Cooper Lab News

Andrew received the BioSciences Award for Outstanding Research voted by the faculty of the Department of BioSciences at Rice University. May 2024.

Janel won best oral presentation for basic research at the biannual International Myotonic Dystrophy Consortium Meeting in Nijmegen, Netherlands April 2024

Larissa’s perspective of a paper from the John Lueck lab was published in J. Clinical Investigation.

Lathan’s review of microtubules in skeletal muscle development and homeostasis published in Int J Mol Sci. 2023 10.3390/ijms24032903.

Larissa was awarded a three year NIH F32 postdoctoral fellowship award to start January 2024.

Sara’s abstract was selected for an oral presentation at the 2023 Eukaryotic mRNA Processing meeting

Janel’s abstract was selected for an oral presentation at the 2023 Annual Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation (MDF) Conference

Larissa won first place for her poster at the 2023 CAG Triplet Repeat Disorders Gordon Research Conference.

Larissa was given an award for the best talk from a postdoctoral fellow at the 2023 annual Pathology & Immunology Trainee Symposium.

Janel Peterson was the winner of the 2023 Rolanette and Berdon Lawrence Family Achievement Award in Genetics for the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics as a Ph.D. student in the Genetics & Genomic Program.

Matt Penna’s paper on Limch1 alternative splicing function in skeletal muscle development was published in Life Sciences Alliance.

Rong-Chi Hu was awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association starting Jan. 1, 2023.

Janel Peterson was awarded an NIH F31 predoctoral fellowship for her proposal to study the role of smooth muscle in myotonic dystrophy gastrointestinal disturbances starting Dec. 15, 2022.

Janel Peterson's extensive review titled “Clinical and molecular insights into gastrointestinal dysfunction in myotonic dystrophy types 1 & 2” was published in Int J Mol Sci 2022 Nov 26;23(23):14779.

Larissa Nitschke’s paper describing the mechanism by which loss of MBNL1 results in upregulation of MBNL2 was accepted in Nucleic Acids Research.

Matt Penna expertly defended his Ph.D. thesis and will return to medical school January 2023.

Dr. Cooper was awarded the Steinert Award for Excellence in Myotonic Dystrophy Basic Science Research at the 13th International Myotonic Dystrophy Consortium Meeting held in Osaka, Japan.

Dr. Cooper received the Diana Brown Memorial BRASS Mentor of the year award, nominated by the BRASS students.

Larissa Nitschke's abstract was selected for a talk at the 2022 Post-Transcriptional Gene Regulation Gordon Research Seminar July 2022 that will be held the day before the associated Gordon Research Conference.

Larissa Nitschke's abstract was selected for an oral presentation at the 13th International Myotonic Dystrophy Consortium Meeting held in Osaka, Japan June 2022.

Janel Peterson won the best poster award for basic research at the Department of Pathology & Immunology Baylor College of Medicine Trainee Research Symposium.

Larissa Nitschke has been awarded a two-year postdoctoral fellowship award from the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation beginning in 2022.

Matt Penna was selected for a travel award to attend the 2021 Frontiers in Myogenesis Conference in Costa Rica.

Matt Penna was awarded an NIH F31 Predoctoral Award.

Ashish Rao defended his thesis in June 2021.

Sara Johnson’s paper was accepted by Wiley Interdiscip Reviews RNA.

Ashish Rao’s paper describing our DM1 heart mouse model accepted for publication in JCI Insight.

Rong-Chi Hu was awarded a two-year predoctoral fellowship from the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation starting January 2021 through December 2022.

Ashish Rao won a poster award for his three-minute poster presentation at the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society  annual meeting (held virtually).

Janel Peterson was selected for a funding from the Genetics & Genomics T32 training grant.

Diana Cox defended her thesis and will be joining Eclipse Bioinnovations.

Diana Cox’s paper was accepted in Human Molecular Genetics.

Diana’ Cox's abstract was selected for an oral presentation at the Graduate Student Symposium, Baylor College of Medicine.

Diana Cox was selected to give a talk at the BMB/PHARM/CPSB Research Conference, a combined retreat for three BCM graduate programs.

Lydia Sharp and Diana Cox’s paper was accepted in Muscle and Nerve.

Diana Cox¹s abstract was selected for a platform presentation at the Eukaryotic mRNA Processing Meeting at Cold Spring Harbor August 2019.

Abstracts submitted by Diana Cox, Paul Pang, Ashish Rao were selected for talks at the biannual IDMC12 meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden and Paul won award for best talk.

Paul Pang won best poster award at the 2019 IMBS graduate program annual retreat.

