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Lab Timeline
Key moments and memories in Stobart Lab history.
Links to Years:
2016
Anchor 1
July 2016: Dr. Stobart arrives and begins the arduous process of cleaning out the research lab.
September 2016: Stobart Lab receives IBC approval to begin research. Problem is...no students.
October 2016: Dr. Stobart receives a travel award to the 10th International Respiratory Syncytial Virus Symposium in San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina and presents a poster titled "A live-attenuated RSV vaccine expressing increased pre-fusion F exhibits enhanced viral thermal stability and immunogenicity."
Back home, recruiting of students for the lab begins.
Dr. Stobart being a tourist in Patagonia (left) and taking a picture with his postdoctoral mentor, Marty Moore (right)
November 2016: Alyssa Abdelnour ('20), Darby DeFord ('19), Megan Franke ('20), Emily Hasik ('20), Benjamin Nick ('20), and Jenna Nosek ('20) join the lab.
December 2016: Darby sends this picture to explain her absence from lab. Definitely approved...early proof of having selected a great starting team.
Darby chilling with Pete Rose
2017
Anchor 2
January 2017: Jenna, Ben, Megan, and Emily (left to right) taking a quick lab photo during the Butler University Dance Marathon philanthropy drive to support Riley Children's Hospital.
March 2017: Darby is selected to participate over the summer in the Butler Summer Institute (BSI) program to do research on campus.
April 2017: Megan and Ben exploring options to best use one of our lab carts and get some extra sleep between classes.
May 2017: We say goodbye to Alyssa who will be transferring to Michigan State University at the end of the school year and welcome Caitlin Haas ('20) to the lab (top right)
Of course, students made their love of finals week known by barricading Dr. Stobart's office door (left)
Shortly after the end of the semester...Alyssa, Megan, and Emily pose for a lab picture from Costa Rica (bottom right).
June 2017: The first lab summer begins. Darby begins in the Butler Summer Institute (BSI) and Jenna continues work as a Research Assistant. Both work on RSV stability. Katelyn Castiglia ('19) volunteers over the summer and joins the lab.
Emily and Dr. Stobart attend and present posters at the American Society of Virology meeting in Madison, WI (left).
The lab celebrates Dr. Stobart's birthday. Even the CO2 tanks, water tanks, and thermal cycler get involved (right).
Darby, Jenna, and Dr. Stobart join Dr. Phil Villani's Botany summer botany class on trips to Indiana Dunes State Park and Turkey Run State Park (left).
July 2017: The lab begins July by helping our local Canadian Dr. Sean Berthrong celebrate Canada Day the right way (right).
Darby concludes BSI with a Poster Presentation (left) and is selected for the "Top Poster Presenter" award for BSI Summer 2017.
August 2017: The last month of the summer begins with the arrival of a new sofa for relaxing outside of the lab on loan thanks to Jenna and family.
Katelyn, Darby, Jenna, and Dr. Stobart make the trip to Nashville for a joint lab meeting with the Denison laboratory at Vanderbilt University, a chance to learn more about medical programs there, and a nice break before Fall classes start back up.
With the return of students to campus, two new students join the lab: Sean Callahan ('20) and Mansi Pandya ('20).
September / October 2017: The lab begins research on MHV and explores a new direction (antimicrobial peptides) with RSV (Near Right: Caitlin preparing plates for antimicrobial peptide inactivation assays).
Although exciting research continues on, classes take their toll, especially on the sophomores in the lab experiencing the joys of organic chemistry and ecology and evolution for the first time (Far Right: Ben catching some z's at the lab desk).
December 2017: Jenna and Dr. Stobart publish the lab's first scientific publication (in collaboration with Marty Moore at Emory University), a review article on the future of a rhinovirus vaccine in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.
2018
Anchor 3
January 2018: The lab begins the year right...we were happy to welcome two new first-year students to the lab: Karina Latsko ('21) and Nathan Junod ('21).
