Lab News

2023

07/01/2023

Elena Kurudza MD joins the lab to start her 2-year fellowship. Elena is a neurosurgery resident, and she will be working on CAR-Ms in gliomas! Welcome, Elena!

06/23/2023

Our lab got a shout out in a recent article in National Geographic!

06/14/2023

Taylor is given a COLOR award which will fully support her travel and attendance at the National SACNAS Conference in Portland this October. Before the meeting stars, Taylor will attend a 1-day workshop focused on leadership and diversity. Congrats, Taylor!

06/02/2023

Julio is awarded the Sherman R and Deborah Ann Dickman Graduate Student Travel Fellowship to support his attendance at ASCB in Boston this December. Congrats, Julio!

05/30/2023

The lab welcomes Chandler Redfearn, rising junior at North Carolina A&T State University. Chandler will be working with Julio this summer as part of the BRIDGE-UP program at the U. Welcome, Chandler!

05/19/2023

Today, we send off Qian, as she starts the next chapter of her journey. Qian will start her postdoc at Stanford in Rogelio Hernandez’s lab. We wish her the best of luck, and we will miss her a ton!

05/19/2023

Qian and Joey graduate at commencement. Getting all the feels right now. So incredibly proud of the first 2 students to graduate from the Roh-Johnson lab. Due to some last minute changes, Minna was allowed to hood them both – hooray!

03/01/2023

Joey and Chelsea’s paper on mitochondrial transfer is accepted for publication at eLife! This was such a fun study led by both Joey and Chelsea to show unexpected functions for transferred macrophage mitochondria in cancer cells. Rather than performing essential energy-producing functions for the cell, transferred mitochondria are dysfunctional (whaaa?), accumulate reactive oxygen species (no way!), promoting cancer cell proliferation (wah wah wee wah!). Check it out here -

Thanks to a whole host of collaborators – Johnson lab, Welm lab, Rutter lab, Lathia lab, Zangle lab – for their contributions!

03/01/2023

Qian defends her dissertation!! What a day! She killed her defense talk (despite battling a cold!) – Congratulations, Qian!

2022

12/26/2022

Qian’s paper on focal adhesions in vivo is accepted for publication at Journal of Cell Biology! Her beautiful thesis work uncovers the unexpected regulation of Paxillin, a core focal adhesion component. Spoiler alert – Paxillin regulation is very different in cells migrating in vivo compared to in culture. Qian’s work challenges paradigms generated in cell culture systems, and we are very proud of her work! Check out her work here:

Thanks to Sophia, Trinity, Mackenzie, and James for their contributions to this story.

12/04/2022

Roh-Johnson lab takes on ASCB in Washington, DC! Five of us went to ASCB this year – Qian, Daniel, Julio, Trinity, and Minna – and had an awesome time sharing our work, learning about new cool science, and having some meals/drinks with each and colleagues. Highlights include Qian’s minisymposium talk, Trinity’s microsymposium talk, and Daniel and Julio’s poster sessions!

11/30/2022

Joint lab holiday party with Jarrod’s lab, followed by riveting game of Dirty Santa!

11/03/2022

Julio’s abstract was selected for a talk at the Mechanisms of Cellular Evolution Symposium – Congrats Julio!

07/13/2022

Qian selected for the John H. Weis Memorial Graduate Student Travel Award! This award funds exceptional graduate students, and comes with $1500 to be used toward travel!

07/05/2022

Daniel’s paper, in collaboration with Jarrod Johnson’s lab (M&I Division), was accepted to “Current Protocols” today!! Congrats, Dan, and the rest of the team!

Greiner D, Scott T, Olson GS, Aderem A, Roh-Johnson M, and Johnson JS. (2022) Genetic modification of primary human myeloid cells to study cell migration, activation, and organelle dynamics. Current Protocols, accepted.

05/15/2022

Joey was selected for the HCI Rising Stars award - This award recognizes outstanding trainees working in the field of breast and gynecological cancers, and comes with funds for training and research!

