Bushra was invited to present at the Cell lineages across scales, space and time conference hosted by The Royal Society in Birmingham, UK. Bushra also presented at the Notch signaling in development, regeneration, and disease Gordon Research Conference at Bates College, Maine.

This summer has been a busy one in the Raj lab!

Marisa Reed has joined the lab as a technician. She graduated from Drexel this summer.

We are hosting two high school summer students, Sarah Koh and Amelia Dennis. Sarah has returned this summer as she loved her previous summer in the lab as part of the OER program. Amelia is here from the Baldwin School.

The lab’s first preprint is available on biorxiv! Our paper entitled “Barcoding Notch signaling in the developing brain” describes a CRISPR-Cas signal recorder that we used to study Notch signaling in zebrafish brains. Congratulations to co-first authors Abby, Roshan and Jessie!

Belatedly sharing some changes in our lab personnel in recent months:

We said goodbye to Elif after her 6-month internship as a visiting student from France. Good luck Elif with all your future goals!

We have a new member joining our lab for their fall rotation:

- Katie Toohill is a first year CAMB/DSRB student. Katie is interested in characterizing new Notch reporter lines using genetics and imaging.

Welcome Katie!

Our lab has rapidly grown in size! Welcome Elif, Jessie, Roshan and Hema.

Read their bios on the Team page to learn more.

Bushra was invited to speak at the Society for Neuroscience conference in San Diego. She spoke at the minisymposium: “High-Throughput Interrogation of Neurons Using Barcoding-Based Strategies”, and presented the lab’s efforts on generating barcoding tools for recording developmental patterns in a growing zebrafish brain.

Bushra’s grant for the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (DP2) was funded. This $1.5 million, 5-year grant will fund the lab’s research towards developing a novel method for investigating signaling activity during brain development using CRISPR tools and single-cell genomics.

A belated welcome to Aiden Masters who joined the lab in June as a research technician. Aiden graduated from Middlebury College. Aiden is developing novel barcoding constructs and transgenic lines for the lab.

Welcome Aiden!

A belated welcome to Abby Siniscalco who joined in June as our lab manager and research technician. Abby is responsible for managing our fish lines and is investigating the role of Notch signaling in brain progenitors.

Welcome Abby!

We have new members joining our lab:

- Jessie Greenslade is a second year NGG student. Jessie is exploring scRNA sequencing and new genome editing tools in the lab.

- Maggie Cassidy is a first year CAMB/G&E student. Maggie is interested in identifying genes with neurodevelopmental phenotypes.

Welcome Jessie and Maggie!

Bushra presented the lab’s research at the ISD/BSDB conference in Malta. She spoke about new barcoding tools that enable recording of developmental patterns in a growing zebrafish brain.

Bushra was invited to co-chair and present at the IZF conference in Montreal for the session entitled Zebrafish: One cell at a time (Single cell) . She presented her research on generating single cell atlases of the developing zebrafish brain, and how they are complemented with barcoding technologies that enable developmental recording in zebrafish.

Hannah said goodbye to the Raj lab and will be starting grad school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Congratulations Hannah! We are so proud and thankful for all your contributions to the first year of the lab.

Bushra was invited to present at the Cellular Barcoding webinar hosted by ISSCR. She presented her work on developing various iterations of CRISPR barcoding technologies that enable developmental recording in zebrafish.

Bushra was invited to present at “The Brain Across the Lifespan: Tools and Methodologies for Measuring the Changing Brain”. This event was co-organized by the NIH and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Bushra was invited to give a seminar for the Biology Department at Haverford College. She presented her work on leveraging single-cell genomics and barcoding technologies to investigate zebrafish CNS development.

We have new members joining our lab for their spring rotations:
-Olivia Fish is a first year CAMB/G&E student
-Reiko Tomizawa is a first year CAMB/DSRB student

Welcome Olivia and Reiko!

We have a new member joining our lab for their winter rotation:
S Fallarcaro is a first year CAMB/DSRB student

Welcome S!

To celebrate the end of the year and surviving 6 months of being a new lab, we went to Wax + Wine, a candle making BYOB bar in Center City. Their Scent Cellar is stocked with over 75 fragrances, including several seasonal scents.