an endogenous retrovirus by a tRNA fragment
Mentor: Oliver Rando, MD, PhD