05/13/2022

Julio and Qian submit their review called, "An Evolutionary and Physiological Perspective on Cell-Substrate Adhesion Machinery For Cell Migration" to Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology! Congrats, Julio and Qian!

03/03/2022

Qian submits her manuscript on in vivo focal adhesions! Congrats, Qian! Thanks and congrats also to Sophia, Trinity, and James for all their help!

01/03/2022

Joey signs up to teach incarcerated individuals through the University of Utah Prison Education Project (UPEP). Thanks to Joey for his commitment to educational equity.

2021

12/06/2021

Joey and Julio both have abstracts selected for talks at the American Society for Cell Biology 2022. Excellent job to both of them!

11/15/2021

Sophia’s undergraduate research was included in a paper that was accepted in Bioorg Med Chem Letters! Congrats Sophia.

10/21/2021

The lab attends the Biochemistry Departmental retreat at Deer Valley. It was a great way to reconnect with our department during the pandemic, and a special thank you to the organizers for taking every precaution to make the event COVID-safe. Julio and Chelsea worked together to make a video that highlights the lab’s work. It features Joey and a cameo by Qian, with original music by Joey. Guaranteed to make you smile. Enjoy!

10/20/2021

Today we had a lab party to say goodbye to Chelsea, who is moving on to an amazing position as a Senior Scientist at Tune Therapeutics in Seattle, Washington. Chelsea is an amazing scientist and person, and we will miss her a ton, but we are so excited for her next step. Come by and visit us any time, Chelsea, and thank you for all that you’ve done for us!

10/14/2021

Daniel and Chelsea both had their abstracts selected for talks at the Cold Spring Harbor Tumor Microenvironment meeting this year. Congrats to both of them, and excellent jobs on your talks!

10/01/2021

Julio is selected by the University of Utah to apply to the HHMI Gilliam Fellowship! There are only two nominations each year, so congrats to Julio, and good luck with your application!

09/01/2021

The lab welcomes Danny Bae as a new postdoctoral fellow. Danny completed his PhD with Julie Hollien in the Department of Biology at U. Utah, looking at lysosomal re-positioning in cells under stress. Welcome to the lab, Danny!

09/01/2021

The lab submits its first ever manuscript – Lateral macrophage mitochondrial transfer induces cancer cell proliferation through ROS signaling – and uploads a version onto BioRxiv. Congrats to co-first authors, Joey and Chelsea, as well as Daniel!

09/01/2021

Julio becomes a graduate student mentor through Cientifico Latino. He mentors first year graduate students from underrepresented backgrounds across the country, offering professional development advice and general thoughts on how to succeed in grad school – Thank you, Julio!

05/19/2021

Daniel’s undergraduate work was accepted for publication in Breast Cancer Research. Congrats, Daniel.

05/12/2021

Minna asked to give a talk on Qian’s amazing work at the Southwest Society for Developmental Biology mtg. Yay to Qian!

04/30/2021

We are ending the month with members of the lab getting their COVID-19 vaccines – So exciting and yay science!

02/24/2021

Julio, along with fellow graduate student Sangeetha Balasubramaniam, lead the inaugural EDI interest group meeting in the Biochemistry department. Thanks to Julio and Sangeetha for all of their work in initiating this interest group. The first topic is “cultural biases in science and medicine”. 

01/31/2021

Today, we say goodbye to our American Society Grant, which was terminated due to overlapping aims with the R01. Goodbye ACS grant. We used you well while we had you.

01/25/2021

The student has become the master. In unfortunate news, the FRAP module malfunctioned on the spinning disc. After Minna was unable to photobleach regions several times, Qian stepped in and showed Minna that the FRAP module was in fact working perfectly fine. It was the user (i.e. Minna) who apparently did not remember how to properly calibrate the laser. Thank you, Qian, for being a badass.

