Recent News

04-11-2024 Brandy Routh won the Empower Your Pitch competition here at UT! She will be leaving for DC in June to compete against other speakers from Johns Hopkins and Columbia. Go get ‘em, Brandy!

04-09-2024 Dr. Louise Ince and our undergraduate researcher Leanna Doan both won 1st place posters at Pharmacy Day! Congrats you two, keep up the good work!

01-01-2024 Kate Davis was accepted to the Archer Fellowship for the summer of 2024! Congratulations Kate!

11-15-2023 CONFERENCE The Fonken lab attended the Society for Neuroscience 2023 conference in Washington, D.C., where Brandy gave a riveting talk! Congratulations to Kate and Brandy for winning awards!

06-12-2023 CONFERENCE The Fonken lab at the PsychoNeuroImmunology Research Society 2023 conference in Boulder, CO. Congratulations to Kate for winning the Trainee Scholar Travel Award!

04-05-2022 Congratulations to Sriya Gullapalli for being awarded the Summer 2023 TIDES Advanced Undergraduate Research Fellowship!

05-05-23 HAPPY GRADUATION Our very first PhD students, Drs. Kevin Sanchez and Rachel Chen graduated today! We are proud of you both and wish you the best in your future endeavors!

4-11-23 The Fonken lab submitted 4 abstract entries at the “Pharmacy Research Excellence Day” organized by the College of Pharmacy at UT Austin. Congratulations to all the participants for a great job! Shout-out to SUPER MENTOR, Dr. Louise Ince, for her undergraduate mentees receiving the following awards:

Krishi Manem won the abstract award and in the Undergraduate Category for his abstract titled, “Implications of time-restricted feeding on neuroinflammation and behavioral patterns in aged mice.”
Anusha Dubak won 1st place in the Undergraduate Category for her poster titled, “Impact of circadian disruption in microglia on neuroinflammatory responses.”

03-28-23 Congratulations to Brandy Routh for receiving the highly competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship!

03-20-23 Kevin Sanchez successfully defended his dissertation thesis. HUGE congratulations, Dr. Sanchez!

3-8-2023 Rachel Chen successfully defended her dissertation thesis. HUGE congratulations, Dr. Chen!

03-08-2023 Dr. Louise Ince gave a talk at Harvard University about her current work.

12-10-2022 Brandy Routh and Dr. Louise Ince won awards for their posters presented at the Texas Society for Circadian Biology and Medicine meeting in Houston.

11-12-2022 CONFERENCE The Fonken lab at the Society of Neuroscience (SfN) 2022 conference in San Diego, CA.

**10-03-2022** Pumpkin carvings at Brandy's house.

07-29-2022 Taylor West completed her lab placement as part of the inaugural College of Pharmacy LEADER program. Taylor worked with Dr. Louise Ince over the summer to get a taste of life in the lab prior to applying for graduate programs in Pharmacy. Applications for the next LEADER Program will open in Spring 2023.

06-24-2022 Dr. Louise Ince presented at the Society for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms meeting in Manchester, UK.

05-30-2022 Congratulations to our post-doctoral fellow Jeff Darling for joining Life Molecular Imaging as a Medical Science Liaison working in Neuroscience, Neuroimmunology, and Neuroinflammation.

05-18-2022 The Fonken lab had a great time talking chronobiology at the annual Society for Research on Biological Rhythms conference in Amelia Island, Florida!

04-25-2022 Congratulations to our fantastic undergraduate research assistants on their acceptance to medical school this Fall 2022!

Sienna Wu will be attending McGovern Medical School in Houston, TX. She is interested in specializing in either neurology, neurosurgery, OB-GYN or emergency medicine.
Aidan Weitzner will be attending John Hopkins School of Medicine. She is interested in applying the multitude of skills she has obtained during her time in Fonken lab to explore immunology research with a clinical emphasis on neurology and otolaryngology; particularly sex differences of the vestibular system, neuroimmunology, and stroke treatment outcomes.
Akshay Prabhakar will be attending UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, TX. He looks forward to exploring a career in community health and pursuing research focused on human body systems.

04-12-2022 The Fonken lab submitted 7 abstract entries at the “Pharmacy Research Excellence Day” organized by the College of Pharmacy at UT Austin held on April 12, 2021. Congratulations to all the participants for a great job!

