Mark Zylka, PhD, will serve as director and Ben Philpot, PhD, will serve as associate director of the UNC Neuroscience Center at the UNC School of Medicine, effective July 1. William Snider, MD, who has served as the center’s director for nearly 17 years, will step down from his leadership role, but will remain on faculty as professor of neurology, while also continuing his research.

In a paper published in Cell Reports, Vijay Swahari, a postdoctoral fellow in Deshmukh lab, identifies how the critical role of Dicer in DNA damage response can be exploited for therapy in aggressive brain tumors like Medulloblastoma.

In the article published in Developmental Cell, Stephanie Gupton’s lab shows that the E3 ligase TRIM9 ubiquitinates the actin polymerase VASP, altering VASP tip localization and dynamics and reducing filopodial stability and density.

Spencer Smith developed a new microscope which can simultaneously view individual neurons firing in two or more brain regions of a moving laboratory animal, enabling researchers to see how different areas of the brain work together to process information.

In a paper published in Cell Host and Microbe, Anna Cliffe, a postdoctoral fellow in Deshmukh lab, identifies how activation of JNK in response to neuronal stress triggers changes to the HSV chromatin and reactivation from latency.

In an article published in Nature, Bryan Roth describes a new tool to probe the activity of orphan receptors, illuminating their roles in behavior and making them accessible for drug discovery.

The 16th Annual UNC Neuroscience Symposium was held on October 8th at the Carolina Club. Attendees from the UNC Neuroscience community enjoyed a breakfast reception with the speakers, Joseph G. Gleeson, Yang Dan and Alcino Silva, three riveting talks followed by question-and-answer sessions, and a buffet luncheon at the conclusion.

Garret Stuber, PhD, was awarded the 2015 Gill Transformative Investigator Award from Indiana University for his contributions to cellular and molecular neuroscience. He was presented the award and prize at the annual Gill Symposium at the Linda and Jack Gill Center for Biomolecular Science.

In an article published in the journal Cell, Zylka lab shows how a genetic mutation disables a regulatory molecular switch, creating an enzyme that cannot be turned off and leading to abnormal brain development and autism.

Spencer Smith, PhD, has been awarded the 2015 McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award. He will receive $200,000 over two years to expand the range of technologies for studying the brain and its diseases and to make new technologies available to the field of neuroscience.