2023

Welcome New Lab Members!

• Nick Hubbard joins the lab as a postdoctoral fellow.

• Tina Babler joins the lab as a research technician.

• Eleanor Wachtel joins the lab as an undergraduate researcher through the Honors College.

2022

• Meghan Quinlan joins the lab as a research technician.
  Steve Cho joined the lab as an MD/PhD student. 

  Welcome Meghan and Steve!

• Michelle was awarded an F30 fellowship. Congratulations Michelle!

• Hannah was awarded the Out to Innovate Career Development Fellowship and a spot on the UofU Genetics Training grant. Congratulations Hannah!

• Sonresa Ochoa-Vidales is accepted to University of Pennsylvainia where she will start her PhD. Congrats Sonresa!

• Ian was awarded an LSRF postdoctoral fellowship. Congratulations Ian!

• Welcome new post-doc Katie Deets from UC Berkeley

2021

• Nels is appointed as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

• Welcome to new research technician Drew Janik also working in the Gagnon lab.

• Mai Tran is awarded a NRSA post-doc fellowship from the NIH. Congrats Mai!

• Sonresa Ochoa-Vidales is awarded a position in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. Congrats Sonresa!

• Welcome new post-doc Ian Boys from UT Southwestern.

• Welcome summer undergrad intern Pear Instasin.

• Welcome summer undergrad intern Natalia Etsitty.

• Welcome new research technicians Mara Schwiesow and Teagan Feeley.

• Welcome new grad student Hannah Young.

• Stephen Goldstein weighs in on the SARS-2 pandemic on NPR’s Science Friday.

• Stephen Goldstein is awarded a NRSA post-doc fellowship from the NIH. Congrats Stephen!

• Sonresa Ochoa-Vidales is awarded an internship in the GSRM summer program!

• Nels joins the scientific advisory board of the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Research Fund.

2020

• This Week in Evolution records its 5th anniversary show on the future of our past.

• The Elde lab is awarded a multi-investigator Transformative R01 with Brenda Bass , Dan Stetson, and Jane Jackman
  See some of the backstory on the NIH Director’s blog.

• Kristen Davenport receives a NIH Research Scientist Development Award (K01). Congrats Kristen!

• Nels is awarded a MacArthur Fellowship!

• Congrats to Della Fixsen on her successful Ph.D. defense and new position as a postdoc fellow in Shelley Copley’s lab at CU Boulder!

• Welcome undergrad Sonresa Ochoa-Vidales.

• Nels becomes a Reviewing Editor at eLife

• Welcome Ph.D. student Erin Cafferty.

• Nels joins as a member of the Genetic Variation and Evolution (GVE) Study Section at NIH

• Zoë Hilbert is awarded a Helen Hay Whitney Foundation postdoc fellowship!

2019

• Welcome new post-doc Mai Tran from University of California San Diego.

• Congrats to Clay Carey on his successful thesis defense and new post-doc position in Jamie Gagnon’s lab in Biology at the University of Utah

• Welcome new M.D.-Ph.D student Michelle Culbertson.

• Welcome new post-doc Kristen Davenport from Colorado State University.

• Welcome new post-doc Stephen Goldstein from the University of Pennsylvania.

• Congrats to Alesia McKeown on her new position as a Scientist at BioFire Diagnostics!

2018

• Welcome new post-doc Zoë Hilbert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• Great fun co-hosting the SMBE satellite meeting #EvoCell2018 at the new Cell and Genome Science Center at the University of Utah and nearby Deer Valley Resort. Meeting Program

• Congrats to Kelsey Cone on her successful Ph.D. defense and new job as Scientist at ARUP Laboratories.

• The Chuong Lab is open for science at the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder. Congrats Ed.

• Nels is promoted to Associate Professor of Human Genetics and named a H.A. & Edna Benning Presidential Endowed Chair.

• Nels gives the 7th Annual Seymour Benzer Lecture at the National Academy of Sciences.

2017

• The Hancks Lab is open for science in the Department of Immunology at UT Southwestern Congrats Dustin.

