January 23rd, 2023: Enjoying some downhill skiing/snowboarding in Utah during the Winter Conference on Brain Research. Pictured here are Rachel, Jackie, Ian, Jim, and Beth (left to right).
July 16th, 2021: Celebrating Liza’s 22nd birthday a day late! Happy birthday Liza, you rock!!
June 25th, 2021: Celebrating some hard-earned victories this month.
1) Dr. Beth Doncheck received an F32 NRSA!
2) Roger Ian Grant received a departmental NIDA T32 award (program run by Dr. Jakie McGinty).
3) The first Otis Lab paper, with Roger Ian Grant as first author, was accepted for publication in eLife! CLICK HERE
4) Jim was nominated (thanks to the hard work of Drs. Beth Doncheck and Chris Cowan) and subsequently received an MUSC Developing Scholar’s award.
May 28th, 2021: Back in action! Due to COVID-19, this is our first night out in > 1 year, 5 months. We made it through the pandemic together! We had a fully vaccinated, masks-off BBQ at Jim’s house to celebrate some hard-earned wins from the past year plus.
1) Preston Siegler was recruited to PhD programs around the country, and left the following day to begin her graduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
2) Kelsey Vollmer received an F31 NRSA, aimed to study thalamic mechanisms of opioid addiction.
3) Dr. Beth Doncheck received a SCORE grant, aimed to study sex differences in opioid addiction.
4) The Otis Lab received its first R01, from NIDA. Title: “The influence of noradrenergic circuitry on prefrontal neuronal ensemble dynamics and cue-induced heroin seeking”.
5) The Otis Lab received a pilot award from the MUSC Cocaine and Opioid Center on Addiction (COCA; program led by Dr. Peter Kalivas, core run by Dr. Jakie McGinty).
6) The Otis Lab received a pilot award from the MUSC Alcohol Research Center (ARC; program led by Dr. Howard Becker).
7) The Otis Lab received the College of Medicine Enhancement of Team Science (COMETS) award, in collaboration with Dr. Michael Scofield’s Laboratory.
July 15th, 2019: Celebrating Liza’s 20th birthday - stellar undergraduate who performs lens surgeries for in vivo 2-photon microscopy and optogenetics! Happy birthday Liza!!!
June 27th, 2019: Celebrating grants and new arrivals! Couldn’t ask for a better group of people.
February 2nd, 2019: Jim was at the Winter Conference on Brain Research in Aspen, Colorado. He gave two presentations, one on prefrontal cortical regulation of memory, and the other on thalamic regulation of cue-reward processing.
December 13th, 2018: Jim was at #ACNP2018 in Hollywood, Florida. He presented his work from Dr. Garret Stuber’s lab on a panel with Drs. Rita Fuchs, Jakie McGinty, and Fabricio Do-Monte.
November 8th, 2018: The Otis lab will be at the 2018 Research Match Making Session on Thursday, November 15 at 4:00 pm. Are you interested in joining as an undergraduate student? Are you interested in learning about the research? Come say hello.
October 31st, 2018: This year’s solo costume winner at the MUSC Department of Neuroscience Annual Halloween Party was non-other than Ms. Frizzle (aka Maribel from the Otis Lab).
September 29th, 2018: The Otis Lab is looking for students and postdocs! If you are interested send us an email.
E-mail: otis@musc.edu
September 17th, 2018: We’ve arrived! The Otis Lab is officially up and running in the Department of Neuroscience at MUSC.
April 15th, 2018: Jim is moving to Charleston in the Fall of 2018 to set up the lab!