Lab News

May 2025 – Jeet Mehta joins as an Undergraduate Researcher! Welcome onboard!
May 2025 – Kellen Biesbrock joins the lab as a PhD student! Welcome Kellen!
April 2025 – Spencer, Jessica, and Cassie are presenting their research at ASBMB Annual Meeting in Chicago!

November 2024 – Pragyan moves to Karolinska Institutet in Sweden for her postdoctoral fellowship! Good luck Pragyan! You will be missed!
November 2024 – Jessica presents her poster at the WID Symposium – Bridging the Digital and Natural Worlds. Great job sharing your work with the WID community!
November 2024 – Denu lab, along with other labs, hosts the 8th Epigenetics Symposium and welcomes Dr. Mazhar Adli for a keynote speaker. Jessica, Spencer, and Cassie present a poster!
August 2024 – Audrey joins the lab as an undergraduate research assistant! Welcome Audrey!
July 2024 – Kevin Buck joins the lab. Welcome onboard!
February 2024 – Olivia and Devin join the lab as undergraduate research assistants! Welcome guys!
February 2024 – Spencer, Pragyan, Jessica, and Cassie present their works at the BMC SNaCs (Science, News, and Colleagues) event!

2023

October 2023 – Cassie gives a lightning talk and poster presentation at the 7th annual Epigenetics Symposium! Thanks to all the student volunteers and Jessica for taking the lead on organizing the Symposium!
August 2023 – Dr. Lily Miller successfully defends her PhD research on the catalytic and binding mechanisms of H3K9 and K36 methyltransferases! Way to go Lily and good luck on your next adventure in California!!
August 2023 – Spencer joins the Denu lab as a postdoctoral fellow! Big welcome back, Dr. Haws!
June 2023 – Jessica‘s abstract is selected for oral and poster presentations at the International Society of Heart Research Conference! Great work, Jess!!
June 2023 – John is named recipient of the Katherine Berns Van Donk Steenbock Professor in Nutrition! Congratulations, John!
May 2023 – Postdoctoral scholar Pragyan completes her external reviewer PhD defense in Infection Epigenetics from KIIT! Congratulations, Dr. Mishra!!
April 2023 – Sara presents her research about binding specificities of PHD zinc finger domains in the H3K36 histone methyltransferase NSD2 at the UW-Madison Undergraduate Symposium. Great job, Sara!
April 2023 – Jessica presents her research about how the metabolites from the gut microbiome affect the host brain health at the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias Research Day! Way to go, Jess!
March 2023 – Cassie presents her findings the role of MAT2A and MAT2B in maintaining loci-specific methylation at the Metabolism Floor Meeting. Great job, Cassie!
January 2023 – John heads over to the Hirschey Lab at Duke for a genomics- and fun-filled sabbatical!
January 2023 – Postdoctoral scholar Pragyan Mishra joins the lab! Welcome, Pragyan!

