August 2024 - Congratulations to Ph.D. student, Amanda Wu, for passing the first part of her qualifying exam!

July 2024 - Congratulations to former lab member, Dr. Daysha Ferrer-Torres, who has left the lab to start her own lab as an assistant professor at University of Colorado!

April 2024 - Welcome to Ryan Spencer, who will be joining the lab as a research assistant and Dan Luedtke, who will be joining the TTML!

April 2024 - Congratulations to Ph.D. student, Sydney Clark, on being awarded an NSF GRFP fellowship!

March 2024 - Welcome to Emma and Varun Ponnusamy, who will be joining the lab as undergraduate scholars!

March 2024 - Welcome to Amanda Wu, who will be joining the lab as a Ph.D. student in Cellular and Developmental Biology!

March 2024 - Congratulations to Dr. Charlie Childs for successfully defending her disseration!

March 2024 - Congratulations to Ph.D. student, Sydney Clark, on passing her preliminary/qualifying exam for her program!

February 2024 - Congratulations to Ph.D. student, Abigail Vallie, on passing her preliminary/qualifying exam for her program!

January 2024 - Welcome to Sam Paris, who will be joining the lab as an undergraduate scholar!

December 2023 - Farewell and good luck to Lindy Brastrom, who will be starting as a position as a Research Scientist at Genus PLC!

September 2023 - Congratulations to Dr. Tristan Frum who was awarded Co-PI of a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Pediatric Network Accelerator Award!

September 2023 - Congratulations to Dr. Tristan Frum who was awarded Co-PI of a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Pediatric Network Accelerator Award!

October 2023 - Welcome to Leslie Igbo, who will be joining the lab as a MS student!

August 2023 - Congratulations to Dr. Ansley Semack Conchola for successfully defending her disseration!

August 2023 - Welcome to Xiangning Dong, who will be joining the lab as a computational biologist, and Jack Morgan, who will be joining the TTML!

Summer 2023 - Farewell and good luck to Meghan Anderman, who will be starting a Ph.D. program at UNC, Chapel Hill; Michael Downey, who will be starting a Ph.D. program at Weill Cornell; Zhiwei Xiao, who will be starting a Ph.D. program at UC Berkley; and Andrea Álvarez, who will be starting the PIBS Ph.D. program here at University of Michigan!

August 2023 - Welcome to Jon Villanueva, who will be joining the lab as a postdoctoral fellow!

July 2023 - Welcome to Heather Schofield, who will be joining the lab as a fellow, and Hamza Islam, who will be joining the lab as a research associate!

May 2023 - Congratulations to Ph.D. students, Mayowa Akinwale and Madeline Eiken, on passing their preliminary/qualifying exams for their respective programs!

May 2023 - Welcome to Lila Tudrick and Ling Yang, who will be joining the lab as research assistants, and Bhargav Gunuguntla, who will be joining the TTML as an undergraduate scholar!

April 2023 - Welcome to new undergraduate scholars, Jehoon Seo and Saad Qureshi!

April 2023 - Congratulations to lab member, Zhiwei Xiao, who was accepted to UC Berkley’s Ph.D. program in Statistics!

March 2023 - Congratulations to Ph.D. student, Madeline Eiken, on being awarded an NSF GRFP fellowship!

March 2o23 - Welcome to Abigail Vallie and Sydney Clark, who will be joining the lab as Ph.D. students in Cellular and Molecular Biology! Sydney will also be taking over management of the lab website —HI :)

February 2023 - Congratulations to Tristan Frum on his promotion to Research Assistant Professor!

February 2023 - Congratulations to post-bacc lab member, Andrea Álvarez, and research assistants, Michael Downey and Meghan Anderman, on their acceptances into University of Michigan’s PIBS Ph.D. program!

January 2023 - Welcome to new undergraduate lab member, Jackie Pollack!

