Chris Bott chosen as 2020 CDB training program Outstanding Student of the Year

Recent PhD graduate Christopher Bott has been chosen as the Cell and Developmental Biology (CDB) training program’s Outstanding Student of the Year. As such, he will the CDB Program’s nominee for the Peach and Hungerford awards that are given each year to outstanding graduate students in the SoM.  In December, 2019, Chris completed his PhD dissertation on: “The Role of the Intermediate Filament Protein Nestin in Modulating Growth Cone Morphology and Behavior”. Working in the laboratory of Bettina Winckler, Chris discovered a novel mechanism for downstream axon guidance cue signaling by modulation and scaffolding of intracellular kinase signaling by an intermediate filament protein. Chris has published three first authored publications related to this work, in Molecular Biology of the Cell, Cytoskeleton and the Journal of Neuroscience and is having a major impact on the emerging field of intermediate filaments in neuronal development.  Chris expresses his appreciation for the invaluable help he has received from his advisor, Bettina Winckler, fellow members of the Winckler lab, especially Dr. Chan Choo Yap, and the members of his PhD dissertation committee: Noelle Dwyer, Xiaowei Lu and Doug DeSimone.