Shekhar Lab at UC Berkeley
(November 2023) The group is awarded its first NSF grant together with Prof. Herwig Baier's group in Germany, "CRCNS US-German Research Proposal – The diversification of retinal ganglion cells: A combined transcriptomic, genome engineering and imaging approach." Thank you NSF!
(November 2023) Graduate student Josh Hahn wins the Blavatnik Innovation Fellowship. Congratulations Josh!
(November 2023) Karthik delivers the Oxyopia Seminar at the Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry and Vision Science, UC Berkeley!
(November 2023) The group welcomes Jafar Farhadi as our newest graduate student. Jafar will be co-advised by Prof. Kranthi Mandadapu. Welcome Jafar!
(November 2023) Salwan Butrus, Josh Hahn and Kushal Nimkar present posters at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) meeting in Washington DC!
(November 2023) Karthik delivers the Student Invited Speaker Seminar (his first) at the Department of Opthalmology and Visual Sciences at the Washington University in St. Louis. Thanks to Travis Law (ex colleague at the Broad Institute for the photo)!
(October 2023) Karthik visits his alma mater MIT to deliver the ChemE seminar! Thrilled to catch up with Berkeley Alumns and current MIT graduate students (L-R: Xiaoqi Sun, Arun Johnson, Michael Li, and Matthew Moy). Seated to Karthik's left is Shakul Pathak, who did a brief internship with the group.
(October 2023) The group presents several amazing posters at the Berkeley Neuroscience Retreat in Granlibakken Tahoe! Karthik delivers a seminar and Kushal delivers an excellent lightning talk!
On a Group Hike - Karthik overshadowed by the brilliance of others!
(October 2023) The group celebrates graduate student Joshua Fernandes successfully passing his PhD qualifying exam. Congratulations Josh!!
(September 2023) Karthik delivers an invited talk at the European Retina Meeting in the beautiful university town of Tübingen, Germany.
(September 2023) A collaborative preprint describing the truly ancient (>400 million years!) origin of the neuronal pathway that processes vision in low light conditions is on bioRxiv. Graduate student Josh Hahn is co-first author!
(September 2023) The group celebrates graduate student Kushal Nimkar successfully clearing his PhD qualifying exam. Congrats Kushal!
(September 2023) PhD student Alhad Deshpande is recognized with an Excellence in Teaching Award for Spring 2023. Alhad was a Graduate Student Instructor in CHM ENG 150: Transport Processes. Congratulations Alhad!
(August 2023) It has been a wonderful 3.5 years at Berkeley! Here's a photo from a recent group party! We were joined by famil PC: Dr. Hyeongjoo Row.
(August 2023) The group is awarded a collaborative Scialog Grant from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. Thank you!
(July 2023) PhD Student Salwan Butrus wins an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship (F31). Congrats Sal!
(May 2023) Karthik is named a 2023 McKnight Foundation Scholar and the group receives support from the McKnight Foundation. Thank you!
(May 2023) Karthik receives two awards at the College of Chemistry Commencement, 2023. One is the CBE Departmental Teaching Award for 2023. The other is the The Donald Sterling Noyce Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, which is given annually to a faculty member in the physical sciences who has demonstrated excellence in undergraduate teaching, including curriculum development.
(May 2023) Neuroscience student Dario Tommasini joins the group as a PhD student. Welcome Dario!
(April 2023) The group receives a grant from the BrightFocus Foundation. In addition, Karthik receives the Dr. Douglas H. Johnson Award from the BrightFocus foundation!
(March 2023) PREPRINT ALERT! A study three years in the making! Josh Hahn's paper on the evolution of retinal cell types is now online on bioRxiv. We generate and integrate data across 17 species to trace the evolutionary history of retinal cell types. One of the most exciting (and unexpected) findings is that midget retinal ganglion cells, the most abundant RGC type in primates descendent from cell types present in the mammalian common ancestor. Thus, they are not primate "innovations" as previously thought. We identify their orthologs in several species, including mice! Congrats Josh!
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You can read a tweetorial here!
(February 2023) A study on the non-neuronal responses to optic nerve injury to which Karthik made a minor contribution is now published in Nature Immunology.
