The Liau Lab, Cruising Through Spring 2023

We kicked off our 2023 with many small but joyous moments.

Our lab welcomed the addition of pet snow ducks who were introduced to their habitat in the -80 freezer. They might look a little wonky but we love them. 

Our lab showed off our artistic ability at the CCB paint night. 

And we celebrated the successes of our G2s James and Julia for passing their PQE (Preliminary Qualifying Exams) and officially becoming doctoral candidates!

The year was defined by the defenses and goodbyes of so many of our favorite members. 

On May 19th Shelby Roseman Ph.D. defended her thesis “Illuminating chromatin organization and nuclear landmarks using chemical genomics”

We are sad to say goodbye to Shelby who is such a beloved member of our lab, but so proud of her as she begins her postdoc in the lab of Brad Bernstein at Dana Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI).

On June 2nd Nick Lue Ph.D. defended his thesis “Integrating functional genomics and biochemistry to interrogate DNMT3A sequence–function”

Nick is an irreplaceable member of the lab and we will miss his incredible attention to detail and his artistic sensibilities. We wish him the very best as he returns to his undergrad alma mater UC Berkeley to postdoc in the lab of Eva Nogales.

On July 12th Paloma Tuttle Ph.D. defended her thesis “LSD1-mediated Grob-like fragmentation as a novel drug resistance mechanism”

Paloma was iconic in every way. Our lab is all the worse without you Paloma, but we are excited to see what you do next because we know you’ll be amazing. 

With a heavy heart, we said goodbye to Amanda Waterbury, one of the original members of the lab who completed her Ph.D. with Brian last December and had been continuing her work as a postdoc. Amanda contributed so much as both a chemist and a biologist, and even though this isn’t the last time we will see her, we will miss her so much as she starts her postdoc in the lab of Philip Cole at Harvard Medical School (HMS). 

And last but certainly not least, we said goodbye to Tobias Hansen, a visiting student from the University of Copenhagen who joined us in January. 

But it wasn’t all goodbyes, as we gained many new faces too! 

Chao Liu joins us as a postdoc from Boston College, Irtiza Iram (Harvard Class of 2023) joins us as a research assistant, and Carina Pfaeffle joins us as a visiting scholar. We are so excited to work with them and happily welcome them into the lab. 

Before our members left we were able to have fun with them one – no two last times! And we were happily joined by our new members too. 

Our bestest PI Brian took us out for putt putt golf and dinner to celebrate the end of the spring semester. 

And our lab enjoyed a beautiful boat cruise around Boston harbor, and enjoyed lunch, drinks, and views.

This post has been long overdue, but look forward to the 2023 part 3 post! So much has happened this year and we’re only halfway through