Summer 2025
Welcome Mónica Cortés Soto (left), from University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez, who joins the lab as Summer Intern from SNIP.
We also welcome a new graduate student, Justin Toller (right), who starts his Masters in Neuroscience degree in the Fall.
December 2024
New preprint alert!!! Link below.
Behavioral and metabolic effects of extended hippocampal overexpression of the myokine Irisin in an Alzheimer’s Disease mouse model
Jacob A. Borukhin, Erin Kang, Rodrigo F. Tomas, Caoyuanhui Wang, Arielle Trotz, Adrian Requejo, Jeremy C McIntyre, and Karina Alviña.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.16.628747v1
May 2024
Summer is here and two SNIP trainees join the lab!
Welcome Favour Ebiala (University of Miami) and Aura Valter-Franco (Kennesaw State).
January 2024
Welcome Dr. Caoyuanhui (Jennifer) Wang, a newly minted Ph.D. that joins the lab as Postdoctoral Fellow.
Dr Wang received her Ph.D. Degree from Texas Tech University.
August 2023
BIG NEWS!!! Our lab has a new home! We just moved to the University of Florida McKnight Brain Institute (MBI). More information about the MBI can be found here https://mbi.ufl.edu/
July 2023
The first MS in Neuroscience student from the lab graduates! Congratulations Jonah!!!
June 2023
SNIP 2023 is in full swing and we are happy to welcome Lorena Mesquita Ragonesi (left), junior student from Nova Southeastern University (NSU). We also welcomed Luis Rendon Orozco (right) Biomedical Engineering student from University CES in Bogota (Colombia), who joined our lab for the summer as part of the PIENSA program partnership.
More information here https://neuroscience.ufl.edu/training/https-neuroscience-ufl-edu-training-summer-neuroscience-internship-program/summer-neuroscience-internship-program/#new_tab
February 2023
Welcome to our newest lab member and first Postdoctoral Fellow! Dr. Marcela Cuestas Torres is joining us after completing her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the University of the Andes in Colombia.
June 2022
Our Summer Neuroscience Internship program (SNIP) 2022 starts again! We have two students joining, our own Sophia Moret (UF undergrad, left) and a new lab member Jill Murray (right) from The College of Wooster (OH) https://wooster.edu/
March 2022
ANOTHER MAJOR MILESTONE!
The second PhD student of the lab graduates!!! CONGRATULATIONS DR Kazi Farhana Afroz!!!
June 2021
MAJOR MILESTONE FOR THE LAB!
Mohammad Jodeiri Farshbaf graduates and becomes the 1st PhD student to defend. CONGRATULATIONS DR JODEIRI FARSHBAF
Welcome Malika Allen, our Summer Neuroscience Internship Program (SNIP) student! Malika will be with us for the whole summer working on chronic stress and hippocampal function
April 2021
Congratulations to Farhana and Mohammad on getting two new publications accepted!!!
The first is a review in Frontiers of Aging Neuroscience, written by Mohammad Jodeiri Farshbaf and Karina Alviña and titled “Multiple roles in neuroprotection by the exercise derived myokine Irisin“.
Read it here
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2021.649929
The second paper is Farhana’s first research manuscript with the help of a fantastic team of undergraduate researchers, The title is “Altered gut microbiome and autism like behavior are associated with parental high salt diet in male mice“, and will be coming out in Scientific Reports.
Read it here!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-87678-x
Again, congratulations Farhana and Mohammad!!!!
March 2021
It is official!! Rachel Gunraj and Rodrigo Tomas, graduate students from the Biomedical Sciences PhD program at UF, join the Alviña lab!!!!
Welcome to the lab Rachel and Rodrigo!!!
January 2021
Happy new year and happy new grant!!!!
We received a Pilot Grant from the Department of Health of the state of Florida. Lots of exciting data will be coming out soon.
November 2020
Congratulations to Mohammad for winning 1st place in the 3MT (3minute thesis) competition at Texas Tech.
Mohammad Jodeiri Farshbaf M.S. (Ph.D. candidate)
Read about it here
June 2020
Congratulations to our grad students Farhana, Mohammad and Hunter who successfully passed their qualifying exams and got approval for their thesis projects this spring 2020. Great job! you guys are truly amazing!
March 2020
Our first research paper from the lab has been accepted for publication!!! Congratulations to Mohammad and his team of undergrads Sagufta, Dominica, Amit (MS student), Danny and Nabeela, for this major accomplishment. We are beyond proud!!!
Hippocampal injection of the exercise-induced myokine irisin suppresses acute stress-induced neurobehavioral impairment in a sex-dependent manner.
Jodeiri Farshbaf, M., Garasia, S., Moussoki, D. P. K., Mondal, A. K., Cherkowsky, D., Manal, N., & Alviña, K.
Read it here https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-34330-001
January 2020:
NEW YEAR BIG NEWS! WE MOVED!!! OUR LAB IS NOW PART OF THE DEPARTMENT OF NEUROSCIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN GAINESVILLE. https://neuroscience.ufl.edu/
MORE INFO COMING SOON!
May 2019:
The lab says good bye to several undergraduate students that graduated or moved on to other endeavors! Thank you for your time and dedication Varsha Misra and Kajal Parikh (graduates) and Bridgette Kerr.
Lab outing to celebrate
Congratulations Mohammad for your 1st place award at the TTU Obesity Cluster Research Annual meeting.
April 2019: TTU Undergraduate Research Conference
Great lab representation, congratulations (top to bottom) Varsha, Kajal, Noah, Alyssa, Sagufta, Fabiola, and Dominica for successfully presenting your posters.
March 2019: Farhana presented at the TTU Annual Graduate student poster competition
January 2019: New year, new lab member! Welcome new PhD student Amit Kumar Mondal
August 2018: Clark Scholars symposium, Jack Christian presented his summer project. He totally nailed it!
Some snapshots of Jack at work:
July 2018: lab summer gathering!
June 2018: lots of new peeps join the lab!
- Kevin Cruz Colon (undergrad from the University of Puerto Rico) and Jack Christian (Clark Scholar, High School senior from Sacramento, CA) will be spending most of the summer with us!
- Kajal Parikh, Varsha Misra, Bridgette Kerr, Fabiola Arzate, Noel Estrada and Alex Soto (all undergrads from TTU) will start working with us and will stay for the coming semesters!
- Danton Shoemaker leaves and will be continuing his Ph.D. work with Dr. Jim Carr
February 2018 : New grad students join the lab!
Welcome Farhana, Mohammad, Hunter and Danton! (see People page for photos!), more details soon 🙂
Baby steps!
Our lab is starting to take form 🙂 lots of boxes being delivered and the first electrophysiology rig is almost completed.
Welcome to the Alviña lab 