Dr. Juanita Limas successfully defended her PhD September 20!
The title of her talk was “Quantitative profiling of adaptation to cyclin E overproduction.” Her PI/Mentor is Dr. Jean Cook.
Dr. Limas will be taking a position as a Research Scientist with Eli Lilly in November.
Awards
In addition to her research at UNC, Dr. Limas has been an advocate for student mental health, inclusion and diversity, and worked with leadership both in the department and the UNC Graduate School to develop a protocol for assisting students with mental health issues and how to respond in a crisis situation, and was instrumental in the creation of the department’s mental health and wellbeing website. For her leadership in these areas she was awarded the 2021 Boka W. Hadzija Award for Distinguished University Service, the 2020 Pharmacology Service and Outreach Award, and selected as a First Cohort Fellow and Planning Committee Member of the UNC Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Leadership Fellows program. Other awards she has received are the 2019 Pharmacology Graduate Student Scholar Award and a prestigious 2018 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Gilliam Fellowships Recipient
Publications
Limas, JC, Littlejohn, AN, House, AM, Kedziora, KM, Fleifel, D, Mouery, BL, Walens, A, Aleman, MM, Dominguez, D, and Cook, JG. Quantitative Profiling of Adaptation to Cyclin E Overproduction. bioRxiv, 2021.07.26.453751; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.26.453751, Preprint.
Stallaert, W, Kedziora, KM, Taylor, CD, Zikry, TM, Sobon, HK, Taylor, SR, Young, CL, Limas, JC, Cook, JG, and Purvis, JE. The structure of the human cell cycle. bioRxiv, 2021.02.11.430845;
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.11.430845. Preprint.
Wells C, Couñago RM, Limas JC, Almeida TL, Cook JG, Drewry DH, Elkins JM, Gileadi O, Kapadia NR, Lorente-Macias A, Pickett JE, Riemen A, Ruela-de-Sousa RR, Willson TM, Zhang C, Zuercher WJ, Zutshi R, Axtman AD. SGC-AAK1-1: A Chemical Probe Targeting AAK1 and BMP2K. ACS Med Chem Lett. 2019 Oct 23;11(3):340-345. doi: 10.1021/acsmedchemlett.9b00399. PMID: 32184967; PMCID: PMC7073879.
Limas JC, Cook JG. Preparation for DNA replication: the key to a successful S phase. FEBS Lett. 2019 Oct;593(20):2853-2867. doi: 10.1002/1873-3468.13619. Epub 2019 Oct 15. PMID: 31556113; PMCID: PMC6817399.
Chao HX, Fakhreddin RI, Shimerov HK, Kedziora KM, Kumar RJ, Perez J, Limas JC, Grant GD, Cook JG, Gupta GP, Purvis JE. Evidence that the human cell cycle is a series of uncoupled, memoryless phases. Mol Syst Biol. 2019 Mar 18;15(3):e8604. doi: 10.15252/msb.20188604. PMID: 30886052; PMCID: PMC6423720.
Grant GD, Kedziora KM, Limas JC, Cook JG, Purvis JE. Accurate delineation of cell cycle phase transitions in living cells with PIP-FUCCI. Cell Cycle. 2018;17(21-22):2496-2516. doi: 10.1080/15384101.2018.1547001. PMID: 30421640; PMCID: PMC6342071.
McNeill RS, Stroobant EE, Smithberger E, Canoutas DA, Butler MK, Shelton AK, Patel SD, Limas JC, Skinner KR, Bash RE, Schmid RS, Miller CR. PIK3CA missense mutations promote glioblastoma pathogenesis, but do not enhance targeted PI3K inhibition. PLoS One. 2018 Jul 5;13(7):e0200014. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200014. PMID: 29975751; PMCID: PMC6033446.
McNeill RS, Canoutas DA, Stuhlmiller TJ, Dhruv HD, Irvin DM, Bash RE, Angus SP, Herring LE, Simon JM, Skinner KR, Limas JC, Chen X, Schmid RS, Siegel MB, Van Swearingen AED, Hadler MJ, Sulman EP, Sarkaria JN, Anders CK, Graves LM, Berens ME, Johnson GL, Miller CR. Combination therapy with potent PI3K and MAPK inhibitors overcomes adaptive kinome resistance to single agents in preclinical models of glioblastoma. Neuro Oncol. 2017 Oct 19;19(11):1469-1480. doi: 10.1093/neuonc/nox044. PMID: 28379424; PMCID: PMC5737415.
Our congratulations again to Dr. Limas! We wish her all the best!