Congratulations to Aileen and Tong for passing their Ph.D. qualifying exams. They each did an excellent job in the exam and got great suggestions from their committees on how to move forward with their projects. Thanks to all who the faculty who served on their examination committees, and to Student Affairs for making it official!

Aileen was awarded a La Verne Noyes Foundation Scholarship for 2021!

Tong was selected for the San Diego Fellowship for 2020/2021 as part of the Contemporary Approaches to Cancer Cell Signaling and Communication Training Grant Program from the National Cancer Institute at UC San Diego. This fellowship will support Tong's work on discovering new functions of long non-coding RNAs in cancer cells. We appreciate the support and look forward to participating in the program events!

Bobby Kong was selected for a Dean's Undergraduate Research Award to support his work in the McHugh Lab during Summer 2021. This is an excellent award created by the Department of Physical Sciences and supported by private donations to encourage undergraduate research at UCSD. Bobby is working with Tong to identify new functions and protein interactions of non-coding RNAs in cancer cells. Unfortunately the annual poster session has been cancelled due to SARS-CoV-2 spread but Bobby is still able to practice presenting his work in our weekly Zoom group meetings. Great job Bobby!

Simone Hall was selected for support on the NIH NIGMS Molecular Biophysics Training Grant for 2021. She will present her work on non-coding RNA structure and function in shared monthly research seminars and connect with other scientists in the training program through journal clubs and the annual retreat. Excellent job Simone!

Congratulations to all of our recent graduates from the McHugh Lab. We are so appreciative of your contributions to the lab while you were at UCSD. You are all going to do amazing things and we can't wait to hear what the future brings for you!

Calvin Huang was announced as a winner of the Joseph E. Mayer Award for excellence in undergraduate research at the 15th Annual ACS-SA Research Symposium along with Amalia Villagran-Suarez from the Komives Lab! Kudos and very well-deserved!

Graduate student Adarsh Balaji was selected for a San Diego Fellowship to support his work on developing new methods to study endogenous long non-coding RNA and protein complexes. We appreciate the support of this grant and wish a big congratulations to Adarsh!

Alina Luk was awarded a Revelle Scholarship to support her work on identifying long non-coding RNA-protein interactions in cancer cells. Great work, Alina!