Dr. Ignitius Lim and Dr. Ajn Vats from Dr. Ogundele's lab successfully defended their dissertations!
John Kara from Dr. Charles Lee's lab presented his research proposal seminar!
Madison Williams from Dr. Ogundele's lab passed her general exam! Congratulations to all of our Summer 2026 Milestone Achievers! We are proud of you!
Shallinie Thangadurai has been accepted to the Comparative Developmental Biology Graduate Course at the Marine Biological Laboratory for 2026. This is an outstanding accomplishment. The MBL courses are internationally recognized as among the premier advanced training opportunities in the biological sciences and have helped launch the careers of generations of scientists. I am particularly pleased that this continues what is becoming a strong tradition in our Department, with our trainees earning admission to these highly competitive MBL programs. Their success reflects the outstanding quality of our students and provides exceptional opportunities for their scientific and professional development.
Congratulations are in order for Shilpa Thota and Anusha Zaman for winning travel awards to attend this conference and present posters in Washington, D.C., on Lung Epithelium in Health and Disease this week.
This event was held July 31 in the LSU Patrick F. Taylor Hall where two undergraduates from Dr. Ahmed Abdelmoneim's lab presented posters and posed for a picture in the lab coats. Congratulations to Jayla Johnson and Jasmyn Sorapuru!
A trifecta of excellence! Congratulations to Drs. Ethan Anderson, Olalekan Michael Ogundele, and Charles Lee at the LSU Vet Med CBS Department on their recent National Institutes of Health (NIH) award to study changes in the nucleus accumbens-a specific brain region-in the context of opioid addiction and relapse. Our expertise in neuroscience is truly outstanding and growing! Great job, gentlemen!
From July 15-17, the LSU Vet Med CBS Department hosted the Inaugural International Epigenetic Inheritance Conference at Lod Cook. We had more than 20 international speakers bringing new research collaborations to light! It was a great week! See symposium information and the program online
July 10, 2026 Congratulations to Dr. Fabio Vigil for receiving a Bridge Grant from the LSU Vet School! Great job Dr. Vigil.
July 9, 2026 Well done Sanaz Akbari! She earned a scholarship to attend the Immunohistochemistry and Immunofluorescence Course at the MBL in Woods Hole! Congratulations Sanaz!
June 23, 2025 10 am Faculty Mentor Dr. Ahmed Abdelmoneim Doctoral Candidate Demetrius McAtee defends his final dissertation entitled "Uncovering Arsenic-Mediated Stress Behavioral Alterations and the Role of Glucocorticoid Signaling" in Rm 1212C.
Steven Bradley, has been accepted to the highly competitive Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) course, Drosophila Neurobiology: Genes, Circuits & Behavior for Summer 2026. This course was heavily oversubscribed, and Steven was initially placed on the waitlist before being selected when a position became available.
This intensive course brings together outstanding graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and investigators from around the world for advanced training in modern Drosophila neurobiology. Participants receive hands-on instruction in state-of-the-art approaches for studying neural circuits, behavior, genetics, imaging, and functional analysis of the nervous system.
For more than a century, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has been one of the world's premier centers for biological research and scientific training. Its courses have helped train generations of scientists and have played a significant role in advancing genetics, neuroscience, and molecular biology.
The Laura Bassi Scholarship was established in 2018 with the aim of providing editorial assistance to postgraduates and junior academics whose research focuses on neglected topics of study, broadly construed, within their disciplines. The scholarships are open to every discipline and are awarded thrice per annum: December, March, and August. All currently enrolled master’s and doctoral students / candidates are eligible to apply, as are academics in the first five years of full-time employment. There are no institutional, departmental, or national restrictions.
Summer 2026
Deadline: 12 July 2026
Results: 24 July 2026
Applicants are required to submit a completed application form along with their CV using the application portal on the Editing Press website by the relevant deadline.
More information about the Scholarship, including the application form, previous awardees, and a brief description of the remarkable figure of Laura Bassi
Ethan Anderson has just been awarded an R21 grant! This is a wonderful collaborative effort with Charles Lee and Michael Ogundele, focusing on opioid-induced changes in neuronal excitability and the protein SCN1b. Let's join together in congratulating the team on this fantastic achievement, especially given the current funding challenges. It's truly an encouraging milestone!
