News
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3rd Annual Linnstaedt Lab March Madness Challenge
Congratulations to Brittanie, winner of the 3rd Annual Linnstaedt Lab March Madness Challenge. With an impressive 142 points, she predicted a UConn vs. Michigan National Championship matchup and correctly selected Michigan to win. Her bracket ultimately outperformed the rest of the lab in what was a very tight race.
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Senior Undergraduate Student Taanvii Verma Presents Honors Thesis
Senior undergraduate student Taanvii Verma presented her honors thesis, titled “Memory of Pain: Hippocampal Correlates and Translational Data on Early Life Adversity and Risk for Posttraumatic Pain in Humans and Rodents.” We are incredibly proud of Taanvii’s growth, dedication, and enthusiasm for the lab’s research, and we are excited to see all that she accomplishes … Read more
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Three Trainees from the Linnstaedt Lab Present Four Posters at USASP
Dr. Sarah Linnstaedt, along with trainees Erica Branham, Kennedy Bell, and Taanvii Verma, attended the annual United States Association for the Study of Pain (USASP) meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The team presented four posters highlighting their latest research and showcasing the lab’s ongoing work.
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The Linnstaedt Lab Co-Authors New Science Immunology Paper with the Laumet Lab
Members of the Linnstaedt Lab are proud collaborators on a newly accepted manuscript led by The Laumet Lab at Michigan State University. By combining complementary expertise in human clinical cohorts and animal models, the teams demonstrated that IL-10–producing monocytes play a key role in resolving inflammatory pain and contribute to sex differences in pain recovery. Importantly, enhancing IL-10–positive monocytes … Read more
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Linnstaedt Lab Collaborates with the O’Donovan’s Lab on New Study Published in Psychological Medicine
The Linnstaedt Lab is pleased to share the publication of our recent collaboration with Dr. Aoife O’Donovan’s Lab, titled Inflammatory markers in the emergency department and PTSD symptoms in the AURORA Study: a longitudinal cohort study, now published in Psychological Medicine. This study examines whether inflammatory markers measured in the emergency department following traumatic stress exposure are associated … Read more
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Congratulations to Erica Branham from our lab who was selected to present a short talk at the 3rd annual Duke Maixner Pain Research Symposium
Erica is a sixth-year PhD candidate in the Genetics and Molecular Biology program here at UNC, where she investigates epigenetic mechanisms underlying chronic pain after traumatic stress. In our lab, her work focuses on how DNA methylation in stress-regulatory and axon-guidance genes contributes to pain development, and she is deeply committed to using translational epigenetics … Read more
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Linnstaedt Lab members attended and presented at the 3rd annual Duke Maixner Pain Research Symposium
The Maixner Pain Research Symposium brings together pain researchers from across North Carolina to advance scientific discovery and improve care for individuals living with chronic pain. This year, ten members of our lab, including Erica Branham, Brittanie Winfield, Jacqueline Mickelson, Kennedy Bell, Miranda Layne, Meghna Iyer, Seka Shahriar, Taanvii Verma, Amanda Xu, and Rahul Shah … Read more
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Doctoral candidate Alice Woolard successfully defends her thesis
Alice’s research in the Linnstaedt Lab focused on three important topics: 1 – understanding the relationship between childhood trauma and chronic post traumatic pain outcomes in adulthood, 2 – identifying microRNA expression changes in the early aftermath of traumatic stress exposure, and 3 – developing a protocol for a pilot randomized clinical trial aimed at understanding whether … Read more
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PhD students Erica Branham and Brittanie Winfield present at the 2025 BCB/GMB Scientific Retreat
Graduate students Erica Branham and Brittanie Winfield were selected to present their research via oral presentation at this year’s BCB/GMB Scientific Retreat, held on November 15th, 2025 at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill North Carolina. We are incredibly proud of both trainees for their achievements and their outstanding presentations of their research. Congratulations also … Read more
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Lab Members present posters at the 3rd Annual Department of Anesthesiology Celebration of Academics
Twelve members of the Linnstaedt Lab, including Dr. Lauren McKibben, Erica Branham, Alice Woolard, Brittanie Winfield, Jacqueline Mickelson, Kennedy Bell, Miranda Layne, Taanvii Verma, Amanda Xu, Rahul Shah, and Seka Shahriar, attended and presented ten posters at the UNC Department of Anesthesiology’s Celebration of Academics in Roper Hall. The event facilitated conversation between our department’s … Read more