Butler Award 2009 from Dr. Lee Graves March 5, 2010.
Nicole Vincent Jordan, a member of the Johnson Lab, received the Thomas Collum Butler Award March 5, 2010 at the postdoc/graduate student seminar held that day. Nicole received a check for $1000 and a one-year fellowship.
The Thomas Collum Butler Award supports outstanding advanced graduate students who are undertaking their research training in areas broadly related to the understanding of developmental disabilities; this might include work in neurobiology, neuropharmacology, or developmental biology.
Candidates for the Fellowship must be full-time Ph.D. or M.D. / Ph.D. students who have completed their doctoral oral and written exams, and who are engaged in research in the laboratory of a CORE or JOINT member of The Department of Pharmacology.
Candidates for this award submitted a 1-page summary of their research interest, which included a statement as to how their work relates to developmental disabilities and a list of publications, abstracts or awards.
Nicole received the award for her research to “elucidate the signaling network impacted by epigenetic and transcription factor changes contributing to dysregulated developmental EMT in TSKI4 cells.”
This work is significant to developmental disabilities because “epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a fundamental developmental program critical for the formation of developing organs during embryogenesis. Dysregulated activation of the EMT program can lead to numerous developmental defects, such as mesoderm, heart valve, craniofacial and placental malformations.”
You can read Nicole’s complete statement describing the research that won her the award and how it relates to the understanding of developmental disabilities here.