News
John Lukens receives 2024 Early Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences
Congrats to John Lukens, PhD, who was honored by the UVA Medical Alumni Association as the recipient of its 2024 Early Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences! Visit this link to…Tajie Harris, PhD, Awarded $2.6 Million to Study How the Immune System Benefits the Brain
Congrats to Tajie Harris, BIG Center director, who was awarded a five-year $2.6 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, titled “Caspase-8 mediated control of CNS…
May 2024 - Congratulations to John Lukens, PhD, who has been appointed as the inaugural Director of the University of Virginia’s Harrison Family Translational Research Center in Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative…
Tajie Harris Featured in The New York Times and Time Discussing Brain Parasites
May 2024 - BIG Center Director Tajie Harris, PhD, was recently featured in The New York Times and Time discussing the effects of parasites on the human brain. Visit this link for…New Insights Into Seizures Advance Efforts to Develop Better Treatments
May 2023- Congratulations to Dr. Ukpong B. Eyo, PhD, and Edward Perez-Reyes, PhD, for publishing their paper on the advancement of seizure treatments! Research from the labs of UVA’s Ukpong…SOM Earns Top Honors in U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate School Rankings
May 2023- The University of Virginia School of Medicine has earned a top national ranking for its biomedical research in U.S. News & World Report’s 2023-2024 Best Graduate Schools guide.…
May 2023 – Congratulations to Dr. Alban Gaultier for winning the 2022 Robert J. Kadner Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching! This award was established in honor of Robert J. Kadner,…
April 2023- Congratulations to Jaeda Coutinho-Budd for winning the Jordi Folch-Pi Award! The Jordi Folch-Pi Award is given to an outstanding young investigator who has demonstrated a high level of…
April 2023- Congratulations to Dr. Hannah Ennerfelt for being named the Outstanding Graduate Student in Neuroscience this year, as well as winning the Peach Outstanding Graduate Student Award! Each year,…
April 2023- Dr. Michael Kovacs, from Tajie Harris’s laboratory, has been selected as the 2023 MIC Outstanding Student. Mike will also represent the MIC Graduate Program as our nominee for…
March 2023- The Annual Graduate Biosciences Society (GBS) Symposium was held on Friday, March 17, 2023 in McKim Hall. The day was filled with terrific presentations from the Outstanding Student…
September 2021 – Congratulations to Drs. Kanchan Bisht and Ukpong Eyo for publishing their research related to microglia, vasculature, and PANX1-P2RY12 in Nature Communications! See the paper at and…
Congratulations to Kate Still and the Harris lab for publishing their recent findings! Click here to read the full article.
Concussion Discovery Reveals Dire Unknown Effect of Even Mild Brain Injuries
Illustration by Alexandra Angelich, University Communications September 2020 - Even mild concussions cause severe and long-lasting impairments in the brain’s ability to clean itself of toxins, and this may seed it…
July 2020 - More than 30 million Americans are infected with a brain parasite spread by cats and contaminated meat, but most will never show symptoms. A new discovery from…