Lab News 2025

February 12, 2025

Elaine Lai, Abbey Keegan, Hung Doan, Fiona Lau, and Rongruo Zhang present at the Stem Cell Research Center Symposium. Abbey Keegan is recognized with a poster award.

March 19, 2025

Asuka Eguchi presents on modeling cardiac arrhythmias in Spinal and Bulbar Muscular Atrophy at the Muscular Dystrophy Association Clinical & Scientific Conference. At the MDA’s 75th Celebration, she gets her portrait done.

April 8, 2025

Elaine Lai and Abbey Keegan receive Honorable Mention for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

April 10, 2025

Abbey Keegan gives a talk at the MAXIMUS T32 Retreat for muscle biology. Rongruo Zhang, Elaine Lai, Fiona Lau, and Hung Doan present posters.

April 24, 2025

The lab celebrates recent accomplishments at Crystal Cove Beach.

May 6, 2025

Elaine Lai (PhD student, Eguchi lab) and Lan Weiss, MD, PhD (Project Scientist, Kimonis lab) have been awarded the MAXIMUS Seed Grant on “Optimizing Muscle-Specific Promoters in iPSC-Derived Myotubes for VCP Disease Gene Therapy.” This seed grant provides $5,000 for a collaborative project between two labs. The goal of this study is to compare various promoters currently in preclinical and clinical trials in human iPSC-myotubes bearing a missense mutation in Valosin-Containing Protein (VCP). While these selected promoters have shown promising results in mouse models, their efficacy in human cells with disease-causing mutations are unknown. This collaborative project will generate data that will guide the design of gene therapies for VCP.