(above) May, 2021 - UM collaboration with the University of Puerto Rico Comprehensive Cancer Center to develop an organoid biorepository, Led by Daysha Ferrer-Torres
News links:
https://www.telemundopr.com/noticias/puerto-rico/dosis-de-salud-llega-una-nueva-era-en-la-investigacion-medica-para-examinar-el-cancer/2208135/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=c54sTFllSFQ
https://www.metro.pr/pr/noticias/2021/04/28/crean-primer-organoide-puertorriqueno-generado-centro-comprensivo-cancer.html
https://oncologia.behealthpr.com/primer-organoide-puertorriqueno-generado-por-el-centro-comprensivo-de-cancer-upr-y-la-universidad-de-michigan/

(above) May, 2021 - Spence Lab FULLY VACCINATED! First in-person gathering in more than a year - a great way to say THANK YOU to many of our graduating senior undergraduates: Taylor Walker, Caden Sweet, Kat Karpoff, Caroline McCarthy, Max Hammer (not shown), Neil Garg (not shown)

April 2020- Congratulations to postdoctoral fellows Tristan Frum and Daysha Ferrer-Torres on being awarded fellowships. Tristan was appointed to the Tissue Engineering and Regeneration Training Grant, and Daysha was appointed to the Organogenesis Training Grant. Great work!

April 2020- Welcome Charlie Childs! Charlie has decided to join the lab as a Ph.D. student in Cell and Developmental Biology.

March 2020- The Spence lab welcomes PIBS rotation student Hannah Hafner!

February 2020- Congratulations to Ansley Semack Conchola on passing her C.M.B. qualifying exams!! Ansley advances to Ph.D. candidate status.

January 2020- Welcome new undergraduate lab member, Mariam Oloko.

November 2019- Farewell and good luck to David Hill. David has accepted a Research Scientist position with Abbott Laboratories within their Nutritional Sciences Division

October 2019- Welcome back, Umut Kilik! Umut is a visiting Ph.D. student from Gray Camp’s lab at the University of Basel. We are excited to welcome him back for the next 6 months.

September 2019- Farewell and good luck to Alyssa Miller. Alyssa has accepted a postdoctoral position in the Zaret lab at the University of Pennsylvania. We cannot wait to see what you accomplish.

September, 2019 - NEW SEMESTER! Welcome to Calen Steiner (GI Fellow), to new undergraduates Sophia Abusamra and Alexis Fine, and to Ivy Zhang, a masters student in the MCDB program!

August, 2019 - Welcome to the incoming 2019 PIBS class of graduate students, and to Charlie Childs, who will rotate in the lab the fall semester!

August 5th, 2019 - Congratulations to Dr. Alyssa Miller, on the successful defense of her dissertation!

Welcome new lab members: Calen Steiner (M.D.) joins as a GI fellow to do fellowship research, Maggie Bohm and Ashley Cuttitta joined the TTML (UmichTTML.org), and Nathan Carrol joins as a research technician. Welcome all!

June 2019- Congratulations to Renee Conway for a successful predoctoral training grant application. Renee was appointed to the Tissue Engineering and Regeneration Training Grant. Well done!

Summer 2019 -- Congratulations to Emily Holloway (NIH-NRSA) and Meghan Capeling (NSF - GFRP) for receiving individual student fellowships!

Spring 2019 - Welcome to new lab members Ansley Semack (M.D./Ph.D. student) and Tristan Frum (postdoctoral fellow)!

February 19th, 2019 - Congrats to Alyssa Miller, who was invited to give a talk on her work at the “Epithelial Mesenchymal Interactions in Lung Development and Fibrosis Conference” in Nassau, Bahamas

January/February (Winter) 2019 - Congrats to Daysha Ferrer-Torres, who received a Keystone Symposium travel scholarship to attend “Cellular Plasticity: Reprogramming, Regeneration and Metaplasia”. Welcome to new Spence Lab members, Josh Wu and Kate Walton, and to MSTP rotation student Ansley Semack!

December 2018 - Congrats to Daysha Ferrer-Torres, who had the final manuscript from her Ph.D. work accepted at Gastroenterology!

