Katheryn Rothenberg

I’m helping to organize the 2026 edition, so please reach out with ideas, suggestions, or interest in helping out!

I’m so sad to have missed the Midwest Drosophila Conference due a nasty cold. But some of my students made the journey and had a great time! @jiarui219.bsky.social gave a talk to open up the conference, @briod613.bsky.social gave a very successful poster, and Aiza joined for her first conference!

It happens, it sucks, and we are allowed to express that we are upset about it.

It’s true that reading, planning, and writing are never a waste of time and the material can be repurposed. But it is time consuming to tailor the writing to a particular agency/mechanism. The students are not going to be able to reuse their ideas for broader impacts and outreach in an F31.

This is really unfortunate and I hope it’s reconsidered. My second year PhD students were busy doing rotations at this time last year and didn’t know what lab they were going to join. They have been working so hard on their applications for this cycle only to find out it could be for nothing.

Likewise!!

I’ve been really enjoying the #MWSDB25 meeting so far! Great people and science. I can’t wait to give my talk this afternoon and hopefully come away with new ideas and collaborators. I’m so grateful to the organizers for the invitation!

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

While full solicitation isn’t up, looks like we have 2025 proposal deadlines for the GRFP: www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Here’s one I made a few years back that I think is very cute! I can’t take credit for the pattern, unfortunately. I’ll have to track it down on ravelry.

It seems like it would be easy to make an unquestionably cute fly plush! But maybe I just have picky taste.

We have a fantastic seminar lineup this semester! Join us in Kollros Auditorium (BBE 101) almost every Friday at 3:30pm to learn from prominent researchers from across the country.

All of these seminars are open to the public to attend, so we hope to see you there!

To celebrate the summer, our ReSCU-Net paper is out @jcb.org !! Work led by our dungeon master @ray-hawkins.bsky.social, developing a novel neural network architecture and applying it to explore the role of gap junctions in embryonic wound healing in #Drosophila 🧪.

shorturl.at/xNRKn

Photo of a crayfish climbing a filter in an aquarium

Our lab mascot, Samwise, is always encouraging us to keep reaching higher!

Love this idea and execution! I might have to implement it myself!

@briod613.bsky.social from our lab is at #bobiac2025 learning from the best all about Python-based image analysis!

The Martin Lab in the Department of Biology is seeking a full-time Associate Research Scientist to conduct research in neurobiology, with a focus on electrical and chemical synapse formation.

For more information and to apply, please visit: uiowa.referrals.selectminds.com/jobs/researc...

We are very proud to be featured throughout this newsletter among all of the excellent departmental achievements. Congrats to all of our lab members for doing great things!

Lab is for getting research done and having a little bit of fun!

Come be my colleague!! It’s a great department, university, and town! Feel free to ask me about my experience.

Ah no I meant my own bias in considering this group to be great!

A great group of people! No bias whatsoever. 😄

Me please!!

Last week much of the lab went to the Holden Comprehensive Cancer center retreat. We had a great time sharing our science, learning about the efforts to fight cancer at all levels, and meeting fellow scientists.

Three women standing on a rock overlooking a river

A young barred owl in an enclosure

Oyster mushrooms growing on a log

We took the day off from the lab in recognition of #Juneteenth. A few of us took the opportunity to show our visiting student Annadelle some of the nature Iowa has to offer! We visited Lake MacBride State Park and the Iowa Raptor Project.

Integrins coordinate basal surface contraction and oriented cell growth to enable thickening of a curved epithelium During development, tissues undergo morphogenesis to achieve their final form. This process relies on coordinated cell shape changes, which have predo…

Delighted to share our latest work on the mechanisms of epithelial curvature and 3D morphogenesis ! Amazing work from newly graduated Dr @courtneyl7a7.bsky.social 🎉

@lmcb-ucl.bsky.social
@uclnews.bsky.social
@ucllifesciences.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Judge rules against NIH grant cuts — and calls them discriminatory The decision means that the US biomedical agency has to restore funding to hundreds of research projects, but the government will likely appeal.

A US judge has ordered hundreds of terminated research projects at the US National Institutes of Health to be reinstated, calling the processes that led to their cancellation “bereft of reasoning”.

https://go.nature.com/4kOmXDy

This parade will cost at least the equivalent of 180 years worth of an NIH biomedical research grant.

URGENT: FlyBase has lost practically all its funding overnight; even user fees are tied up in denied grant funding. 🤬🤯

Any lab using @flybase.bsky.social please donate using the link in post below.

This incredible community, on whose backs our #Drosophila labs depend, can't be left out to dry.

Hi all! Please follow my lab account @rothenberglab.bsky.social to keep up with our science and our people.

Congrats, Aiza! Well-deserved!!