September 2024: Lily is a 2024-2025 Levinson Scholar!!!

  • September 18: A huge congratulations to Lily for receiving the Levinson Emerging Scholars Award!
    What a crazy summer for this incredible young scientist! Check out these links to learn more about the inspiring projects spearheaded by the 2024-2025 Levinson Scholars and WRF Fellows.

August 2024: Going away dinner for Tessa!

  • August 14th: Tessa’s going away party.
    The summer is coming to a close and Tessa is going to graduate school! As the lab’s first research scientist, your contributions were influential in getting the lab started and getting our first few papers off the ground. Thank you for everything and please come back to visit us often!

August 2024: Taking a break to play among the trees!

  • August 9th: To celebrate the end of summer the lab went to Camano Island for a little ziplining!
    A huge thank you to Heidi and Tony of Camano Island Canopy Tours NW for being the absolute best tour guides!

July 2024: Summer Research is on the way!

  • July 1st: Lily presents her work at the ISCRM Fellows Mini Symposium!
    So proud of Lily being selected as an ISCRM Summer Research Fellow! Just the beginning of a great scientific career — so stay tuned!

June 2024: Celebrating Dorothy’s Biology Graduation!

  • June 7th: It’s graduation season and this year the Kong Lab has two seniors graduating: Dorothy and Anna!
    The Lab traveled down to the Alaska Airlines Arena to see Dorothy Graduate in the Biology ceremony. What a culmination of many years of hard work. Congrats to all!!!
    —> Yes… that’s a “YAY” lei made by Alyssa!

May 2024: Dorothy celebrates her graduation at the McNair End of Year Celebration!

  • May 29th: In constant awe of the amazing McNair Scholars at the University of Washington!
    Woohoo!!! A huge congratulations to Dorothy for all the work she has accomplished as a McNair Scholar! A huge thank you to the angels who run this incredible program: Todd Sperry (Director), Quynh Tran (Program Coordinator), and Michele Cadigan (Advisor).

May 2024: Undergraduate Research Symposium

  • May 17th: Enjoying the Undergraduate Research Symposium!
    Dorothy Lartey: Finding and diagnosing bivalve transmissible neoplasia in West Coast Soft Shells
    Grace Siauw: The role of Hedgehog signaling in craniofacial development
    Anna Ostrem: Mandibular adaptations in mustelidae across diverse dietary niches
    Lily Nguyen: A new model of hydrocephalus reveals an unexpected role of Hedgehog signaling on cell adhesion

May 2024: Enjoying Spring in Seattle at the Zoo!

  • May 16th: Taking a well deserved break at the Woodland Park Zoo!
    Highlights: Red panda! Tapir! Lynx!

April 2024: Dorothy presents her work at the Gabriel E. Gallardo (GEG) Research, Student Leadership & Advocacy Symposium!!!

  • April 23rd: Dorothy presents her work for the very first time at the GEG Research Symposium!
    The title of her talk: Unraveling the mysteries of the tetraspan Mosmo

April 2024: A huge thank you to Dick and Anne Schneider for their support!!!

  • April: Kong Lab receives generous support from the Plant-Derived Research Fund!
    The Kong Lab is thrilled to explore novel plant-derived strategies for targeting Hedgehog-driven cancers.

March 2024: Northwest Developmental Biology Meeting at Friday Harbor!

  • March 13-16th: Northwest Developmental Biology Meeting
    Postering: Dorothy, Lily, Grace, and Lei (yay!) — sharing the joy of Hedgehog signaling, MOSMO, and surface receptor regulation with the world!

March 2024: Mary Gates and more papers!

  • March 12th: Both Lily and Grace are awarded the Mary Gates Research Scholarship!!!
    So proud of our undergrads! Woohoo!!! Also, a big thank you to the Mary Gates Endowment for Students for supporting undergraduate research at the University of Washington!!!

  • March 13th: Second paper in the lab accepted! Our collaboration with the Dr. Caroline Pearson (Weill Cornell Medical College) was accepted at EMBO Reports! A big congratulations to all the authors that worked on this including Lei Gao and Tessa Marks who made the FoxP1-KO mouse ESCs!

March 2024: End of a great quarter!

  • March 4th: First paper in the lab accepted!
    Our collaboration with the Ge Lab (UC Merced) and the Charron Lab (University of Montreal) was finally accepted at Nature Communications! A big congratulations to all the authors that worked on this including Tessa Marks (for her many qPCRs and detailed analysis of the Numb-KO phenotype in neural progenitor cells) and Risako Gen (for generating the Numb-KO mESCs during her rotation).

  • March 11-12th: A big congratulations to all the rotations students for a job well done!!!
    Wowza! What a quarter! Priscilla introduced gastruloids to the lab, Caleb brought his mastery of SABER to solve the mysteries of left-right patterning, and Artem initiated the first scientific collaboration between the Wills and Kong Labs. A big thank you to you all!!!

February 2024: The lab grows!