December, 2018 - Congratulations to Meghan Capeling (first author) along with Mike Czerwinski, Sha Huang, Yu-Hwai Tsai and Angeline Wu, on their accepted paper at Stem Cell Reports.

Summer, 2018 - Congrats to many lab members for successfully obtaining fellowships!!  Alyssa Miller was awarded an NRSA F31,  Meghan Capeling was awarded a spot on the CBTP training grant, Emily Holloway was awarded a spot on the Gastrointestinal Sciences training grant, Mike Czerwinski was awarded a spot on the Organogenesis training grant!!! Wow! well done everyone! 

August, 2018 - Renee Conway passed her Cell and Developmental Biology Ph.D. qualifying exams and Meghan Capeling passed her Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. qualifying exams! Both Meghan and Renee move on to "Ph.D. candidate"! 

June, 2018 - Caden Sweet joins the lab as an undergraduate research scholar, and Sabrina Sylvestri joins the TTML as a research assistant! Welcome both. 

May, 2018 - the lab welcomes Renee Conway - a Ph.D. student in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology!

April, 2018 - Congratulations to Amy Stoddard, who accepted an offer to join the MIT-Harvard Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. graduate program! 

March, 2018 - Welcome, Arend Overeem! Arend is visiting for 6 months and comes from Sven van IJzendoorn's group at the University of Groningen where he is working towards a Ph.D. in Cell Biology.

October, 2017  - the lab welcomes Meghan Capeling, a Ph.D. student in the Biomedical Engineering program! 

September 2017 - The University of Michigan is starting a new initiative, the Translational Tissue Modeling Laboratory (TTML), which will be directed by Dr. Spence. The goal of the TTML is to enable the University of Michigan research community to implement a diverse range of in vitro grown primary human tissues for discovery-based research,  personalized and regenerative medicine.  Visit www.UmichTTML.org for more information. Also, welcome to the new TTML members, Associate Director Mike Dame, staff members Angeline Wu and Gina Newsome and undergraduates Maliha Berner and Erica Katz!! 

September 2017 - The Spence Lab welcomes Bioengineering rotation student, Meghan Capeling! Welcome Meghan! 

August, 2017 -  Welcome to Daysha Ferrer-Torres, Ph.D. - new postdoctoral fellow!! Daysha has already secured a MICHR Postdoctoral Translational Scholars Program (PTSP) Fellowship! Congratulations and welcome Daysha!!

March 6, 2016 - Congratulations to Dr. Alana Chin, who successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation! 

October, 2016 - New postdoctoral fellow, Mike Czerwinski, joins the lab. Mike is joining us from Department of Cell Biology, Duke University Medical Center. 

Fall, 2016 - Emily Holloway received a fellowship from our Cellular Biotechnology Training Program and Alyssa Miller received a fellowship from the Tissue Engineering and Regeneration Training Grant. Congrats!  David Hill received a 2 year MICHR Postdoctoral Translational Scholars Program (PTSP) - way to go David! 

August, 2016 - Congrats Alana Chin!! Alana's first 1st author paper was just accepted for publication....Click here! 

August, 2016 - Emily survives her qualifying exams, and advances to Ph.D. candidacy. Congratulations Emily!!!

May, 2016 - Congratulations and Farewell Briana!!! Briana officially graduated, and is headed off for a postdoctoral position in Lonnie Shea's Lab in  Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan.    Farewell Chis!! Chris Altheim is off to a new lab! Best of luck Chris!

April, 2016 - Welcome Emily Holloway! Emily has decided to join the lab, and the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, for her Ph.D. dissertation research. 

April, 2016 - CONGRATULATIONS!!! Alyssa Miller received and honorable mention for her NSF graduate student research fellowship proposal. Briana Dye received the best oral presentation award at the 1st Midwest Regenerative Medicine Meeting (http://devbio.wustl.edu/MRMM/). Congratulations to both of you! 

March 4, 2016 - Briana Dye, Ph.D.!! Congratulations to Briana, who successfully defended her dissertation and earned her Ph.D. today. 