Dr. Jiming Feng has been selected to participate in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s Hypoglycemia & Diabetes course held in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. After reviewing his application and all supporting documents, they awarded him the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.
Dr. Ahmed Abdelmoneim's trainee, Emma Tsai, an undergraduate, has been awarded the Outstanding Senior Award from the College of Science, and she also received the LSU Distinguished Communicator Medal. Congratulations Emma!! We are so proud of all of the winners!
Dr. Ethan Anderson was celebrated tonight at a special event on his LSU Alumni Association Rising Faculty Research Award! We build teams that win at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine! Ethan is a wonderful member of our biomedical science community—talented, astute, and innovative!
A special thanks to all the students in the graduate program for hosting last week’s departmental seminar speaker, Dr. Ellen Hoffman from Yale University. Additional thanks go to Melanie Wilson from Dr. Abdelmoneim’s lab for doing an outstanding job of introducing the speaker and emceeing her talk. This was a wonderful student-led effort to cap off our seminar series for the year!
Congratulations to Anthony Ayanshina from Dr. Ethan Anderson’s lab recently passed his American Society for Clinical Pathology Board of Certification (ASCP BOC) exam!
Congrats to Angel Casillo from Dr. Abdelmoneim's lab on passing her General Exam! This marks a major milestone on her academic journey. She will now continue to her dissertation research examining the effects of Environmental Pollutants on the Development of the Nervous System in Zebrafish.
The 3rd Annual Neuroscience Symposium led by Dr. Alexander Murashov at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine was a resounding success, with almost 200 attendees, a fabulous keynote speaker, and impactful science present in abundance. Congratulations, to the organizing team—what a milestone moment for the Baton Rouge chapter of the Society for Neuroscience!
Congratulations to Dr. Alexander Murashov and organizing team for putting together another fantastic Annual Neuroscience Symposium at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine this week. I’m looking forward to making my opening remarks! This is the third of these annual symposia, which are going from strength to strength—with a record number of registrants this year! LSU Vet Med: Proudly serving Louisiana, impacting the world as part of our statewide University!
It's National Engineers Week and we spotlight Dr. Alexander Lee, Assistant Professor of Anatomy, who blends engineering and biomechanics to create practical, high-impact solutions. Dr. Lee is developing anatomically precise, 3D-printed prosthetics that restore mobility in animals while also building interactive teaching tools that make complex anatomy more accessible for students. His work focuses on improving function, flexibility, and affordability, while collaborations with clinicians extend these innovations into surgical planning, visualization, and medical device development, advancing both clinical care and education.
“My goal is to push the boundaries of how we use technology, whether it's designing
prosthetics that enhance the lives of animals and humans or developing tools that
empower students," he said. Read the story: https://www.lsu.edu/vetmed/blog/2026/alexander_lee.php
Congratulations to our departmental contingent to the Annual Society of Toxicology Meeting! In the last week of March, the labs of Drs. Noel, Abdelmoneim, and Dugas travelled to the sunbaked hinterlands of San Diego to present their work to an international throng eager to hear their findings. Special congratulations to Nicole Akers and Melanie Wilson from the labs of Drs. Dugas and Abdelmoneim for winning top honors in their respective sectional categories! This was an amazing showing for our CBS students!
Dr. Michael Skinner, The Eastlick Distinguished Professor from the Center of Reproductive Biology, School of Biological Sciences from Washington State University, Pullman Washington, gave a very enlightening presentation on "Environmental Exposure Induced Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance Impacts on Reproduction, Disease Etiology and Evolution." Department Head, Dr. Alexander Muravshov, hosted this seminar.
Sadia Islam Sinza, a Graduate Assistant in Dr. Ogundele's lab, presented "VTA-hippocampal Computation of Reward Contexts" in Thursday's Breakfast Break for Science.
Allison Vestal-Laborde has been chosen as the recipient of the 2026 CBS Staff Service Award. This special honor celebrates her valuable contributions and the positive influence of her work on training DVM students.