2022

November 2022 – Jessica won the 3-Minute Thesis Competition hosted by Alzheimer’s Research Centers from UW-Madison and WashU-St. Louis! Great work, Jess! (check out the photos!)
October 2022 – The Denu Lab organized and attended the UW-Madison Epigenetics Symposium. Thanks, Jessica and Sherry, for taking the lead!
September 2022 – Jessica presents her research about how the metabolites from the gut microbiome affect the host epigenome at the Metabolism Floor Meeting. Great job, Jessica!
September 2022 – Lily presents her research on H3K9 HMT kinetics at the IPiB Retreat!
August 2022 – John gives a talk and José presents a poster (and was awarded the Best Poster Award!) at the FASEB Reversible Protein Acetylation in Health and Disease Conference in Puerto Rico. ¡Buen trabajo!
August 2022 – Alexis successfully defends her dissertation on the dynamics of protein acetylation in the cell! Congratulations, Dr. Lawton!!
July 2022 – At the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID) Symposium, Cassie and Lily gave lightning talks, and José, Jessica, and Lily presented posters about their research. Great job sharing your work with the WID community!
July 2022 – Amy successfully defends her dissertation on the role of SIRT3 in aging and also differentially acylated p300 activity! Congratulations, Dr. Qin!!
July 2022 – Jessica presents a poster on the effects of gut microbial metabolism on the host epigenome at the 8th annual Conference on Beneficial Microbes with co-mentor Federico Rey. Great work, Jessica!!
June 2022 – PhD student Lily presented her research on histone methyltransferases at the FASEB Biological Methylation conference in Sicily. Bravissima, Lily!
June 2022 – The Denu Lab celebrates the Epigenetics Hub at the WID with the Zhong and Sridharan Labs with an Epigenetics Picnic! Good luck to the Zhong Lab in St. Louis – you will be missed!
May 2022 – Former PhD student Jess Feldman gave a talk at the Biomolecular Chemistry Department Centennial Celebration! Great job and keep up the good work at Rentschler Biopharma SE, Jess!
May 2022 – Anusha Mehendale graduated with a B.S. in Genetics and Genomics, and Legal Studies! And was awarded the Irene B. Katele Outstanding Student Award!! Congrats, Anusha!
April 2022 – Undergraduate Sara Slager with John Denu is awarded the Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship! Awesome job!
April 2022 – Former lab technician Robert Miner joined the Binning Lab as his PhD thesis lab at Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute. Good luck, Robert!
April 2022 – CMB alum, Zhangli Su, is awarded a K99 through the National Cancer Institute to support her amazing post-doctoral work in the Dutta Lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
April 2022 – IPiB alum, Brittany Albaugh, is tenured and promoted to Associate Professor at Eastern Michigan University! Congrats, Brittany! Keep up the great work researching the molecular mechanisms of histone reader proteins UHRF1 and UHRF2 and their relation to cancer development!
March 2022 – Lily is awarded the Biomolecular Chemistry (BMC) travel grant for the FASEB Biological Methylation conference!
February 2022 – PhD student Lily is awarded the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center (UWCCC) Heidi Dvinge and Patti Keely Trainee Honor Society Travel-Enrichment Award!
February 2022 – PhD student Jessica is awarded the Cellular and Molecular Biology (CMB) travel grant for the Beneficial Microbes conference – Congrats, Jess!
January 2022 – Alum Kristin Dittenhafer-Reed was awarded a NSF CAREER award to support her research lab at Hope College. Congrats! Check out all the great things Kristin’s lab works on surrounding mitochondrial health and transcription here!
January 2022 – Recent PhD student Sydney Thomas’ work on the connection between the gut microbiome and epigenetics is highlighted in the UW-Madison News!
January 2022 – Undergraduate researcher Anusha Mehendale joins the lab! Welcome, Anusha!

2021

October 2021 – John gives a talk on “Metabolic Control of Post-Translational Modifications” at the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy
October 2021 – Sydney’s work on p300 activation by short-chain fatty acids produced by your gut microbiome is published at eLife! Check out her great work here!
October 2021 – The Epigenetics Hub hosts the 5th Annual Epigenetics Symposium at the WID. Special thanks to the graduate students of the Organizing Committee for all their hard work, especially Alexis and Amy! Lily and Jessica presented posters at the symposium and Lily also gave a Lightning Talk (check out their photos!).
August 2021 – Wallace accepts a position as a Research Scientist at Gilead Sciences, Inc. (Foster City, CA). Good luck, Wallace! You will be missed!
August 2021 – Sydney defends her dissertation with a “lovely” presentation on “You are what your bacteria eat”. Congrats Sydney and good luck in your next stage as a post-doc in Pieter Dorrestein’s lab (@UCSD)!!
August 2021 – Cassie, Jessica, and José pass their Preliminary Exams! Congrats, guys!
July 2021 – José is accepted into the Metabolism and Nutritional Sciences Training Program (MANTP)
April 2021 – John is selected as an inaugural Fellow of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB)! Congrats, John!!
April 2021 – Spencer successfully defends his thesis work on the effects of methionine restriction on histone modifications! Great job, Spencer!! Best of luck in your post-doctoral work in the Cremin Lab at the University of Pennsylvania!
March 2021 – Cassie is awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!
February 2021 – Sara Slager joins the lab as an undergraduate research assistant! Welcome, Sara!
January 2021 – Cassie is accepted into the Metabolism and Nutrition Training Grant (MANTP)
January 2021 – Julie Bolding joins the lab as a visiting PhD student from the University of Copenhagen for the next 6 months to expand her work on sirtuins. Welcome, Julie!!

2020

December 2020 – Morgan graduates from UW-Madison with a B.S. in Biology. Now she’s off to earn her M.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Good luck, Morgan!!
November 2020 – Lily passes her preliminary exam. Congrats, Lily!
October 2020 – Mark successfully defends his doctoral thesis and is off to start a post-doctoral position at Promega in Madison!! Congrats and best of luck, Mark!
June 2020 – Robert and Logan leave the lab to begin the next stages of their careers. Best of luck! We will miss you both
June 2020 – Mark’s review on small-molecule modulators for Sirt6 is published in JBC! Way to go, Mark!
May 2020 – A joint effort from Spencer, Cassie and John results in the publication of a review article on epigenetic and metabolism in Trends in Biochemical Sciences. Congrats, guys!
March 2020 – Following guidelines from UW, lab members make the switch from bench work to working from home to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Please stay safe everyone.
April 2020 – Jessica is awarded the NIH funded Big Data 2 Knowledge Training Fellowship. Congrats!
April 2020 – Spencer’s research on an adaptive epigenetic mechanism following methionine depletion is published in Molecular Cell. Great job, Spencer!
February 2020 – Bianca Chavez joins the lab! Welcome onboard!
January 2020 – Mark’s research on SIRT6 activation is published in JBC and is highlighted as an Editor’s Pick – Way to go, Mark!
January 2020 – Jessica Han joins the lab! Welcome, Jessica!
January 2020 – Prof. Rick Eisenstein joins the lab for a sabbatical to work on iron metabolism. Welcome, Rick!