Diana Cox was awarded a three-year predoctoral F31 NRSA fellowship from the NIH to starting in 2018 through 2021.

Diana Cox won first place for the 3MT Three Minute Thesis competition sponsored by Queensland University, February 2019.

Ginny Morriss accepted a tenure track assistant professor position at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va. starting July 2019.

Ashish Rao, Paul Pang and Diana Cox will all be presenting their submitted abstracts all selected for oral presentations at the biennial international Myotonic Dystrophy meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden June, 2019.

Paul Pang defended his Ph.D. thesis May 24, 2019 and will be moving to Stanford University for his postdoctoral training in the lab of Dr. Joseph Wu.

Ph.D. students Matt Penna (MSTP, TBMM) and Sara Johnson (MCB) join the lab in 2019.

Ashish Rao was awarded a two-year predoctoral fellowship from the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation starting January 2018 through December 2020.

Paul Pang was awarded a three-year predoctoral F31 NRSA fellowship from the NIH to start in 2018 through 2021.

Diana Cox was awarded a three-year predoctoral F31 NRSA fellowship from the NIH to starting in 2018 through 2021.

Paul Pang’s manuscript describing consequences of CRISPR-mediated redirected splicing of Scn5a in mice was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Ravi Singh accepted a tenure track assistant professor position at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee beginning October, 2018.

Paul Pang received the 2018 Claude W. Smith Award for research accomplishments from the IMBS graduate program.

Ashish Rao received a travel award to attend the 14th Annual Meeting of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society in Seattle, WA in October, 2018.

Diana Cox won a poster award (with funds for partial travel reimbursement) at the 2018 Post-transcriptional Gene Regulation Gordon Research Conference.

Ravi Singh’s paper describing the effect of Rbfox1&2 double knock out in skeletal muscle was published in Cell Reports June, 2018.

Ginny Morriss’ paper describing the DM1 mouse model was published in Human Molecular Genetics May, 2018

Diana Cox was awarded a three-year predoctoral F31 NRSA fellowship from the NIH to starting in 2018.

Paul Pang’s abstract was selected for an oral presentation at the annual retreat of the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics.

Ashish Rao’s preview was published in Molecular Cell November 2017.

Ashish Rao won the A. R. Means Award based on his GPA at Baylor College of Medicine

Ashish Rao’s abstract was selected for a three-minute flash poster presentation for the IDMC-11 meeting.

Ravi Singh’s abstract was selected for an oral presentation at the 2017 Cold Spring Harbor meeting: Eukaryotic mRNA Processing.

Kassie Manning's review has been published in January 2017 Nature Reviews Molecular and Cell Biology.

Paul Pang and Ashish Rao were each awarded travel awards for the IDMC-11 meeting in San Francisco in September 2017.

Paul Pang was selected for a second year of funding on the Molecular Physiology and Biophysics NIH training grant.

Josh Sharpe’s preview was published in Genome Biology May 2017.

Ginny Morriss review has been published in Human Genetics.

Adrienne Joseph has been accepted to UT Southwestern Medical School starting fall 2017.

Roberta Palau has been accepted to the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA starting fall 2017.

Amrita Koushik has been accepted into the MBA program at Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University starting fall 2017.

Paul Pang’s abstract was selected for an oral presentation at the Cardiovascular Research Institute 2017 annual conference.

Ginny Morriss was highlighted in the October 2016 issue of Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation Research News.

Kassie Manning won a poster award at the 12th Annual Meeting of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in September, 2016

Amy Brinegar won a poster award at the 12th Annual Meeting of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in September, 2016

Kassie Manning's review has been published online in Nature Reviews Molecular and Cell Biology November 2016 and will appear in the December 2016 issue.

Paul Pang was selected for a predoctoral slot on the Molecular Physiology and Biophysics NIH training grant.

Amy Brinegar was awarded a travel award to attend the 12th Annual Meeting of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in September, 2016

Amy Brinegar's review has been published in Brain Research.

Ginny Morriss’ poster won an award at the Frontiers in Myogenesis meeting at Asilomar in June, 2016.

Ravi Singh's abstract was selected for an oral presentation at the Frontiers in Myogenesis meeting at Asilomar in June, 2016.

Diana Cox’s preview has been published in Molecular Cell.

Diana Cox received the 2015 McLean award for highest academic achievement of a first year student.

Ginny Morriss, Ph.D. was awarded a two year postdoctoral fellowship from the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation.

Ravi Singh, Ph.D. received a four year Scientist Development Award from the National American Heart Association.

Jimena Giudice, Ph.D. accepted a tenure track faculty position at the University of North Carolina.