Anna La Torre grew up in Campdevanol, a small village quite close
to the Pyrenees in Catalonia. She
attended the University of Barcelona where she received a degree
in Biology, and was introduced to the world of Developmental
Neurobiology as an undergrad by virtue of Dr. Jesus M. Ureña’s
generous mentoring at the Institute for Research in
Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona). She joined the Neurobiology
Ph.D. program at the University of Barcelona under the
co-mentorship of Dr. Ureña and Dr.
Jisoo was born in Korea but she also calls So-Cal home. She
did her postdoctoral work in Sergi Simo’s lab working on the
role of CRL5 and Arl4 in hippocampal morphogenesis. However, her
best (and cutest) development project is her son, Robin. She is
the head of the Party Planning Committee and her baking skills
are quite epic.
Adam Miltner is from the center of the US–Kansas–and received
his bachelors degree from the University of Kansas. He moved to
Northern California for graduate school but still anticipates
watching the Jayhawks dominate the rest of the Big
12 conference annually in basketball, not football, of
course. Adam is interested in using Stem Cells to generate
Retinal Ganglion Cells in vitro to move cell replacement
therapies a bit closer to clinical applications. He writes the
best final sentences for scientific papers (this one is clearly
not his).
Keiko Hino came from Osaka, Japan and has a bachelor degree in
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from UC Davis. She developed
an interest in neuronal development through her experience
in the lab but her magic hands for research are inbuilt. Outside
of work, she likes to watch movies and play sports.
Simran was born in India and moved to Sacramento at the age of
ten. She received her bachelor’s degree in Neurobiology,
Physiology, and Behavior (NPB) from University of California,
Davis. Since joining the lab as an undergraduate, Simran has
assisted on projects to understand the role of miRNAs in neuronal
development. In addition to the many joys of research, Simran
enjoys reading, hiking, and watching TV. In the very near future,
some of the top-notch medical school programs will be fighting to
recruit her.
Yesica was born in a small town in Jalisco, Mexico and moved to
SoCal when she was 10. She completed a BS in Cell Molecular and
Developmental Biology at the University of California, Riverside,
in March 2018. Prior to joining the La Torre Lab, she worked as a
lab technician at UCR and studied the biogenesis of small RNAs
in C.elegans. Yesica’s research interests include
cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration and the
genetic basis of disease. Outside of lab she enjoys playing video
games and trying new foods.
