2024 Year in Review

Another year in the books and lots to report from the lab.

Departures - sadly, we had to say goodbye to many lab members this year as they moved on to the next phase of their careers.

  • Aloe Stanbery became the inaugural director of the Institute for Translational Immunology (ITI) postdoctoral fellowship program and is also launching the northwest chapter of the Propel postback program

  • Tyler Billipp published his graduate work in Immunity (check out the cover below!) and moved into a scientist position at Regeneron (where he joins Moltke lab alum Jack McGinty!)

  • Tuan Vu returned to the lab briefly after graduating from UW with highest honors (President’s medal!) and is now expanding his skills at Harbor View Medical Center before applying to medical school.

  • Xavier Xiong joined the lab for a brief stint as a Research Scientist before leaving for medical school at UW

Arrivals - out wonderful new lab members are filling the big shoes that were left behind. UW Immunology graduate students Jared Balolong and Brianna Ramirez Rubio joined the lab in June and UW grad Maddie Bell started as a Research Scientist I in the fall. UW sophomore Shealyn O’Connor joined the lab full time in the summer and continues to work part time during the school year. All the new lab members are learning quickly and are ready to lead the next iteration of the lab.

Funding - it’s been a great funding year for the lab. We were awarded an R01 to study cell death and type 2 immunity in the lung together with the Oberst Lab, and our first R01 was renewed for another 5 years. Thornton Thompson wrote an R21 that was funded, Jared was selected for the CMB Training grant, and Shealyn O’Connor was selected as a Mary Gates Scholar! Thornton was also selected for the first cohort of ITI Fellows.

Lab Gatherings - we didn’t pull off anything as ambitious as tie-dyeing this year, but had plenty of good times together including a summer barbecue in the park, a trip to a Mariners game, a harvest potluck with paper snowflake extravaganza, and a holiday cookie exchange.

Mariners game

Making snowflakes

Immunity cover for Tyler’s paper!

Update Potpourri

Another long gap since the last update and there’s lots to report.

Student Defenses - Marija Nadjsombati (October 2022) and Tyler Billipp (July 2023) defended their dissertations and earned PhDs (and the tuft cell helmet)! Marija has since left to study breast cancer metastasis in a postdoc at the University of Utah, but check out her fantastic Pou2af3 paper in the Publications tab. Tyler remains in the lab to finish a publication. Congratulations to both of the new doctors!

Tenure - Jakob officially became a tenured and was promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor on July 1st 2022! It’s a great achievement and a testament to contributions from all the lab memebers past and present, but as one colleague reminded Jakob: “now you’re just another kind of Ass”.

Fellowships & Awards - Moltke Lab trainees have continued to knock it out of the park. Postdoc Margaret McDaniel was selected as a Hanna Gray Fellow and postdoc Thornton Thompson as a CRI Irvington fellow. Tyler Billipp received a fellowship from the UW Immunology Department. Heber Lara finished up his two years on the CMB Training Grant and immediately followed that with an ISCRM Fellowship. He also continues his astonishing run of poster prizes - four and counting! The undergraduates excelled as well. Danielle Jones was selected as a Mary Gates scholar and presented her work at the UW Undergrad Symposium. Tuan Vu received UW-STAR funding for his summer research in addition to multiple scholarships and awards from the Microbiology Department and others.

Lab Gatherings - There have been too many lab gatherings to list them all here. Sadly, we frequently had to say goodbye to lab members moving on to the next stage of their career. One major highlight was the tie dye extravaganza (thank you Aloe and Luke!) we pulled together for Marija’s sendoff…

…and the lab’s charcuterie game remains incredibly strong. The cookies for Marija’s defense and the swiss rolls (not pictured) for Tyler’s defense were also next level.

2021 Year-in-Review

• Well, now these website updates have dwindled to an annual affair. It was a year that started with all of us hunkered down for the winter COVID wave, but much has improved since then. Most important highlights are the comings and goings in the lab. Jack McGinty became our first PhD graduate and left in the summer to pursue a career in industry.

• In May, Jakob was named a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigator in Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease for a proposal built on Aloe’s work in the lab.

• Over the summer we were joined by outstanding undergraduate Derek Sargent via the UW-STAR program. He and Tyler made some exciting discoveries and Derek presented his work in the Undergraduate Research Symposium before heading back for a final year of college.

• This fall brought the arrival of three outstanding postdocs/research scientists. Margaret McDaniel from UT Southwestern/Cincinnati, Thornton Thompson from UC Berkeley, and Shan Kasal from U Chicago. We are so excited to see how their projects develop!

• And just in general, it’s been so nice to all be back in lab at the same time and to have opportunities for more normal interactions.