MacArthur "Genius" Award in Support of Nematode Research
UCLA Press Release by Stuart Wolpert
October 02, 2012
Category:
Academics & Faculty,
Research
UCLA life scientist Elissa Hallem has been selected as a
2012 MacArthur Fellow in recognition of her "exceptional merit and promise
of continued creative work," the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation has announced.
Hallem is among 23 new recipients of the annual "genius"
fellowship, each of whom will receive $100,000 a year in unrestricted
support over the next five years.
"I'm incredibly honored to have received a MacArthur Fellowship, and I'm
very grateful to the MacArthur Foundation for making this investment in my
work," said Hallem, an assistant professor of microbiology, immunology and
molecular genetics and a member of UCLA's Molecular Biology Institute.
Hallem's laboratory studies the interactions between animal parasites and
their hosts. She and her research team focus on parasitic nematodes and
Caenorhabditis elegans in their research. They study the
neurobiology of host–seeking behavior, including the neural circuits and
signaling pathways that underlie parasitic nematodes' ability to detect and
respond to olfactory cues from a host. They are also exploring the responses
of C. elegans to these same host olfactory cues to better
understand how the nervous system of a parasite differs from that of a
free-living animal.