With the pandemic, switch to online teaching, and general chaos, I’ve been remiss in posting lab news. We’ve had some major personnel changes in the last few months.

First, thanks to Mary Macpherson, James Foss, and Garrett Reynolds for their respective contributions to the lab in the last year/year+. Mary has moved on to work with Dr. Michael Morgan at WSU Vancouver. James is pursuing business interests, and Garrett is now a student in the WSU PharmD program.

Second, welcome to Rikeem Sholes and Susannah Schloss!

Rikeem is a Fish Biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Starting in January 2021 Rikeem will also join our lab as a PhD student through the School of Biological Sciences. We’re excited for Rikeem to join the lab and contribute his expertise in salmon biology as he also gains new skills and research experience – a great partnership.

Susannah is a post-bac student in the Neuroscience program and the new manager of our zebrafish facility. She plans to pursue a PhD in neurodegenerative disease.

PhD student Alex Hudson and former undergraduate Gavin Lockard (B.S. Neuroscience 2019) recently published their work in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. Working with collaborator Dr. Bruce Blough at RTI and Dr. Katie Kindt at NIDCD, the team showed that berbamine analogs robustly protect hair cells from ototoxic damage and that different chemical structures alter the protective efficacy and mechanism of protection.

Congratulations to Neuroscience PhD student Alex Hudson for receipt of a Poncin fellowship. The fellowship will support Alex’s dissertation research on immune modulation of antibiotic-induced hearing loss. Great work Alex!

Congratulations to former lab member Alex Young, who recently graduated medical school from the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine and was promoted to Lieutenant in the Navy. Dr. Young is now a resident in Internal Medicine at Naval Medical Center San Diego.

Congratulations to Trent, who graduates this week with a B.S. in Neuroscience. Trent will continue working in the lab as a research technician. Hopefully soon Trent and his classmates can celebrate in person – stay tuned for a picture in full graduation regalia!

Congratulations to Garrett for his acceptance to pharmacy school! Garrett will pursue his PharmD at Washington State University Spokane.

Welcome to Research Associate Dr. John Harkness, CEO of Rewire Neuroscience. John will join the team part-time to assist with commercialization of lab technology and analysis of fluorescent images using Rewire’s CytoPlexus AI software for fluorescent image analysis. Congratulations also to John for his SBIR grant from the NIH to fund further development of Cytoplexus AI.

Congrats to postdoctoral fellow Dr. Kristy Lawton for her Emerging Research Grant from the Hearing Health Foundation! This grant will allow Kristy to examine noise-induced changes in activity at hair cell-afferent synapses.

Congratulations to lab member Jordan Hill and his wife Jennifer on the birth of their son Greyson. Welcome Greyson to the Coffin Lab!

Congratulations to Regina Tsay (BS Biology), Gavin Lockard (BS Neuroscience), Jordan Donaldson (BS Neuroscience), and Robby Boney (BS Computer Science)! Gavin will move to Spokane this summer to begin Pharmacy school at WSU, and Robby is a database developer at Interject Inc. Both Regina and Jordan are working as emergency department medical scribes and as research technicians in our lab. They each plan to attend medical school. Very proud of the Coffin Lab team!