Our seminar next Monday, April 29^th will feature Dr. Janice Evans continuing Thrust 1 research insights with a look at mammalian egg fertilization in the context of calcium mediated actin cytoskeleton rearrangement. Upcoming research seminars will feature Thrust 3 research at the multicellular to organism-wide scale with Dr. Mary Mullins (May 6^th) and Dr. Qing Deng (May 20^th). Missed a seminar? Catch up via the recordings in the All-Hands Meetings Recordings folder.

Investigators: Y4 allocation requests will be due Monday, April 29th. See your individual email 4/15 from Brent with attached letter and budget spreadsheet.

The organizing committee for the 2024 EMBRIO Summer School (July 8-10^th), led by Drs. Gardner and Magana presented a preview of the school during our last all-hands seminar. The overarching theme is “Communicating your research with novice audiences through web-based digital media.” If you missed the introduction to this year’s school, view the 10 min video and slide set on our Box account. Please RSVP asap, as the school requires initial idea generation on your part, and trainees at our Partners will also be eligible for travel funding to participate.

Calling everyone’s attention to a Skills and Strengths Sharing platform for the Institute launched by the Student Leadership Council to boost collaboration since collaboration is at the heart of EMBRIO. We have created a platform (google slide deck) where we can all share a little about who we are and what kinds of strengths we can and are willing to share with others. We kindly request that all members (student, faculty, and staff) take a few minutes to fill out a slide for themselves by April 29th. This way, we can also use this to gauge what topics would be of most value to EMBRIO for hosting workshops.

If you have not yet done so, complete your Annual Evaluation Survey with the Gardner Lab. Details are in this issue; you can contact Soumi Mukherjee with any questions (mukher42@purdue.edu ). In a separate but related study, Emily Georgopoulos, Gardner Lab, egeorgop@purdue.edu is actively recruiting EMBRIO graduate students to identify and describe the development and trajectory of interdisciplinary STEM identity among graduate student trainees in EMBRIO (participation incentives available).

Members at Purdue - for access to travel funds to present EMBRIO research at juried conferences or relevant trainings should submit our 1 pg internal travel funds application well ahead of time. For trainees to be eligible you must show regular participation in EMBRIO activities (seminars, workshops, thrust research meetings, etc).

Gearing up for journal manuscript or conference submissions? NSF requires acknowledgement of EMBRIO NSF funding for our Institute to claim the work in our reporting to NSF. Please include the following acknowledgement in your journal and conference papers and posters: “This work is based upon efforts supported by EMBRIO Institute, contract #2120200, a National Science Foundation (NSF) Biology Integration Institute.”

Brent T. Ladd, Senior Research Program Manager, EMBRIO Institute

Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University

Office: Hall for Discovery Learning and Research, Ste. 203
207 S. Martin Jischke Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907

laddb@purdue.edu