Pariyamon (Pha) Thaprawat defended her thesis titled “Toxoplasma gondii Autophagy and Chronic Infection” on November 2, 2024. She received her Ph.D. summa cum laude under the mentorship of Vern Carruthers.

DCMB celebrates the professional achievements and retirement of Mary Freer, its Chief Department Administrator. With an impressive 35 years of service at Michigan Medicine, Freer has brought dedication and expert management to every role she has undertaken. Freer has touched the lives of many in the institution, striving to bring the best in everyone, fostering warm and supportive relationships, and demonstrating an unwavering commitment to Michigan Medicine’s values.

Elliott SoRelle, Ph.D., is joining M&I as a new Assistant Professor, effective October 1, 2024.

On Monday, June 10, 2024, Madison Fitzgerald defended her thesis titled “Transcriptional Regulation of Proteus mirabilis Pathogenesis in Urinary Tract.”

DCMB is pleased to announce that Arushi Varshney, Ph.D., Arushi Varshney, Ph.D., is promoted to Assistant Research Scientist, effective September 1, 2024

Harry L.T. Mobley, Ph.D., retires after 40 years of research and mentorship excellence

Cong Ma, Ph.D., joins DCMB as an assistant professor, effective September 1, 2024.

Since January 1, 2023, 11 faculty have joined the 132 CCMB faculty members who belong to different U-M schools and colleges (Medical School, College of Engineering (COE), College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA), College of Pharmacy, School of Public Health, and School of Information).

Ryan Stidham, MD, MS, from the Department of Internal Medicine, is appointed as DCMB Associate Chair for Clinical and Translational Research and as Associate Director of the Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics (CCMB)

This endowed scholarship was created in 2017 by Lynn Kitabchi, in honor of her grandfather Frederick G. Novy, a world renowned bacteriologist. In 1902, Dr. Novy established the University of Michigan Department of Bacteriology, now the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. The intent for this scholarship is to provide need-based support to Ph.D. students in M&I.

This summer and into the fall, DCMB is hosting three international students for up to six months each. They come from China, France and Korea, eager to learn and expand their education and experience through an extended visit at the University of Michigan (U-M) and DCMB.

The Dr. Marc Collett Endowed Fellowship for Discovery provides stipend and research support to one outstanding postdoctoral fellow each year who is engaged in high-risk, high-reward research. This fellowship is intended to help launch the career of a postdoctoral fellow. Hargobinder Kaur, Ph.D., has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Carruthers lab since October 2022. Her research mainly focuses on understanding how the Toxoplasma gondii effectors exploits host membrane remodeling machinery during intracellular replication. She is particularly focusing on studying important parasitic-host protein-protein interactions both structurally and functionally by employing high-throughput proteomic and microscopy techniques.

DCMB is pleased to announce the promotion of Rajasree Menon, Ph.D., to Research Scientist and Weichen (Arthur) Zhou, Ph.D., to Research Assistant Professor

Jie Lui, PhD, was recognized with the EBS Research Award and Weichen (Arthur) Zhou, Ph.D., with the EBS Research Award

Arvind Rao, Ph.D., an associate professor in the departments of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics (DCMB), Radiation Oncology and Biostatics, was selected to receive a Global REACH Partnership Development grant. His proposal is titled: “Towards development of a collaborative partnership for biomedical data science training and research between CSIR India and University of Michigan India platform.”