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Riccio Award Winners

Through the generosity of Mr. Dan Riccio and Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences alum, Dr. Diane Riccio, we are fortunate to be able to recognize Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences students with an award for participation in a scientific conference. The award shall be used to provide a differentiating research dissemination opportunity.

This is a merit award to recognize a student who has excelled in graduate study. However, in order to have maximum impact in alignment with the intent of the donors, we hope that the award will be used to catalyze opportunities that are out of the ordinary. This would include attendance at a meeting that is not regularly attended by the members of the student’s thesis lab, attendance at an international meeting, or attendance at any scientific meeting which provides a unique opportunity for the awardee. The applicants will be asked to explain the significance of the meeting for their career, and the Awards and Recognition committee will consider this along with the applicant’s record of accomplishment.

2023 Fall

Esther Boama-Nyarko
Marce of North America Regional Group Meeting (MONA 2023 Conference)
Mentor: Nancy Byatt, DO 

Ailsa Jeffries
Functional disruptions in aging human neurons revealed by single-cell transcriptomics
Mentor: Michael Lodato, PhD 

Hao-Ching Jiang
CD20 functions as a mammalian odorant receptor that mediates innate avoidance of predator-derived compounds
Mentor: Paul Greer, PhD

Karthik Ramesh
Connecting basic mechanisms of antigen presentation to Translational Research
Mentor: Lawrence Stern, PhD

2023 Spring

Gaurav Chauhan
A rapid and economical tool for the comprehensive identification of ticks, pathogens, and hosts, and their infection dynamics
Mentor: Elinor Karlsson, PhD

Emily Lowry
Genetic screens of colibactin toxicity in E. coli confirm genotoxicity and suggest entry by diffusion
Mentor: Amir Mitchell, PhD

Karthikeyan Ponnienselvan
Reducing the Inherent Auto-Inhibitory Interaction within the pegRNA Enhances Prime Editing Efficiency
Mentor: Scot Wolfe, PhD

Yuqing Wang
Comparative scRNA-Seq profiling of four autoimmune skin diseases points to CXCL13 as a potential player in skin autoimmunity
Mentor: Manuel Garber, PhD

2022 - Fall

Megan Honeywell
Removal of p53 causes the mechanism of DNA-damage induced cell death to switch from apoptotic to non-apoptotic
Mentor:  Michael Lee, PhD 

Ekaterina Korobkina
The role of cytosolic acetyl-CoA synthesis in brown fat function
Mentor:  David Guertin, PhD

2022 - Spring

Kevin Gao
Radioresistant Cells Initiate Lymphocyte-dependent Lung Inflammation and IFNγ-dependent Mortality in STING Gain-of-function Mice
Mentor: Ann Rothstein, PhD

Xuqiu Lei
Epithelial HNF4A shapes the intraepithelial lymphocyte compartment via direct regulation of immune signaling molecules
Mentor: Kate Fitzgerald, PhD

Kathleen Morrill
Genomic interrogation of cultural stereotypes connecting dog breed and behavior
Mentor: Elinor Karlsson, PhD

Shivani Nanda
Systems-level transcriptional regulation of C. elegans metabolism
Mentor: Marian Walhout, PhD

2021 - Fall

Jillian Gallagher
Sialidosis: From Gene Editing to Gene Therapy
Mentor: Heather Gray-Edwards, PhD

Havisha Honwad
A novel PHOX/CD38/NAADP/TFEB axis important for macrophage activation during bacterial phagocytosis
Mentor: Javier Irazoqui, PhD

2021 - Spring

Mehmet Hakan Guney
MDA5 is the innate immune sensor of HIV-1 provirus transcripts in human myeloid cells
Mentor: Jeremy Luban, MD

Xue (Shirley) Li
Investigating the genetics of social behavior in wolf-dog hybrids
Mentor: Elinor Karlsson, PhD

2019 - Fall

Revati Darp
Investigating the role of tetraploid intermediates in melanoma progression.
Mentor: Craig Ceol, PhD

2018 - Fall

Heather Loring
SARM1 Mutagenesis Studies Reveal Key Residues Involved in Catalysis
Mentor: Paul Thompson, PhD

2018 - Spring

Elizabeth Allen
Discovery of a myotubularin phosphatase in autophagy
Mentor: Eric Baehrecke, PhD

Noah Cohen
Non-native Structure Present in the Unfolded Ensemble May Initiate Aggregation of ALS variants of Superoxide Dismutase (SOD1)
Mentor: C. Robert Matthews, PhD

Kyusik Kim
Cyclophilin A protects HIV-1 from restriction by human TRIM5α
Mentor: Jeremy Luban, MD

James Strassner
Validation and discovery of mechanisms that promote Vitiligo pathogenesis using single-cell RNA-sequencing of cells isolated from skin interstitial fluid.
Mentor: John Harris, MD, PhD

2017 - Fall

Anubhab Nandy
The Role of the NF-κB factor Relish and Immune Receptors in Autophagy
Mentor: Neal Silverman,PhD

Wen-Yu Hsiao
Selective loss of mTORC2 in subcutaneous adipocyte precursors causes partial lipoatrophy by impairing PPARÉ£ transcriptional activity
Mentor: David Guertin, PhD

Xin (Daniel) Gao
C-Berst: Defining Subnuclear Proteomic Landscapes at Genomic Elements with dCas9-APEX2
Mentor: Erik Sontheimer, PhD

Xinyang (David) Bing
Regulation of an endogenous retrovirus by a tRNA fragment
Mentor: Oliver Rando, MD, PhD