Not too long ago, we had the opportunity to celebrate Peter’s birthday with a fun lab lunch! Cheers to you Peter!
![](https://blogs.iu.edu/chenglab/files/2023/09/IMG_8931-e1694521961804-1024x652.jpeg)
![](https://blogs.iu.edu/chenglab/files/2023/09/IMG_8938-e1694522254829-1024x693.jpeg)
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Not too long ago, we had the opportunity to celebrate Peter’s birthday with a fun lab lunch! Cheers to you Peter!
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We had a great time presenting at the Research Symposium earlier this month. Everyone’s talks and posters were well prepared and presented! Jenna, Peter, and Michael gave excellent talks! We look forward to next year’s symposium!
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We are thrilled to announce that our very own Jenna Horner was awarded the 2023 O.D. and M.S. scholarship! Jenna worked hard in her classes and in the lab, so we are glad to see that dedication rewarded! Congratulations once again Jenna!
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Happy Birthday to Jenna and Michael! These two June birthdays were punctuated with a nice surprise! (Arguably, a smelly one too.) We were able to visit Wally the corpse flower, in the IU greenhouse, as it blooms, releasing its pungent odor for all to enjoy a whiff! Thanks for the present Wally!
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This month we had two birthdays! Dr. Cheng’s and Arya’s birthdays were days apart from each other! Enjoy the images of the first celebration we had!
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ARVO 2023, held at the end of April, in New Orleans, was an excellent time! The LE session team was led by Dr. Juliet Moncaster. Dr. Cheng gave a talk on Eph-ephrin signaling in the lens and moderated a mini-symposium on immune cells in the anterior segment. Dr. Cheng will chair the Seattle ARVO 2024 LE session with Dr. Xingjun Fan and Dr. Bianca Maceo Heilman, the newest LE AMPC team member!
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Congratulations to Dr. Aalaa Shahin and Dr. Jessica Palmer on their graduation from the Doctor of Optometry program last Friday. Dr. Shahin worked in our lab in the summer of 2019 as a Dean’s Scholar, and Dr. Palmer was a research assistant in fall 2019. They worked on collecting and analyzing the data on lens suture patterning defects due to disruption of Eph-ephrin signaling and contributed to this IOVS publication. We wish Drs. Shahin and Palmer all the best on their future endeavors!
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Dr. Cheng worked with Drs. Thomas White, Paul Donaldson, and Barbara Pierscionek on a way to measure the refractive index of the mouse lens using MRI. This new method and data are important for understanding how the lens fine focuses light onto the retina and the factors that modulate refractive index, including aging. Read their article here: Age-Dependent Changes in the Water Content and Optical Power of the In Vivo Mouse Lens Revealed by Multi-Parametric MRI and Optical Modeling.
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In this month’s IOVS, you can find Dr. Cheng’s article where she worked with Dr. Fowler’s lab at the University of Delaware to uncover the function of myosin in maintaining the biomechanical properties and transparency of the lens. They showed that the loss of normal myosin filament formation causes abnormal cell shape and disorganization of lens cells. Surprisingly, these defects do not affect lens transparency or stiffness. Read their article here: Nonmuscle Myosin IIA Regulates the Precise Alignment of Hexagonal Eye Lens Epithelial Cells During Fiber Cell Formation and Differentiation.
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Here is an image from our celebration of Dr. Cheng’s achievement!