Tufts Boston Graduate Student Council

Get hyped for Relays 2021! The official date is July 30th (raindate August 6th) and this year, it'll take place on Bello and Ounjian fields on the Medford campus. Don't forget to submit academic achievements for points: https://forms.gle/aFvDHKGysVaXk4be9

Today, we extend a warm welcome to Rebecca Condruti (Bec), a PhD student in the CMDB program!

I grew up in Gilbert, Arizona and love living just outside the city in Somerville. I did my Bachelor of Science in Microbiology at Arizona State University (go Sun Devils!). During my undergrad, I worked in Dr. Xuan Wang's metabolic engineering lab where I focused on the directed evolution of transmembrane efflux transporters in E.coli to increase microbial conversion of lignocellulose into ethanol. I also spent four months with Dr. Shukry Habib's lab at King's College London studying mitochondrial segregation during asymmetric stem cell division. I would like to merge my background in synthetic biology with my interests in molecular biology, focusing in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and the production of value-added chemicals.

I have been told I'm weirdly obsessed with my aussie, Leo, but I also have other interests that include weightlifting, convincing myself I can make art on Procreate, and trying out every single bakery in Boston - recs needed! I am excited to live out my New England dreams of sailing in the summer! I love trying new vegan cheeses and try to experiment with my own when I have the time. If anybody shares this weird (and expensive) hobby, they should reach out!

Today, we welcome Justine Tang, a new student in the Neuroscience program:

I was born in NYC, moved to CA when I was 6, and moved back to the East Coast for around 4.5 years now. I received a BS in Physics and MS in Biology from a small university in NorCal called University of the Pacific. For my masters, I studied underwater communication in the small, tropical frog, the túngara frog. I can do sick impressions of this frog species, and also of the American Bullfrog and a few species of treefrogs. Definitely a party trick I whip out to show how much of a nerd I am. I worked at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research for 4.5 years before coming to Tufts as a slice electrophysiologist. I have also dabbled in ICV injections and calcium imaging in mice, as well as post-image data analysis [i.e. building Python pipelines to handle large datasets coming from an image analysis software].

I am very interested in learning more about tripartite synapses, specifically the role that glial cells play in inhibitory synaptic transmission. I’m also very interested in correlating genetics data with synaptic transmission. Questions I like to ask myself are: Within the context of disease, if there is a SNP within a certain genomic hotspot, like 16p11.2, how does the dysfunctional proteins caused by SNPs [if any] correlate with synaptic transmission? How does cell-type specific protein expression correlate with cell-type specific synaptic interactions [i.e. is there a difference between inhibitory-inhibitory, inhibitory-excitatory, excitatory-excitatory synaptic transmission based on difference of protein expression]?

Outside of science, I really love to cook, bake, sew, sing, and crochet! I really want to camp and hike again so I’m looking into getting a car soon so I can pick those hobbies up again! In Boston, I personally really love walking along the Charles and the Arnold Arboretum. Also food adventures! I have eaten at basically every restaurant in Allston [where I lived before] and am currently working on all the food in Dorchester [where I live now]. An interesting fact: So as a gift for my last day of work, my old boss bought me the volume set of Santiago Ramon y Cajal’s Histology of the Nervous System and I am so enthused. I am currently reading it and it’s fascinating!