Sriya Gullapalli won 1st place in the Undergraduate Category for her abstract titled, “Maternal immune activation dysregulation of fetal neurodevelopment and relevance to neurodevelopmental disorders.”

04-05-2022 Congratulations to Reha Kakkar and Krishi Manem for being awarded the Summer 2022 TIDES Advanced Undergraduate Research Fellowship!

01-05-2022 Congratulations to Kevin Sanchez for publishing his first first-author paper in Scientific Reports! Their results suggest that aging and M. vaccae immunization had the greatest effect on inducing microglia morphological alterations in the amygdala and hippocampus of F344 x BN rats:

Sanchez, K., Darling, J. S., Kakkar, R., Wu, S. L., Zentay, A., Lowry, C. A., & Fonken, L. K. (2022). Mycobacterium vaccae immunization in rats ameliorates features of age-associated microglia activation in the amygdala and hippocampus. Scientific reports, 12(1), 2165. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05275-y

01-12-2022 Congratulations to Kevin Sanchez for receiving a prestigious NIH-F31 diversity award for his project entitled, “Consequences of Estrogen Deficiency on Neuroinflammation and Cognitive Impairments.”

12-01-2021 Dr. Louise Ince attended the Bright Focus Alzheimer's Fast Track immersive workshop, and won the Mock Grant Proposal as part of team “Therapeutic Strategies”! Congratulations, Dr. Ince!

10-14-2021 Kate Davis and Kevin Sanchez were awarded the Trainee Professional Development Award for the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) 2021 conference. They will present their posters titled, “A two-hit model of early immune activation in rats reveals sex-dependent alterations in anxiety and sociability behaviors,” and “Estrogen deficiency in mice sensitizes hippocampal microglia to an immune challenge and alters behaviors,” respectively. Congratulations on the amazing work!

01-10-2021 PUBLICATION

Gaudet, A. D., Fonken, L. K., Ayala, M. T., Maier, S. F., & Watkins, L. R. (2021). Aging and miR-155 in mice influence survival and neuropathic pain after spinal cord injury. Brain, behavior, and immunity, 97, 365–370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2021.07.003

08-2021 PUBLICATION

Chen, R., Weitzner, A. S., McKennon, L. A., & Fonken, L. K. (2021). Light at night during development in mice has modest effects on adulthood behavior and neuroimmune activation. Behavioural brain research, 405, 113171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2021.113171

05-27-2021 Kevin Sanchez was awarded the Dr. Elaine S. Waller Graduate Endowment Scholarship by the College of Pharmacy for the 2021-2022 academic year. As a part of the fellowship, Kevin will be working on a project investigating how timing of ovariectomy affects age-related neuroinflammation and cognitive impairments. Congratulations, Kevin!

05-26-2021 Rachel Chen was awarded the Johnson and Johnson Endowed Graduate Fellowship in Pharmacy for the 2021-2022 academic year. As part of the fellowship, Rachel will be working on her project titled, “Modeling downsides of the college lifestyle: understanding the consequences of circadian disruption and binge alcohol on mood-related behavior.” Congratulations, Rachel!

04-14-2021 The Fonken lab submitted 6 abstract entries and won 3 awards at the “Pharmacy Research Excellence Day” organized by the College of Pharmacy at UT Austin held on April 14, 2021.

Jeff Darling won the 3MPP (3-minute poster presentation) award in the Postdoctoral Category for his abstract titled, “Age-related sex differences in memory response following a lipopolysaccharide-induced immune challenge. “

Kevin Sanchez won the 3MPP award in the Graduate Student Category for his abstract titled, “Estrogen deficiency exacerbates neuroinflammation, raising vulnerability to affective disorders.”
Reha Kakkar won the 3MPP award in the Undergraduate Category for her abstract titled, “Hippocampal microglia are vulnerable to aging-induced pro[1]inflammatory morphological changes that are partly alleviated by M. Vaccae immunization.”

Congratulations to all the participants for a great job!

03-22-2021 : Kate Davis was awarded the National Science Foundations’s Graduate Research Fellowship, a three-year fellowship that helps support promising graduate students in STEM. For the fellowship, Kate will study the effects of endocrine disruptors on the neuroimmune function and behavior. Congratulations, Kate!

02-04-2021 PUBLICATION Rachel Chen published her first paper in Behavioral Brain Research: