Two postdocs from the Dulac Lab have recently been awarded fellowships. Changwoo Seo was selected for an NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, and Mostafizur Rahman received a Young Investigator Grant from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF).
MCB faculty Catherine Dulac commented on these two awards, saying, “Changwoo and Mostafizur are amazing scientists and their research has the potential to transform the field of neuroscience and our understanding of neuronal circuits controlling social behavior. I am therefore extremely pleased for them to be recognized in such a way. In a time of increasing funding uncertainty, the financial support provided by these awards will boost their projects and enable them to make great strides. Moreover, these awards represent highly prestigious accolades that acknowledge Changwoo and Mostafizur’s exceptional standing as scholars and researchers and will therefore significantly help their career moving forward and into their own independent research labs.”
To learn more about these postdocs and their research, read on.
Changwoo Seo
Changwoo Seo says he feels “incredibly grateful” to receive a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award. These grants, issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) support late stage postdocs as they transition into launching their own labs. The award provides up to two years of funding for mentored research and up to three years of funding for an independent research project, assuming the recipient is able to find a tenure track faculty position at an institution.
“This award will provide crucial resources for furthering my research, allowing me to explore new experimental approaches and deepen our understanding of how the hypothalamus controls innate and homeostatic behavior,” Seo says. “I have always been fascinated by the intersection of systems neuroscience and molecular biology, particularly how molecular and genomic mechanisms can shape neural circuits and behavior.”
Seo is also the recipient of previous grants from the Kavli Foundation and the Jane Coffin Childs Fund. His scientific accomplishments during his time at Harvard include applying a miniature two-photon microscope to questions about social behaviors in freely moving mice.
Seo adds, “I would like to thank Dr. Catherine Dulac and Dr. Xiaowei Zhuang for their support and advice, as well as the members of the Dulac and Zhuang labs for their help.”
Mostafizur Rahman
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation has chosen Mostafizur Rahman to receive a Young Investigator Grant, which will provide up to $70,000 over two years. It supports either postdocs who are extending their time at their postdoctoral institution or starting their own labs.
“I feel incredibly excited and honored to have been selected for this award,” Rahman says. “It opens the door to exploring an exciting new direction in my research.”
In the Dulac Lab, Rahman has been investigating hypothalamic neural circuits that shape parenting behavior in mice. The hypothalamus is also known to play a crucial role in processing stress, so Rahman has been curious about how stress interacts with parenting. This funding will allow him to explore that question.
“During my PhD, I studied how memory and learning are affected by stress disorders and autism spectrum disorders,” Rahman explains. “Building on that foundation, my future work will focus on how stress disorders, particularly postpartum depression, cause disruptions in parenting behavior. I hope to combine my previous training with my current research to expand our understanding of how stress influences these behaviors, with the ultimate goal of improving therapeutic strategies for conditions like postpartum depression, which affects a significant number of mothers.”
Rahman is looking forward to conducting research with potential to make an impact in mental health.“The fellowship will support experiments aimed at understanding how stress impacts specific brain circuits involved in parenting behavior,” he says. “In my research, I’ve already identified functional modules within the brain that regulate social behaviors like parenting. These modules contain neurons that have distinct molecular profiles, including expression of certain neuropeptides.This fellowship will help me explore how stress affects these functional brain modules and how it may lead to disruptions in behaviors such as those observed in postpartum depression (PPD).”
Congratulations to these two outstanding postdocs!