2020

12/31/2020

Goodbye 2020. While you have sucked tremendously in terms of the pandemic, the lab has had a very successful year in terms of research and grants. I am especially proud of lab members who have prioritized their health and safety during this year. I am also very proud of the lab for adding Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion to our priority list, and we look forward to carrying on with this momentum into the new year.

12/15/2020

In very exciting news, Joey is awarded an F31 from the NCI to fund his work on macrophage polarization and mitochondrial transfer to cancer cells. We are very proud of him and his relentless perseverance. Congratulations, Joey!

12/20/2020

The lab receives the Notice of Award for a R01 grant from the NCI to fund our lateral mitochondrial transfer work. In even better news, the R01 was upgraded to a 7-year R37 MERIT grant. Thank you, NCI! And thank you to members of the lab for creating such a lovely body of work that Minna could even write a compelling grant. 

12/05/2020

Qian, Chelsea, and Joey each have abstracts selected for oral presentations at the American Society for Cell Biology meeting! All three gave spectacular talks, received many questions from the audience, and all around did a wonderful job. Congratulations to the three of them!

10/29/2020

Julio gave a personal and thoughtful “Pathways” talk at our annual (this year, virtual) Departmental Retreat. In his talk, he highlighted the dark history of science and challenged us to think deeply and seek out more information on this topic. He also illuminated his experiences as a Latino in science and brought a voice to DREAMers and DACA-recipients. Thank you, Julio, for this wonderful talk. Thank you also to Daniel and Chelsea and the other members of the Departmental Diversity Task Force for organizing the Diversity session at the Departmental Retreat.

9/25/2020

Loved having a physically-distanced lab celebration to congratulate Julio and Trinity on wonderful 1st committee meetings. Wish we had remembered to take a picture.

9/25/2020

Julio kicks butt on his first committee meeting! Just like Trinity, Julio was also not physically in the lab this summer and early fall, and still did a fantastic job. Congrats, Julio! We are very excited to bring Dictyostelium into the lab.

9/01/2020

Julio is nominated as one of two University of Utah applicants to apply for the Gilliam Fellowship! Congratulations, Julio!

8/17/2020

Trinity has his first committee meeting, and does wonderfully! Under COVID-restrictions, Trinity has not been able to physically be in the lab this summer, and yet still kills his committee meeting. Well done, Trinity!

8/01/2020

The lab purchased a GoPro in hopes that we can teach other techniques with this approach. Wish us luck. (Update in Feb 2021: GoPro works surprisingly well)

7/31/2020

We miss seeing each other in-person, so we had an outdoor, physically distanced get-together in Minna’s backyard. It was so nice to see each other, and we hope the pandemic is over soon. 

7/01/2020

Thank you to Chelsea and Daniel for volunteering their time with the Departmental Diversity Task Force! Your insight and efforts will truly help change the culture of our community. 

5/1/2020

Today, we say goodbye to James after his having been in the lab for almost 2 years. Thank you for your hard work, and we are excited for your future as an MD/PhD student at the U! Don’t forget to visit us! 

5/1/2020

The Roh-Johnson lab is awarded 2 grants this Spring! One is from the Department of Defense and the other is from the American Cancer Society. A big thank you to these funding agencies for their generous support. MORE SCIENCE TO COME! 

4/30/2020

We officially welcome 2 new graduate students into the lab: developmental biology afficionado, Trinity Waddell; and evolution guru, Julio Fierro-Morales. Welcome! We are so happy to have you! 

4/17/2020

Qian awarded the Sherman Dickman Travel Award! There are only two of these awarded a year, so a hearty congratulations to Qian! Qian will be using this travel award to attend a scientific conference in 2021! Please enjoy this picture of Qian looking incredibly serious. 

4/8/2020

Daniel completely slays his preliminary exam, with a unanimous pass from all committee members. Congrats, Daniel! We celebrated his post-exam success over zoom, as we watched him down a bottle of bubbly (at, like, noon). 