And then, the year didn't start alright...we experience a battery sensor probe for the department's liquid nitrogen tank going for a dip at -320 F and our poor 12-channel pipettor (left) experiencing two unfortunate peg accidents. Incidents by those who shall not be named.
But then, all was fine once more, Katelyn started the year with perhaps the best start of all being selected for a summer internship in Singapore. Then, within a day, found out that she had been selected to give an oral presentation at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). Lastly, a week later her scientific review article (written in collaboration with Marty Moore at Emory University) on polyvalent vaccines was accepted for publication in PLoS Pathogens (in press).
March 2018: Mansi and Caitlin present poster presentations (right) on the MHV nsp5 IDL and inactivation of RSV with antimicrobial peptides stories, respectively, at the Indiana Academy of Sciences meeting in Indianapolis.
Darby and Jenna have both been selected to present oral presentations at the American Society of Virology meeting in July.
February 2018: Katelyn receives a spotlight in the Butler College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in a report on her review article and research (left).
April 2018: The lab poses for a picture (left) together before meetings and presentations begin.
Starting Far Right (in clockwise order): Emily Hasik, Jenna Nosek, Megan Franke, Caitlin Haas, Katelyn Castiglia, Darby DeFord, Dr. Stobart, Nathan Junod, Benjamin Nick, Sean Callahan, Karina Latsko, and Mansi Pandya.
Katelyn and Dr. Stobart publish the lab's second scientific publication (in collaboration with Marty Moore at Emory University), a review article on the polyvalent vaccine preparations in PLoS Pathogens.
Katelyn presented an oral presentation on our lab's work on RSV stability at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Oklahoma City, OK
The lab was well represented at the Butler Undergraduate Research Conference (URC) with Darby (top, right), Sean (middle, right), and Caitlin (bottom, right) all giving oral presentations of their work in the lab.
Darby, Katelyn, Sean, Jenna, and Dr. Stobart tried their hand at the most difficult escape room in Fishers and fail miserably, before joining the Hauck and Villani labs for food and games at Quaker Park in Westfield.
May 2018: May begins with what is now seeming to become a tradition during finals week...barricade Dr. Stobart's office door... A little more organized than May 2017's attempt.
Summer research begins with Sean and Megan participating in the Butler Summer Institute and Ben working in the lab as a paid research assistant for the summer.
June 2018: Jenna begins research in a summer research program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in the laboratory of Dr. John Williams, a prominent hMPV virologist fostering a new collaboration and work on a new virus in the lab.
MHV poses new challenges as we try to begin mutant virus recovery efforts in the lab. The lab, however, was well represented at the annual BSI duck drop (right) with Megan's team supported by a strong performance by Dr. Berthrong, taking home the gold.
Maham Nadeem ('19) joins the lab for her senior year to complete an honors thesis on MHV stability.
August 2018: Summer wraps up. Katelyn returns from Singapore to start up a little late summer research on antimicrobial peptides. Our -80C freezer, Winterfell, finally is thawed and we assembled a "cool" wall with our leftover tip boxes. Here's hoping for no dragons...
Time for another semester to begin. Recruiting at the start of the year poster session with our two project areas (MHV and RSV). Shoutout to Caitlin and Sean for presenting their work (bottom right).
July 2018: The Butler Summer Institute concludes with a final poster presentation. Megan (top left) and Sean (bottom left) shared their summer project highlights with their peers and Butler faculty.
Darby, Jenna, and Dr. Stobart attend the American Society of Virology Annual Meeting at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD (left).
Darby and Jenna both presented great scientific talks at the meeting on RSV stability, a major accomplishment at a meeting dominated by grad students, post-docs, and older scientists.
We also found time to explore the Inner Harbor (left) and Fell's Landing in Baltimore between sessions. Jenna pictured with a chocolate milk at the Blue Bird Cafe (far left).
Jenna concluded her Summer Research Experience at Pitt and returned to Butler with a list of hMPV ideas (pictured at left with one of her postdoc mentors, Yu, at the concluding poster session).
