The image depicts Neurons (green) and astrocytes (red) working together to regulate storage and retrieval of memories. This is at the heart of research that is the STAT Madness 2025 winner!
Baylor College of Medicine wins 2025 STAT Madness
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Baylor College of Medicine is the STAT Madness 2025 champion! This is the second year in a row that Baylor has won the popular vote in STAT’s bracket-style research competition.
This year’s winning research was led by Dr. Benjamin Deneen, professor and Dr. Russell J. and Mariam K. Blattner Chair in the Department of Neuroscience, for his work identifying a new way that memories are stored and recalled. His lab was able to show how star-shaped cells called astrocytes are involved in the learning and memory process. Until now, memory recall has only been associated with the activity of brain cells called neurons. Read more about these brain stars and our memories here.
Deneen’s work, originally published in Nature, made it through five rounds of voting, beating out 64 other entries. The month-long competition received a total of 374,302 votes. Deneen’s research won with 63.6% of the 92,001 votes in the final round.
“It is an honor to receive this title and to be recognized alongside other prominent biomedical research in a nationwide competition amongst other top-tier institutions,” said Deneen, who also is director of the Center for Cancer Neuroscience, a member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor and a principal investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital.
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Dr. Michael Williamson, Dr. Benjamin Deneen and Dr. Ukbong Kwon led the team of researchers who took part in the winning research for STAT Madness 2025.
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Deneen’s team of researchers included co-first authors and postdoctoral associates Michael Williamson and Ukbong Kwon, along with Junsung Woo, Yeunjung Ko, Yeunjung Ko, Ehson Maleki, Kwanha Yu, Sanjana Murali, and Debosmita Sardar, all with Baylor during the research.
“Our work expands theories on memory by showing direct roles for non-neuronal cells in the storage and retrieval of memories,” said Dr. Ukbong Kwon, co-first author on the study and postdoctoral associate in the Deneen lab.
“These studies open the door for new lines of investigation that will decipher how astrocytes store memories, while further dissecting their specialized interactions with neuronal engrams,” said Dr. Michael R. Williamson, co-first author on the study and a postdoctoral associate also in the Deneen lab.
STAT is an online news source focused on health, medicine and scientific discovery. Read the STAT interview with Deneen here.
Read about last year’s winner here.