3/11/2020

Lab lunch to celebrate Julio and Allison’s excellent rotations! We didn’t know it at the time, but this was our last lab social activity before the lab shut down due to COVID-19. 

2/24/2020

A day in the life of the Roh-Johnson lab. Tissue culture 4 lyfe. 

2/10/2020

Undergraduate researcher, James, is accepted into the MD/PhD program at the U of U! Congratulations, James!!

2019

12/14/2019

Lab Holiday party with Matt Miller’s lab. We had a riveting game of Dirty Santa that ended with shock and awe.

12/14/2019

As the year ends, we say goodbye to one of our undergraduate researchers, Elizabeth Hayes, who has been with our lab for a year and a half. We are grateful for her hard work, and wish her good luck in finishing her Bachelors degree in Biology at the U! We hope she remembers her time in the lab with these research-inspired flask shot glasses. 

12/06/2019

Qian, Chelsea, and Minna present their work at ASCB. Qian was busy describing her spectacular work on how cancer cells interact with their local environment during migration, and Chelsea and Minna had side-by-side posters on macrophage mitochondrial transfer. Chelsea powered through 3 hours of presenting because of her steady stream of visitors. The meeting ended with a fun lab dinner at Momofuku. 

11/7/2019

Daniel rocks his first committee meeting! Congrats, Daniel!

09/24/2019

Joey attends the CSHL Microenvironment and Metastasis Meeting to present his awesome work on how macrophages regulate mitochondrial dynamics during mitochondrial transfer to cancer cells.

5/22/2019

Undergraduate, Elizabeth Hayes, is awarded a SPUR to study mechanisms of cancer cell migration in our lab this summer!

5/1/2019

Congratulations to Qian Xue, a newly minted PhD Candidate, who passed her prelims with flying colors. You're awesome, Qian! 

4/27/2019

James Carrington wins a poster prize at the annual Developmental Biology Interest Group Retreat - Yay, James!

4/25/2019

You’re looking at PhD Candidate, Joey Casalini. Congrats on rocking your prelim, Joey! 

4/25/2019

The lab welcomes new graduate student, Daniel Greiner, after he successfully defends his end of the first year capstone exams. Congrats and we are happy to have you in the lab! 

4/15/2019

Postdoc, Chelsea Kidwell, awarded 2 year research grant support from the NCI – Congrats! Look at her in action! 

4/9/2019

A great poster session to end James’ UROP semester. Thank you to our undergrad, James Carrington, for his hard work this semester, and congrats on your summer research internship at the Mayo Clinic! 

2018

12/18/2018

There are 2 things our lab is very serious about: white elephant gift exchange... and mustaches. 

11/17/2018

Fun times with crafting and s'mores. 

11/16/2018

Qian and Joey both have their first committee meetings (separately, but on the same day!). Congrats on a job well done!

10/8/2018

Qian presents the lab's first poster at the Utah Fish Conference. 

8/17/2018

Our undergrad researcher population grows to 2. Welcome to James Carrington, a junior at the U. Utah!

8/8/2018

Our very first postdoc, and she's a great one! Welcome to Chelsea Kidwell from Seattle!

6/27/2018

The lab goes bowling as our first lab outing: Everyone knows that a lab who bowls together… I don’t know, but it was fun.

6/5/2018

Our spinning disc arrives! Yay for more live cell imaging!

6/4/2018

Our first undergrad researcher: Welcome to Elizabeth Hayes from U. Utah Biology!

6/1/2018

The Roh-Johnson lab gets its first official graduate students: We are so lucky to have Qian and Joey join the lab!

5/4/2018

Joey and Qian pass their capstone exams – Congratulations to both of them!

2/26/2018

The Zeiss 880 Airy Scan microscope has arrived. Can’t wait to image zebrafish on it!

1/16/2018

3rd rotations start – Welcome to BC student, Qian Xue, and MB student, Joey Casalini!

1/1/2018

Roh-Johnson Lab opens for research in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Utah