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It’s been a good year for awards! Congrats to Megan and the whole team. Read more about Dennis lab research and the Chancellor’s fellowship here.
A huge congrats to the seven other awesome faculty that also received the Chancellor’s Fellowship (more info here) and the SOM Research Rockstars.
So proud of Gulhan for her well-deserved award for contributions to many innovative genomic methods, including massively-parallel reporter assays, CiFi, sciRNA-seq, the list goes on-and-on!
The Lego Legends of the Genome Center—otherwise known as the Dennis Lab—took home the award for Best Group Costume! Huge congratulations to Gulhan, whose incredible work on CiFi earned Best Poster, and to Nick for carving a very cool zebrafish–human–inspired pumpkin.
We are celebrating this awesome news! Thank you to those that voted! Now, time to get to work.
Check out the ASHG press release here.
Welcome (back) to Daniela Garcia, our new junior specialist and NIH PREP Scholar, who recently graduated with her B.S. in Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology from UC Davis!
Daniela will be working on our projects using zebrafish as a model organism to test genes implicated in neurodevelopment, and help maintain our zebrafish facilities.
Daniela also has an email address that any geneticist would be jealous of: dnagarcia@ucdavis.edu
We have many graduations to celebrate!
Undergraduate research assistant Aidan Baraban graduated with a B.S. in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior (and a minor in Music!). He is heading down to UC Irvine to pursue a PhD in neuroscience! Congratulations Aidan!
Undergraduate research assistant Emily Xu graduated with a B.S. in Molecular and Medical Microbiology with minors in public health and economics! She is currently working as an Integrative Medicine Assistant, volunteering at the Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals, and studying for the MCAT. Good luck Emily!
Undergraduate research assistant Daniela Garcia graduated with a B.S. in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology! She will continue on in our lab as a Junior Specialist and NIH PREP Scholar. We are very lucky to have you Daniela!
Graduate student researcher Nabeel Sabzwari graduated with an M.S. in Computer Science and is currently interviewing for full time positions! In the meantime he is working remotely to wrap up a couple projects that he led in the lab.
We are excited to welcome Eleni Katsougia, our new postdoc, who recently completed her PhD in Evolution and Genetics in the Ragsdale lab at Indiana University!
Eleni’s projects will focus on using zebrafish to learn more about the function of human duplicated genes.
Eleni also bakes the most amazing cakes!
Our incredible Dennis Lab undergrads, Aidan, Emily, and Adeena proudly presented their work at the 2025 UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference. Their posters highlighted months of dedication, curiosity, and scientific growth!
Infographic courtesy of the MIND Institute.
We are excited to share our new paper published in Autism Research led by former postdoc Sierra Nishizaki, with support from many current (Nick, Gabriana, Gulhan) and former lab members (Tasha, José). Gabriana put together a great summary here.
In the study, we identified 154 candidate genes with likely gene-disrupting de novo or rare variants from whole-genome sequences of autistic children with disproportionate megalencephaly. We validated a patient duplication (gain of function) of m6A-mRNA reader YTHDF2 results in enlarged brain in a zebrafish larval model, while knockdown with CRISPR leads to microcephaly. Using single-cell RNA-seq of zebrafish larval brains points to possible downregulation of FMRP-associated genes with increased presence of YTHDF2. We also identified a loss-of-function variant impacting YTHDC1, implicating more broadly the m6A-modification pathway as possibly contributing to ASD.
The project would not have been possible without excellent collaborations through the UC Davis MIND Institute, including the Autism Phenome Project led by Drs. David Amaral and Christine Wu Nordahl, and genomic sequencing data produced by consortia Simons Foundation and MSSNG.
https://www.hhmi.org/news/hhmi-names-2024-hanna-gray-fellows
Congrats to former Dennis lab grad student and postdoc Daniela Soto for being named a 2024 HHMI Hanna Gray fellow. She is currently pursuing research at UC Santa Barbara co-mentored by Drs. Soojin Yi and Kirk Lohmueller (UCLA). We are so happy for you Dani!
We are excited to welcome Mohamed Abuelanin, our new postdoc, who recently graduated with his PhD in Computer science from Titus Brown’s lab here at UC Davis!
Mohamed’s main focus will be on leveraging short read sequencing data to better understand genetic variants that contribute to neurodevelopmental conditions, like autism.
Mo’s computational expertise is a boon to the lab and his entertaining stories always make us laugh.
Game night at the Dennis-Gill household as we say goodbye and celebrate former grad student and post doc José’s new job at BioMarin Pharmaceutical. Another memorable Anomia game for the lab, followed by zebrafish-themed gifts, including individual paintings from our very own lab members.
Another intense game of Anomia ensues…
Dennis lab undergrads Louie, Aidan, and Emily showcased their research through excellent poster presentations at the annual UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference. We are so proud of all you have accomplished!
Welcome to Integrative Genetics & Genomics PhD student Zoeb Jamal, who has joined the Dennis lab to pursue questions related to genetic variation in human duplicated genes and their role in neurodevelopment. Zoeb recently graduated with his B.S. in Computational and Systems Biology from UCLA and took a year to pursue postbac research in Dr. Päivi Pajukanta’s lab.
Congrats to Integrative Genetics & Genomics grad student Sean McGinty on passing his PhD qualifying exam! Time to celebrate!!
The Dennis lab had a blast at the American Society of Human Genetics meeting in Washington where we hung out with old friends and made new ones. Former grad student Daniela Soto joined Megan and former grad student (now postdoc) José Uribe-Salazar to present research related to structural variation and human evolution. The week was rounded off with José presenting a plenary talk on his shared work with Daniela identifying and characterizing human duplicated genes implicated in brain evolution, earning them an ASHG postdoctoral award. In addition to this award, numerous UC Davis trainees presented amazing work this year. So proud!
Our annual Genome Center Halloween symposium showcased human genetics research, with keynote speakers Priya Moorjani from UC Berkeley and Lucia Hindorff from NHGRI. There were awesome pumpkins and costumes all around, with the Dennis lab representing with its zebrafish pumpkin (courtesy of grad student Nick) and our Hogwarts-themed group costume.
