As we approach the new academic year, I am grateful for our strong community of MBI researchers, who came out in full force to celebrate our 25th anniversary in February.

Throughout the spring, many of our partner centers hosted events to spark vigorous research discussions, including the 19th Neuromuscular Plasticity Symposium in March and the 11th Center for Addiction Research & Education Symposium in April.

In May, our members studying cognitive aging and their colleagues across our partner McKnight Brain Institutes — at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Arizona, and University of Miami — gathered in Gainesville for the 15th McKnight Brain Research Foundation Inter-Institutional Meeting. Learn more about this meeting below. 

Also in this newsletter, we highlight many prestigious awards and honors earned by our MBI members, including this year’s UF Research Foundation Professors. Of particular note, I’d like to congratulate Dr. Jada Lewis on her new role as chair of physiological sciences in the UF College of Veterinary Medicine and thank her for her five years of leadership and dedication as deputy director of the MBI. We look forward to many future collaborations with her. Click here to read more.

Have a great fall semester, and stay tuned for many important updates and announcements from the MBI in the months ahead. 

Journalists regularly reach out to our MBI members for their expertise on many subjects. If a reporter contacts you, please alert associate director of communications Todd Taylor or science writer Michelle Koidin Jaffee so we can assist with, archive, and promote your media endeavors. Here are recent examples of MBI researchers in the news:

• Bloomberg (Dr. Elias Sayour) — Scientist turns mRNA into cancer-fighting ‘onions’
  
• Florida Trend (Dr. Yenisel Cruz-Almeida) — UF Health researchers find new method to use MRIs to delve into secrets of brain aging
  
• El País (Dr. Héctor Méndez) — An experimental vaccine increases survival rates by up to 50% in four people with highly-aggressive brain cancer
  

• Drs.  Natalie Ebner and Didem Pehlivanoglu — Are older adults more vulnerable to scams?
  

• Drs. John Ligon and Christina von Roemeling — Brain cancer in children is notoriously hard to treat – a new mRNA cancer vaccine triggers an attack from within
  

The Conversation is a nonprofit, independent news organization publishing trustworthy and informative articles written by academic experts for the general public and edited by a team of journalists. The Conversation reaches 5 million-plus unique readers monthly and then the articles go farther, often picked up by major outlets such as The Washington Post, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune.

Contact science writer Michelle Koidin Jaffee or associate director of communications Todd Taylor with your ideas for The Conversation.

• Drs. Cheng Tang and Rajesh Khanna reported on a potential way to regulate neuronal overactivity in quest for new therapies for chronic pain. Read the Snapshot»
  
• Drs. Adithya Gopinath and Habibeh Khoshbouei reported on a potential way to monitor progression and treatment response in Parkinson’s by analyzing blood immune cells. Read the Snapshot»
  
• Drs. Adamantios Mamais and Matthew J. LaVoie revealed insight into mechanisms of how two proteins may accumulate in Parkinson’s, findings that could contribute to developing new therapies. Read the Snapshot»