Fall 2018: Amidst the challenges of most of the lab taking OChem and Biochem, we are quite productive. This was also a great time for reading tea leaves...(images of Groot and a Turkey at left).
November 2018: Dr. Stobart was the co-organizer (along with Drs. Marty Moore and Natasha Halasa - pictured bottom left) of the 11th International Respiratory Syncytial Virus Symposium (RSV 2018) held in Asheville, NC (Oct 31 - Nov 4) at the Grove Park Inn (top left).
The meeting was attended by over 500 members of the RSV community, including the entire international society committee (several pictured bottom right).
http://rsvsymposium.com/
December 2018: The Stobart Lab gets together at Dr. Stobart's new house (left) before finals week and to welcome two new members to the lab: Molly Roe ('22) and Andrew Jacob ('22).
2019
Anchor 4
January / February 2019: 2019 began with a reorganization of projects to accommodate new students in the lab and planning for graduates in May. Darby is offered and accepted into a gap year research assistant position at Washington University in St. Louis.
March 2019: Four students presented at the Indiana Academy of Sciences meeting held at the Marriott downtown in Indy - 3 talks (Darby, Sean, and Nathan) and 1 poster (Jenna). Images are shown at the left (starting top left and clockwise - Sean, Darby, Jenna, and Nathan)
April 2019: Our lab was featured as the cover story ("Exploring the Unanswered") in the Spring 2019 issue of Butler Magazine.
The story focused on the value of undergraduate research at Butler and showcased our work on RSV stability. Several research students were prominently featured in this magazine article (right)
Maham retires from the lab and we welcome Sydney Kastelitz ('22), who joins Emily on the MHV stability project.
5 students from the lab presented talks of their research at the Butler Undergraduate Research Conference - Karina, Megan, Kate, Jenna, and Mansi (shown in clockwise order from top).
Karina is presenting while in recovering mode after an ACL repair from a Butler Lacrosse injury!
End of Academic Year 2019: The lab poses (top left) at the end of the Spring 2019 term before Darby and Kate graduated in May (Kate, bottom left).
Shown (starting back left - clockwise): Ben, Caitlin, Nathan, Sydney, Sean, Nathan, Dr. S, Mansi, Kate, Molly, Megan, Darby, Emily, and Jenna)
Kate was selected by the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences for the Achievements in Research in the Health Sciences Award (bottom right)
May 2019: 3 students begin work for the summer in the lab. Ben and Nathan begin BSI and Mansi joins as a research assistant for the summer.
The lab has TWO separate manuscripts accepted for publication:
An RSV review article (top right) is published in Pathogens. This is our lab's 3rd published manuscript. Mansi and Sean are co-authors on this manuscript which reviews RSV strains.
Our lab's first primary research article (bottom right) is accepted for publication in the Journal of General Virology. There are 10 lab undergraduate authors in published order: Darby, Jenna, Kate, Emily, Megan, Ben, Alyssa, Caitlin, Nathan, and Karina.
Two of our lab's research students were selected to serve as Indy 500 Princesses (among 33 statewide): Darby and Jenna (at right)
June 2019: While, Ben, Nathan, and Mansi are busy on the homefront, two lab students begin research representing Butler on the outside...
Jenna is doing parasite virus research in a summer research program at Harvard and Molly is doing RSV virus summer research at Emory.
June 2019: While, Ben, Nathan, and Mansi are busy on the homefront, two lab students begin research representing Butler on the outside...
Jenna is doing parasite virus research in a summer research program at Harvard and Molly is doing RSV virus summer research at Emory.
July 2019: Ben (left) and Nathan conclude BSI with excellent talks of their research.
8 of us travelled to the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Virology (ASV) to present our work in Minneapolis, MN. Collectively, we presented 2 talks and 5 posters.
Those attending the meeting were (in clockwise from top left in image): Jenna, Mansi, Caitlin, Megan, Dr. S, Ben, Sean, and Nathan.
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