January 4, 2016 - The lab welcomes two rotation students, Emily Holloway and Hillary Miller. 

JANUARY 1, 2016 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

August, 2015 - Farewell to Mike Ferguson (former undergrad student - off to graduate school at Boston University), Andrea Ramos (former postdoc, off to new adventures in California), Angel Xiao (summer undergraduate scholar from the University of Pennsylvania). Best of luck to you all!!

July, 2015 - Graduate Student Alyssa Miller joins the lab.....welcome Alyssa!

June 11, 2015 - Congratulations Briana Dye for being awarded the University of Michigan Program In Biomedical Sciences (PIBS) "Excellence in Research" Award.  The award competition included graduate students from across 14 different Ph.D. programs - well done Briana!!

May 4, 2015 - The lab welcomes Alyssa Miller, a graduate student joining the lab for a summer rotation! 

Spring, 2015 - Congrats to Mike Ferguson, new graduate and (almost) former Spence Lab member, who has accepted a position in the Boston University masters program of Biomedical Engineering! 

Spring, 2015 - Congratulations Graduates!!  Nafisa Nuzhat and Mike Ferguson have graduated with their undergraduate degrees - way to go!!

March, 24, 2015 - Congrats to Briana Dye, for her first author paper "In vitro generation of human pluripotent stem cell derived lung organoids", published today in eLife http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e05098

• http://www.uofmhealth.org/news/archive/201503/scientists-coax-stem-cells-form-3-d-mini-lungs

March, 2015 - Welcome new undergraduate lab members Megan Mackenzie and Ferris Bayasi!

February, 2015 - Congratulations Cristina Cebrian - 1st Faculty Grant - Department of Defense  Cristina Cebrian is a Clinical Lecturer in Internal Medicine, and while not actually "in" the Spence Lab, she works closely with our group....so, congrats Cristina!!! A huge accomplishment

January, 2015 - Congratulations Stacy!! Postdoctoral Fellow Stacy Finkbeiner has accepted a job offer.

Stacy will be assuming a position as a Market Analyst at the William Davidson Institute (WDI), which is a nonprofit research organization that is affiliated with the Ross School of Business at UofM. In her new role, Stacy will support the effort of WDI's Healthcare Initiative by leveraging her scientific expertise to understand global market dynamics and to carry out market analysis of global health products that are related to the diagnosis and treatment of malaria.The goal of her work will be to identify factors that reduce access to healthcare in developing countries and to devise and measure the efficacy of strategies to improve access. 

 Stacy will reduce her effort in the lab starting in January to assume her new position. Luckily for us, she will transition out of the lab gradually in order to "tie up some loose ends" through the summer. 

December, 2014. Happy Birthday Mindy - Mindy's birthday lunch.

August 30, 2014. Briana got married!! Congratulations Briana! (Pictured below - Mindy, Briana, Stacy)

Summer, 2014 Au revoir Adrianna Matos Nieves, our SROP student!! Best of luck applying for grad school.

July 8, 2014

Congratulations, Alana! Alana Chin was awarded a 1 year fellowship on the "Training in Basic and Translational Gastrointestinal Sciences" NIH T32 training grant. Way to go Alana!

Welcome Priya! Priya Dedhia has successfully completed her 3rd year of surgical residency and will now join the Spence Lab for the next 2 years for a research fellowship. Priya has already successfully competed for funding and will be supported by the University of Michigan Center for Organogenesis AND the American College of Surgeons.  

May 6, 2014 - Congratulations to Undergraduate Research Scholar, Mike Ferguson!! Mike received the prestigious Underwood-Alger scholarship from the University of Michigan program in biology.  

May, 2014 - Farewell to  Nina Frey - back to Germany after spending an academic year at University of Michigan!

COMING SOON! - Our new book: Translational Gastroenterology: Organogenesis to Disease, edited by Deb Gumucio, Linda Samuelson and Jason Spence. Get your copy here

4/14/2014 - New Spence Lab Website under construction! www.jasonspencelab.com