The Ackerman lab is thrilled to welcome Dr. Jake Brandt into the lab as our first postdoctoral fellow! Jake received his PhD from Notre Dame in the lab of Dr. Cody Smith, where he studied how calcium signaling in satellite glia aids in the development of the DRG. Welcome, Jake!!

Sarah is thrilled to receive the Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Award in Neuroscience to determine how astrocytes sculpt critical periods across distinct circuits and systems!

The Ackerman lab has received a new award from CDG Care to expand our efforts in zebrafish to model rare congenital disorders of glycosylation. We are very thankful for the continued support from CDG Care and their faith in our work!

The Ackerman lab has received a collaborative research grant with the Pollina lab (WashU Dev Bio) through the McDonnell Center for Cellular & Molecular Neurobiology to explore how critical period activity shapes long-term genomic architecture. We're so excited to team up for this project!

The Ackerman lab has received an R00 from the BRAIN Initiative to explore how critical period activity shapes long-term circuit structure and function!

Ackerman lab undergraduate Hallie Youker presenting her original work at the 2023 GSA Drosophila meeting- go Hallie!

The Ackerman lab is so excited to have Haley Jetter join as a co-mentored graduate student (along with Kroll lab of WashU Dev Bio)! Haley will use zebrafish and human cell lines to model rare neurodevelopmental disorders. Welcome, Haley!

Michael, one of the Ackerman lab founding members, is off to the University of Pittsburgh for medical school! We were so fortunate to have Michael as part of the lab this year, and we look forward to all he will accomplish moving forward in his career!

This week the Ackerman lab traveled to beautiful Pierre Marquette to hear all of the latest research in Genetics, Genomics, Computational Biology and more at WashU! In our free time, we a hike to see some beautiful views of the river. Who said the Midwest is flat?!

Welcome new undergraduate member, Katie Schneider! Katie is a sophomore at WashU and will be working with us to study how astrocytes regulate synapse development along with SLU undergraduate Hallie Youker.

The Ackerman received all 600+ stocks of their flies after they had been carefully kept by the Doe lab for the last 2 months. Can't wait to start using them to test our exciting hypotheses!

Today the Midwest cohort (Mohini Sengupta, Clarissa Durie, and I) of the leading edge fellows (https://www.leadingedgesymposium.org/fellows/) convened at Urban Chestnut in Saint Louis to share life and science advice. So fun to meet in person after years(!!) of chatting online!