• Congrats to highschoolers Anna Mancera and Tyrell Floyd for winning the Salt Lake Valley Science and Engineering Fair and advancing to the Intel ISEF 2017 with their Elde Lab research project.

• Welcome new post-doc Keir Balla from the University of California San Diego.

• The Barber lab is open for science in the Department of Biology and Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon. Congrats Matt.

• Nels is named an Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

2016

• Dustin Hancks is awarded a K99 Pathway to Independence grant from NIGMS. Congrats Dustin.

• Nels receives the 2016 Merck Irving S. Sigal Memorial Award from the American Society for Microbiology.

• Ed Chuong's paper, Regulatory evolution of innate immunity through co-option of endogenous retroviruses

  co-starring Cedric Feschotte highlighted by
  Carl Zimmer in the New York Times

  Ed Yong in The Atlantic

  Sarah Zhang in Wired

  Science: A copy-and-paste gene regulatory network

• Alesia McKeown is awarded a Damon Runyon Foundation - HHMI postdoc fellowship!

• Announcing This Week in Evolution a new monthly podcast hosted by Nels Elde and Vincent Racaniello.
  A podcast on the biology behind what makes us tick.

• The Elde lab receives an R01 award. Thank you NIGMS!

2015

• Alesia McKeown presents her thesis work from Joe Thornton's lab in the Walter Fitch Prize competition at the SMBE annual meeting as depicted by Alex Cagan.

• Matt Barber is awarded a K99 Pathway to Independence grant from NIGMS. Congrats Matt.

• Nels receives the Ann Palmenberg Junior Investigator Award from the American Society for Virology.

• Dustin Hancks' paper on the evolution of nucleic acid sensors cGAS and OAS in primates appears in PLOS Genetics.

• Profile of Nels and our work on virus evolution on the NIH Biomedical Beat blog from NIGMS.

• Welcome new post-doc Alesia McKeown from the University of Oregon.

• Matt Barber wins the 2014 Omenn Prize for 'paper of the year' at the interface of evolutionary biology and medicine.

• Matt Barber's paper, Escape from bacterial iron piracy through rapid evolution of transferrin, highlighted by

  Carl Zimmer in the NY Times

  Ed Yong for National Geographic

  Science: The battle for iron

  Nature: How bacteria and host fight for iron

  ASCB: The iron double cross

2014

• Congrats to grad student Della Fixsen for being awarded a slot on the Genetics Training Grant.

• Utah's inaugural Molecular Evolution Retreat is held at Deer Valley with keynote speakers Doris Bachtrog and John Willis.

• Nels becomes an Associate Editor at PLOS Pathogens.

• Congrats to grad student Clay Carey for being named a Reavis Fellow in Genetics.

• Ed Chuong is awarded a Jane Coffin Childs - Howard Hughes Medical Institute postdoc fellowship!

• The Elde lab is awarded a collaborative development NIH grant to study 'New roles for retrogenes in the restriction

  of HIV', with the CHEETAH center.

2013

• Welcome research technician Juliane Smith and grad student Clay Carey.

• Welcome post-doc fellow Edward Chuong from Stanford.

• Grad student Kelsey Rogers Cone is awarded a slot on the Microbial Pathogenesis Training Grant.

• Matt Barber is awarded a NRSA post-doc fellowship from the NIH. Congrats Matt.

• Dustin Hancks is awarded a post-doc fellowship from the American Cancer Society. Congrats Dustin.

2012

• Check out Nels' appearance on This Week in Virology at the ASM 2013 meeting in Denver.

• Welcome new grad student Della Fixsen!

• Nels is named a 2012 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences.

• Hear the interview on KCPW (local NPR station)
  

2011

• Welcome new post-doc fellow Dustin Hancks and grad student Kelsey Rogers Cone.

• Welcome new post-doc fellow Matt Barber from Stanford.

• Nels receives the first Mario R. Capecchi Endowed Chair in Genetics.

• The Elde Lab is open for science with charter lab members Diane Downhour and Melissa Hartley.