  • Alyssa Riglos joins the lab as its second graduate student!
    We are thrilled to have Alyssa Riglos join the lab from the Chemistry Department! Through generous funding from the Schneider Foundation, Alyssa will be examining the power of plant-derived compounds to overcome drug resistance in brain tumors.

  • The Kong Lab Summer High School Internship is born!

January 2024: Happy Anniversa-birthday!

  • January 2nd: Happy Lab Anniversa-birthday! The Kong Lab officially becomes one-year old! Thanks to everyone who played a part in making this crazy dream a reality. Celebrated with the Bryant, Gillespie, and Vasquez Labs!

  • January 3rd: Winter quarter begins!
    A new quarter means new rotation students! The Kong Lab is excited to welcome Caleb Kono (BPSD), Artem Yashchenko (MCB), Priscilla Boatemaa (Biochemistry), and Alyssa Riglos (Chemistry)!!!! Check out their bios on the Team page!

  • January 18th: Lei completes her first committee meeting! She made it look EPHort-less! :D!

December 2023: A month of festivities!

  • Lab breakfast! Yum Yum yum!

  • Lab pub night!
    A huge thank you to the Riley Lab for organizing such a spirited night of trivia. Team Happy Holiday Hedgehogs forever!!!
    Also… did you know that Koala’s have fingerprints very similar to humans???
    We did!

  • The cryostat arrives!
    The cryostat finally arrived in the lab and was heroically unboxed, unloaded, and wheeled in by Pragya, Zoey, and Lily!

November 2023: MicroCT trained and ready to go!

  • MicroCT-ing at Seattle Children’s:
    A huge thank you to Murat Maga at Seattle Children’s for training us on their new MicroCT system!!!

October 2023: New faces in the Kong Lab :)

  • Fall quarter begins!!!
    A new quarter means new students in the lab! We are thrilled to welcome Biochemistry rotation graduate student Zoey Litt (pictured here next to our new cryostat) and undergraduate Dorothy Lartey!

September 2023: First graduate student joins the
lab!

  • September 1st: Lei Gao joins as the lab’s very first graduate student!
    Lei’s rotation accomplishments include: setting up our RNAscope system, running the very first surface labeling experiment on neural progenitor cells, and discovering a potentially new MMM target!
    It’s been a good summer!

August 2023: New Hires!!!

  • August 1st: Research Scientist (worm handler and master genotyper) Tessa Marks joins the lab!

  • August 1st: Postdoc phenom Pragya Parashara joins the lab!

  • A big thank you to the Seattle Cancer Consortium!!!

    The Kong Lab received a New Investigator Award from the Seattle Cancer Consortium to study new strategies for targeting Hedgehog signaling in cancer. We are thrilled to get started on this new research path!

July 2023: So much summer research!

  • July 17: Thrilled to welcome Bright-UP scholar Daniella Meza!

  • July 1: High school student Dhyana Magesh makes her science debut in the lab!

June 2023: The Kong Lab celebrates the end of a great Spring Quarter.

  • June 20: The Kong Lab welcomes its second rotation student!
    We are so excited to have BPSD PhD graduate student Lei Gao in the lab!

  • June 20: The Kong Lab welcomes undergraduate Lily Nguyen!

  • June 10: Manasi graduates!

  • June 7: Risako gives an amazing rotation talk to the UW Biochemistry Department.

  • June 1: Future postdoc Dr. Pragya Srivastava visits the lab!
    Celebrating the near end of the Spring quarter. So excited to spend the day with Dr. Pragya Srivastava.

April 2023: The Kong Lab attends the Hedgehog Meeting in Spain

  • April 24-27: The Kong Lab attends its first EMBO Hedgehog signaling meeting in Spain!
    The future of Hedgehog signaling is strong. Honored to be in the presence of giants in the field and an incredible group of trainees.

March 2023: The Kong Lab goes to NW SDB!

  • March 27: The Kong Lab welcomes its first rotation student!
    A big welcome to Biochemistry PhD graduate student Risako Gen!

  • March 16-18: The Kong Lab goes to its first Northwest Society for Developmental Biology (NWSDB) Meeting!
    Celebrating new PIs — Dr. Elle Roberson and Dr. Claudia Vasquez!

  • March 3, 2023: The mouse embryonic stem cells arrive in the lab!
    A big thanks to Dr. Ganesh Pusapati for shipping them safely from Stanford!

February 2023: The Kong Lab receives R00 from NIH NIGMS!

  • February 15, 2023: R00 is awarded!
    Thanks NIH NIGMS! Extra thanks to Dr. Michael Sesma, the program officer who provided guidance from the training to independent phase in the middle of a global pandemic.

January 2023: The Kong Lab is open!

  • Jan 28, 2023: Grace Siauw joins the lab!

  • Jan 24, 2023: First Kong Lab hire! Bioengineering student Manasi Limaye joins the lab!

  • Jan 3, 2023: The Kong Lab is officially open!!!

September 2022: UW Biochemistry Retreat

  • September 13-15, 2022: First UW Biochemistry retreat!
    Enjoying lovely Leavenworth and meeting many of the graduate students in the UW Biochemistry Department!