Congratulations!

https://beckman.illinois.edu/news/article/2025/05/30/beckman-institute-announces-2025-fellowship--award-recipients

We are excited to share that Manasi Inamdar has won a FRAXA fellowship for her dissertation work. Ali Alhaj has also ben awarded a Beckman Undergraduate Fellowship to work on his undergraduate thesis this summer. Rose Olvera will be joining the Illinois’ 2025 Mayo Clinic Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows where she will be working with Dr. Young Erben over the summer.

Walker Gauthier has a new pre-pring on Altered auditory feature discrimination in a rat model of Fragile X Syndrome availible now on bioRxiv.

He presents his findings on frequency discrimination in FXS, finding a trade-off to maintain good sensitivity at the expense of discrimination. This data covers both the auditory cortex (ACx) and the Inferior Colliculus (IC).

Welcome to the lab, Shang MA! Shang is investigating the contribution of thalamocortical network to auditory processing deficits in Fragile X Syndrome.

We welcome to the lab a whole group of new undergrads this fall!  Kat Dnovan, Aya Moller, and Mahi Patel are all MCB majors. Mahum Rauf is a biochem major. We are excited to have everyone join the lab!

As a Beckman Institute Graduate Fellow,  Guowei Zhang spent the summer working on finding a safe and audiology-friendly anesthesia.  Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) recording is a crucial technique for measuring hearing sensitivity. However, in animal ABRs require anesthesia, which can compromise both survival rates and result accuracy. 

His work focused on testing 5 different anesthesia used in MRIs, ABRs, and animal surgery. He found that Dexmedetomidine is safer than the more traditional xylazine without compromising ABR results like with isofluorane.

As a Beckman Institute Undergraduate Fellow,  Guowei Zhang spent the summer working on finding a safe and audiology-friendly anesthesia.  Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) recording is a crucial technique for measuring hearing sensitivity. However, in animal ABRs require anesthesia, which can compromise both survival rates and result accuracy. 

His work focused on testing 5 different anesthesia used in MRIs, ABRs, and animal surgery. He found that Dexmedetomidine is safer than the more traditional xylazine without compromising ABR results like with isofluorane.

Congratulations to Manasi Inamdar who capped off her 2nd year of graduate school by getting a Randi J. Hagerman Summer Scholars Research Awards from the National Fragile X Foundation. Her summer project focused on determining if auditory sensitivity differences in Fragile X Syndrom (FXS) is the result of cellular-molecular changes.

We welcome to the lab a whole group of new undergrads this summer!  Anand Vellara is a masters student and Brand Kim is majoring in MCB. Rose Olvera and Ethan Hong are both aiming for the Neuroscience major. Imad Mohiuddin joins us from the Psychology department. Burhan Nizamuddin is a major in Brain & Cognitive Sciences. We are excited to have everyone join the lab and look forward to a very productive summer!

It was a busy semester for the Auerbach Lab. On top of another successful Beckman Open House and 4 posters at this year's Undrgraduate Research Symposium, we had several major achievements by our lab members.

Laurel Hart received the C. Ladd Prosser Outstanding Achievement Award from the Molecular & Integrative Physiology for her senior thesis Auditory System Development in a Rat Model of Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Auditory. She is graduated with high distinction.

Sarika Kumar was awarded highest distinction with her thesis Investigating the Role of Cochlear Synaptopathy in Hidden Hearing Loss. 

Walker Gauthier is a 2024 Beckman Institute Graduate Fellow.

Xander Cue project on Exploring Protein Expression in the Auditory Cortex of Fragile X and TSC Rats is being funded this summer by an MCB SURF award.  

Guowei Zhang recieved a Beckman Undergraduate Fellowship this summer to look at anesthesia affects on physiological measures of hearing!

A big congratulations to everyone!