(February 2023) Our paper on vision-dependent maturation of mouse retinal ganglion cells is now published in Neuroscience in an issue dedicated to the late Prof. Friedrich Bonhoeffer. Sal is co-first author!
(February 2023) Karthik delivers two invited talks. The first at S2C: Synapse to Circuit Seminar, UCLA, hosted by Prof. Larry Zipursky. The second at the Center for Computational Biology, Seminar at UC Berkeley.
(January 2023) Karthik delivers an invited seminar at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.
(December 2022) Karthik presents at the Allen Institute Showcase Symposium in Seattle, and delivers an online lecture at the Baylor College of Medicine Vision Symposium.
(December 2022) Karthik is selected as a member of the Allen Institute Next Generation Leaders Council.
(November 2022) CBE graduate student Matthew Po joins the research group. Welcome Matthew!
(November 2022) Karthik chairs a session and delivers a contributed lecture at the AIChE annual meeting in Phoenix, AZ.
(November 2022) The group presents posters at the annual Neuroscience retreat and at the annual Center for Computational Biology retreat!
(November 2022) Karthik speaks at Bioengineering Department Seminar at UC Berkeley.
(October 2022) Karthik shares the group's work at the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience.
(October 2022) Alhad Deshpande passes his qualifying examination. Congratulations Alhad!
(September 2022) Karthik delivers the plenary lecture at the UC Berkeley Vision Science Annual Retreat in Tahoe, CA!
(September 2022) The lab is now affiliated with the School of Vision Science and Optometry. Excited!
(August 2022) Dr. Hyeongjoo Row joins the group as a postdoc! Hyeongjoo will be co-advised by Prof. Kranthi Mandadapu. Welcome Hyeongjoo!
(August 2022) Karthik delivers invited talks in two back-to-back Gordon Research Conferences on Neural Development (Newport, RI) and Visual System Development (Southbridge, MA). Kushal, Sal and Josh Hahn join for the Visual System Development meeting with Sal and Josh presenting posters on their work. Josh is also invited last minute talk on his work on evolution and he does a fabulous job!
(July 2022) Karthik delivers an invited seminar at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies Meeting 2022 in Paris!
(July 2022) Paper unifying morphology, physiology and transcriptomics for mouse retinal ganglion cells is now published in Cell Reports!
(July 2022) The group receives funding from the Glaucoma Research Foundation. Karthik is chosen as one of four investigators in the Catalyst for a Cure 4 cohort!
(June 2022) Sal is recognized by the NIH as one of 27 Outstanding Scholars in Neuroscience (OSNAP). Congratulations Sal!
(June 2022) Karthik tag-teams with old colleage and friend Prof. Yi-Rong Peng to present an invited workshop on transcriptomics at the FASEB Retinal Neurobiology and Visual Processing meeting in Southbridge, MA.
(June 2022) Karthik gives an invited talk virtually at Neuro2022, Japan.
(May 2022) Karthik receives a CBE Departmental Teaching Award during the 2022 Commencement!
(May 2022) Karthik gives an invited short talk at the Cortical Development conference in Siciliy.
(May 2022) Karthik is selected as a 2022 Society of Hellman Fellow!
(April 2022) Karthik gives an invited virtual seminar at the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyedarbad, India.
(April 2022) Joshua Fernandes receives the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF). Congratulations Josh!
(April 2022) Alhad Deshpande receives the National Science Foundation Graduate Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRF). Congratulations Alhad!
(March 2022) Karthik contributes to a review on common mechanisms of neurodegeneration published in Molecular Neurodegeneration.
(March 2022) Karthik gave a presentation on single-cell transcriptomics of the retina to clincian scientists at Tata Memorial Center (ACTREC), Mumbai.
(March 2022) Paper on postmitotic diversification of mouse retinal ganglion cells is published in eLife.
(March 2022) Karthik is selected as a finalist for the Rita Allen Foundation scholars program, and presents his work to the Scientific Advisory Committee. UPDATE: He wasn't selected for the fellowship, but is grateful to have made it this far. Such is life!
(January 2022) Sal's paper on postnatal development of the visual cortex is published in Cell. Fantastic collaboration with the Zipursky lab at UCLA. Check out News and Views by Puiggros and Jabaudon in Nature and press release by the College of Chemistry.
(December 2021) Karthik gave a talk on neural development in the visual cortex at Genentech.
(November 2021) Sal presents at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) 2021 meeting, and wins the SfN Trainee Professional Development Award. Congratulations Sal!
(November 2021) Karthik and Josh Hahn give talks at the AIChE 2021 meeting in Boston. Karthik spoke at the session in honor of his PhD advisor Arup Chakraborty's 60th birthday.
(October 2021) Preprint on diversification of mouse retinal ganglion cells is online on biorxiv.
(October 2021) CBE graduate students Joshua Fernandes and Kushal Nimkar join the group. Welcome!
(October 2021) Karthik gives a talk at the UC Berkeley Neuroscience retreat, and Sal gives a talk at the Center for Computational Biology Retreat.
(October 2021) Sal Butrus and Josh Hahn pass their PhD qualifying exams and advance to candidacy. Congratulations!
(August 2021) Sal's preprint on experience-dependent development of the visual cortex is now online on biorxiv
(July 2021) Review on transcriptomic analysis of the vertebrate retina is now online in Annual Reviews of Vision Science. Co-authored with Prof. Josh Sanes.
(May 2021) The group meets in person for the first time to go bowling in Alameda! (L-R : Srikant, Josh, Jason, Karthik, Pedro, Sal, Alhad; PC: Zach Hoffman)
(May 2021) The group's first undergraduate researcher Srikant Sagireddy is awarded a College of Chemistry Senior Undergraduate Research Award. Srikant will be starting as a PhD student in Stanford University in Fall 2021.
(April 2021) Karthik delivers an invited talk at "Solving Neurodegeneration: Catalyst Meeting" organized by the Glaucoma Research Foundation.
(March 2021) Salwan Butrus wins the best talk award at the 2021 CCB Computational & Genomic Biology Retreat. Congrats Sal!
(March 2021) CCB graduate student Prakruthi Burra rotates with us! Welcome Prakruthi!
(February 2021) Group hike in the Berkeley fire trails! (L-R: Sal, Jason, Karthik, Josh)
(February 2021) Paper on zebrafish retinal ganglion cells is published in Neuron. Terrific collaboration with Herwig Baier's group! Featured by Vision Research as one of the highlights of the year.
(December 2020) Karthik speaks about the group's recent work at the QB3 Science lunch.
(November 2020) Karthik delivers an invited lecture at the Opthalmology Grand Rounds at Stanford Byers Eye Institute.
(November 2020) Both Sal and Josh present virtual posters at the AIChE meeting 2020.
(November 2020) CBE graduate students Alhad Deshpande and Pedro Guimares join the lab. Both Alhad and Pedro will be co-advised by Prof. Kranthi Mandadapu
(October 2020) Undergraduate researchers Zaid Ahmad (Mathematics and Statistics) and Jason Hou (CBE) join the group!
(September 2020) Karthik delivers an invited lecture at a Society for Neuroscience virtual session on "Development and Regeneration in Neural Circuits (organizers: Profs. Marla Feller and Zhigang He)"
(July 2020) Preprint on Zebrafish retinal ganglion cells is out on biorxiv. Josh contributed all the computational work on this project!
(July 2020) We are now supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to participate in efforts to map an atlas of the healthy human eye!
(June 2020) Papers describing cell atlases of the human retina and the aqueous humor outflow pathways in the eye have been published in Scientific Reports and PNAS. These were a collaboration with the Sanes lab.
(Mar 2020) CBE seniors Shawn Koong and Srikant Sagireddy join the group as undergraduate reseachers!
(Jan 2020) Ramen and beer at Ippudo, Berkeley! (L-R: Josh, Sal, Karthik, Jeff, Jesse)
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(Jan 2020) MCB student Jesse Dunnack will be rotating with us. Welcome Jesse!
(Jan 2020) Karthik is co-teaching a new CBE elective on statistics and machine learning for chemical engineers with Prof. Ali Mesbah. Check out the syllabus here
(Jan 2020) The lab opens for business in Stanley Hall!
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(Dec 2019) Karthik will be giving an invited talk at the ASCB workshop on "Recent Advances in Single-Cell Transcriptomics" on 12/10/2019 in Washington, D. C.
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(Oct 2019) CBE graduate students Salwan Butrus and Joshua Hahn join the lab. Welcome Sal and Josh!
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