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March 2024 BMB Monthly Newsletter
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From the Outreach Office
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Visit our Scientific Art exhibit “Science Illuminated: An artistic exploration” featuring #sciart from your colleagues in the UMass Chan Lamar Soutter Library this month!
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Watch out for more Science & Art in the BMB! We're on the lookout for additional art submissions for our next round of Science Illuminated. Send your #sciart to Dr. Leonora Martinez-Nunez.
Stay tuned for more details about the upcoming BMB unwind & paint hours 🎨!!!
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New Hires
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Shupei Yu
New Role: Postdoc in the Han Lab
Hometown: Lanzhou, China
Education: PhD at NJIT
Interests: Playing basketball & watching movies.
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Carolina Lorenzo Rubio
New Role: Research Intern in the Rhind Lab
Hometown: Madrid, Spain
Education: Finishing up her BSc in Biomedicine
Interests: Spending time with friends and family, traveling, getting to know new cultures and places, music, and sports.
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Sara Luengo Pareja
New Role: Research Intern in the Rhind Lab.
Hometown: Madrid, Spain
Education: Pursuing a BSc in Biomedicine
Interests: Travelling to new places, trying out new foods and cool restaurants, shopping, painting and reading novels.
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March events
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BMB Seminars
Mar 6 – Alexandre Bisson, Brandeis University
Mar 13 – Xindan Wang, Indiana University
Mar 20 – Tatiana Kutateladze, University of Colorado School of Medicine
RIPS
Mar 1 – Mythili Subbanna, Pryciak Lab
Mar 8 – Sakshi Rajora, Thompson Lab
Mar 22 – Josh Pajak, Kelch Lab
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Most Fridays at 12:30, the Outreach Office organizes a “Newbie Lunch” for recent hires (~the last six months). All are welcome, as the goal of the lunch is to help new members of our department meet people and integrate into our community.
Mar 11 – Beginning of Ramadan
Mar 17 – St. Patrick’s Day
Mar 25 – Holi
Mar 31 – Easter
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Anti-Racism Reading Club (ARC)
Meeting: Mar 12 at 4pm.
Book: The Book of Ramallah: A City in Short Fiction edited by Maya Abu al-Hayat
Summary: Ten short stories (average length: 9 pages) by Palestinian authors, set in Ramallah, a city in Palestine's West Bank.
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FREE events In & Around Worcester
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Any time – volunteer with One Leaf Corp (run by our own Webb Camille in the Xu Lab) by emailing oneleafcorp@gmail.com
Every Thursday, 6:30pm – Queer Artist/Maker Nights at The Hub
Every Tuesday, 6pm – The Worcester Writers’ Collective Meeting
Mar 3 – Hike With Us (by Open Outback)
Mar 6 or 13, 10am – Intention Setting Workshop for Moms
Mar 9, 10am-12pm – Bokashi Composting Workshop (with NOFA Mass)
Mar 10, 12pm – Worcester St. Patrick’s Parade
Mar 13, 11am-2pm – Spring 2024 Central Mass Women in Data Science Mini Conference @ WPI
Mar 13, 5-7pm – Beers & Peers (by Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives)
Mar 14 or 28, 8pm – The Lazy Dunce Comedy Showcase
Mar 24, 2pm – Gardening Basics Class
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A STEM outreach program aiming to increase science literacy.
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Department News
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Photos courtesy of Colleen Locke. UMass Chan Office of Communications
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Dr. Leonora Martínez-Núñez collaborated with ScienceLIVE! to orchestrate a Scientific Art & Outreach event at the Shrewsbury Library. Young students got to observe and create art about fungi, plants and other living things. The event had a great turnout!
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Photos courtesy of Colleen Locke. UMass Chan Office of Communications
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Our department’s scientific art is on display at the Lamar Soutter Library here on campus!! We had a successful opening night on February 28th that reached many members of the UMass Chan community. You can stop by the library and check out the art exhibit until the end of April!
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Members of the BMB department had a great time judging the Wachusett Regional High School Science Fair. Congratulations to all the winners and to all the participants - the future of science is bright!
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Feature of the Month
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This month, “meet” Karen Welch! Karen has been an integral part of our department since 1986, but do you know everything about her? Well, we don’t either, but learn more about her in this month’s feature!
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Publications
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#newscience alert
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#preprint alert!
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Wellness
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The scientific workforce has been aging for quite some time. 1 Making sure we all stay healthy as we age is critically important for our quality of life and our quality of research. Therefore, allow us to present some tips for healthy aging that any of us can adopt at any time in our lives. We are all aging, all the time, so check out the health tips below and consider incorporating some of them into your lifestyle.
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Visit your doctor for regular (annual) checkups and stay up to date on your vaccines (reminder: vaccine requirements and recommendations shift as we age).
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Move that body ~ studies have shown that getting 8,000 steps per day reduces the likelihood of death from ANY CAUSE by 51%. 2 and that muscle mass is a better predictor of longevity (or lack thereof) than weight or BMI. 3
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Shift your diet to align with a Mediterranean Diet, the DASH Diet, or the MIND Diet to reduce your risk of disease and improve cognitive function.
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SLEEP!!! In addition to the benefits sleep has on our mental health and general wellness, our glymphatic system washes toxins (like beta-amyloids) out of our brains while we sleep. 4
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Quit smoking and limit drinking.
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Tend to your social garden – supportive relationships and community are critical to our mental health.
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Learn new things! This helps maintain cognitive function. Luckily, working in science provides endless opportunities to learn new things!
Stay well, folks! Thanks for reading the wellness portion of this newsletter. Please get in touch with the Outreach Office if you have any requests or recommendations for future wellness topics!
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From the UMass Chan Office of Well-Being (OWB)
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NUMBERS TO KNOW
EAP: 1-800-322-5327 or eap@umassmed.edu
Emergency numbers
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
MA Behavioral Health Help Line (can also text this number!): 833-773-2445
SAMHSA National Helpline (in English and Spanish!): 1-800-662-4357
Worcester Community HealthLink: 1-866-549-2142
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Job Openings - Share with your Network!
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Follow the BMB on Social Media
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The BMB has a new TikTok account! 👇
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Miss a previous newsletter? They’re all on the BMB website!
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