The CBS Team showing up and out for the SEC Food Fight Challenge! We donated 327 items to our Vet Med Pocket Food Pantries! Even Aries, the newly rescued pup from CCA, got in on the action!
The CBS team of graduate students, staff, and faculty at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine represented us so well at the Society of Toxicology Meeting in San Diego. We swept the board in awards and accolades, showcasing our outstanding science!
Here are the details, with my warm congratulations to all:
Henri D. Noel, an undergraduate student working in Dr. Fabio Vigil's laboratory, Henri has just been accepted into the "Summer Undergraduate Research Program in Neuroscience (NeuroSURP)" at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of Rutgers University.
Congratulations to our very own LSU Alumni Association Rising Faculty Research Award winner, winning a $5,000 cash award, Ethan M. Anderson!
Warm congratulations to Dr. Masami Yoshimura, retiring today after 21 years of dedicated service to LSU School of Veterinary Medicine. An expert in adenylyl cyclase type 7 and alcohol consumption in innate pulmonary immune responses, he leaves a profound legacy of scientific mentorship to many students, postdoctoral scientists, and peers.
Poorna Sai Vaddi, in Dr. Francis’ lab, received an award to attend the IDeA State Trainee Cancer Research Conference. Also, our former student, Ankit Aryal from Dr. Dugas' lab, had his manuscript selected as the 2005 Paper of the Year in Cardiovascular Toxicology!
Biplov Sapkota gave a work-in-progress seminar on Oncolytic Viral Therapies for Pancreatic Cancer with Drs. Francis and Kousoulas.
Abhishek Pandit successfully defended his dissertation! His dissertation explored a novel model and approach for treating heart failure with preserved ejection fraction in Dr. Francis’ lab with collaborations with Dr. Allerton. It is an exciting end to this part of his academic journey, but just the start of his next adventure; he will be shortly moving to Indiana University to start a postdoctoral position.
CBS would like to report that LSU School of Veterinary Medicine is now a member of the Clinical & Translational Science Award One Health Alliance (#COHA), with huge thanks to Dr. Levent Dirikolu and Catherine Takawira for doing the heavy lifting!
“3Q with Oliver,” is an interview with CBS' Dr. Levent Dirikolu, Director of our Center for Clinical Innovation at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine! What an insightful dive into the fantastic work that this center does!
CBS graduate students are our most important resource in a laboratory. They bring new ideas and a fresh outlook on our work. Congratulations to Ankit Aryal, one of our outstanding former graduate students in Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine's Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences and LSU Superfund Research Program trainee for spearheading our initial forays into miRNAs and their interface with pollutant-induced cardiopulmonary diseases. A manuscript based on the project he initiated was just selected as Best Paper Award for 2025 in the journal Cardiovascular Toxicology. Please join me in congratulating Ankit! #Wediscover, #LSUSRP, Stephania Cormier, Alexandra Noël, Ph.D., Ashlyn C. Harmon. The title of his publication was, "AhR Activation at the Air-Blood Barrier Alters Systemic microRNA Release After Inhalation of Particulate Matter Containing Environmentally Persistent Free Radicals."
CBS has outstanding graduate students, who contribute so much to all our missions at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine! Angel Casillo, a talented PhD student in Dr. Ahmed Abdelmoneim’s group, will present her work on behavioral impacts of environmental contaminant exposure at Thursday’s Breakfast Break for Science seminar.
After 20 remarkable years at LSU Vet Med, Dr. Frederic Gaschen is retiring. Since joining the LSU Vet Med faculty in 2006 as Professor of Small Animal Medicine, Dr. Gaschen has taught countless veterinary students. He has been a dedicated clinician, a successful researcher, a leader within the LSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital, and—most importantly—a generous mentor and colleague. Dr. Levert Dirikolu, CBS professor (right), congratulating Dr. Gaschen.
What a fantastic day we had at Phi Zeta Research Emphasis Day! Our trainees truly did an amazing job, and I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to each of you for your effort and dedication. We are so proud to celebrate several wonderful awardees:
Congratulations are in order! Big winner Tuesday night at the Research Awards Reception and the Phi Zeta Induction Ceremony. Dr. Brooke Dubansky was awarded the Andrew Lackner Mentorship Award.
Ignitius Lim and Biplov Sapkota were selected as the Departmental Nominees for the LSU Dissertation Year Fellowship. We want to wish them good luck in the competition!
Exciting news in CBS! We are thrilled to share that Rana Fallahsafa has been accepted to the prestigious Allen Institute workshop on brain dynamics and has been awarded $1,500 in travel funding to attend. The workshop, titled "Describe Your Neurons Like the Allen Institute," was held April 6–8, 2026, in Seattle.
It is tailored for early-career scientists, including graduate students, postdocs, and data analysts, focusing on mastering neuronal cell type classification and refining research techniques. This is excellent news for Rana and our CBS department, demonstrating our students' strong motivation, rigor, enthusiasm, and passion for science!
Great news, Ahmed Abdelmoneim has been chosen by the Executive Board of the Comparative Toxicology, Pathology, and Veterinary Specialty Section (CTPVSS) at the Society of Toxicology (SOT) as the recipient of the 2026 CTPVSS Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award! He will be giving a short 5-minute talk at the section’s business meeting later this month and will receive a Certificate of Recognition at the SOT Annual Meeting in March.
International Day of Women and Girls in Science emphasizes closing the STEM gender gap to tackle global challenges and boost innovation. The day was established by the United Nations to support gender equality and strengthen the role of women and girls in scientific and technological advancement worldwide. This year, we spotlight Dr. Tammy Dugas, associate dean for research and graduate education at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, whose science hero is Marie Curie. “Her perseverance in science, despite her position as a woman in a man’s world, is inspiring. In 2015, I was honored to participate as a Professeur Invitée at the University Pierre et Marie Curie (Sorbonne University). My mother also instilled in me at a young age, ‘Whatever you can see in your mind and believe, you will achieve.’” Later today, we will feature Dr. Dugas’ mentee, Nicole Akers, LSU Vet Med DVM/PhD candidate.
We continue our celebration of International Day of Women and Girls in Science with Nicole Akers, DVM/PhD candidate at LSU Vet Med, whose mentor is Dr. Tammy Dugas, featured earlier today. “My superpower is perseverance. In science, perseverance is necessary to bypass obstacles and move forward. Marie Curie is my science hero. Not only was she the first woman to win a Nobel prize, but also the first person to win it twice. She sacrificed much in dedication to her research.” #EveryVoiceInScience #WomenInScience #SheischangingSTEM #WeDiscover #LSUResearch
The results are in! We’re officially a research powerhouse at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, advancing animal and human health to better lives! We’ve leapt from 9th to 6th highest National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded veterinary school in the nation according to the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research! Huge thanks to all our talented biomedical and veterinary scientists, as well as to our awesome Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, Dr. Tammy Dugas and her outstanding team!
CBS has some of the most talented trainees! Shilpa Thota, a post-doctoral researcher in Dr. Noel's lab, and Nicole Akers, DVM/PhD student from Dr. Dugas' lab, both have been honored with the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine (SEBM) Young Investigator Awards! They were honored with travel awards in the amount of $1000 each and this will enable them to attend and present abstracts at the 2026 Experimental Biology and Medicine Conference in San Diego, CA, in March. Congratulations ladies, great job!
Our Scientist of the Day at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine is Elena Pak, laboratory manager for Dr. Alexander Murashov’s research group. Not only is Elena a talented scientist but she is also a skilled and compassionate mentor to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as a postdoctoral scientist in the lab. Congratulations, Elena! We’re all very proud of you! Geaux #LSUVetMed Tigers!
CBS proudly announces the 2025 recipients of the CBS Heidi Lott award. Congratulations to both lgnitius Lim and Melanie Wilson for being chosen as our award winners for 2025. The ad hoc committee composed of Drs. Levent Dirikolu, Michelle Osborn and Alexandra Noël, reviewed the applications and based on the selection criteria, the cumulative GPA, and the first authored publications, the committee awarded the 2025 Heidi Lott Award to two outstanding PhD students.