2019

December 2019 – Cassie Leech and Jose Moran join the lab! Welcome, guys!
September 2019 – Sherry Bakhtiar joins the lab as a Senior Research Specialist! Welcome, Sherry!
August 2019 – Ana successfully defends her thesis! Way to go, Ana!
May 2019 – Mitchell leaves the lab to begin pursuing missionary work. Best of luck!!
January 2019 – Robert Miner and Logan Wright join the lab! Welcome!

2018

December 2018 – Lily Miller and Mitchell Carlson join the lab. Welcome to the jungle!
December 2018 – Sydney rolls out the Epigenetics Hub to the public at the Illuminating Connections – You can check out the videos here!
October 2018 – Laura gives a talk at the UW Department of Neurologic Surgery Research Day!
October 2018 – Amy and Ana give Science on the Square talks for the Wisconsin Science Festival.
September 2018 – Pedro Lattore’s work describing the dynamic acetylation of PCSK1 comes to fruition and is published in Molecular Cell. Cheers Pedro. Hope all is well back in Spain!
September 2018 – Sydney and Spencer present posters at the Morgridge Frontiers in Metabolism Conference.
August 2018 – Alexis, Amy, Ana, Slava, and Spencer attend the North American Mass Spectrometry Summer School.
August 2018 – Slava’s method of purifying native chromatin from yeast is published in JBC!
August 2018 – Ana gives a talk at the Wisconsin Human Proteomics Symposium.
June 2018 – Spencer gives a talk at the FASEB Biological Methylation Conference in Florence, Italy!
May 2018 – Spencer is awarded the Markey Foundation travel grant. Have fun in Italy!
April 2018 – Spencer gives a talk at the Morgridge Institute and UW-Madison Metabolism Symposium.
April 2018 – Mark leaves to start his summer R&D research internship at Promega. Go get em’!
March 2018 – James receives pilot funding from the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) to determine the importance of histone depletion in driving human AD-associated transcriptional dysfunction
March 2018 – Collaborative work with the Mostoslavsky Lab detailing a devastating SIRT6 mutation is published in Genes Dev. Way to help, Mark!
February 2018 – Mark is awarded The Ride Scholarship from the Carbone Cancer Center!

2017

November 2017 – Jin’s work using microarrays to measure HAT/HDAC activities is published in ACS Chem Bio.!
November 2017 – Laura Borth join the group. Welcome on board!
November 2017 – Rush publishes review on using comparative physiology to understand the aging mitochondria.
November 2017 – Kim’s review about how the gut microbiome influences host epigenome is published in Translational Research!
September 2017 – Ana wins a poster award at the IPiB Retreat. Way to go, Ana!
May 2017 – Wallace Liu accepted on the Molecular and Applied Nutrition Training Program (MANTP)!
May 2017 – Julie Thelen graduates from UW-Madison with a BS in Biochemistry. Congratulations, Julie!
April 2017 – The Denu Lab takes a trip to American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) conference in Chicago. Both Rush Dhillon and Spencer Haws will be giving talks. McCormick place, here we come!
April 2017 – Beatriz Camacho passes her preliminary exam! Congrats, Beatriz!
April 2017 – Dr. Jin-Hee Lee finishes her post-doc and begins work at Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD) in Madison!
March 2017 – Kimberly Krautkramer successfully defends her doctoral thesis and is now working to complete her M.D. degree! Keep up the work!
March 2017 – Sydney Thomas is awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Way to Go!
Jan 2017 – Josh Baeza successfully defends his doctoral thesis! On to a post-doc at UPenn! Congrats Josh! We’ll do our best to keep all your plants alive!
Jan 2017 – Steven Bieser joins the lab! Welcome, Steven!
Jan 2017 – Spencer Haws accepted on the Molecular and Applied Nutrition Training Program (MANTP)!

2016

Dec 2016 – Alexis Lawton, Sydney Thomas and Yiming Qin join the group! Welcome on board!
Dec 2016 – Rush Dhillon’s review on using comparative physiology to study the effect of aging on the mitochondria is published in Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. (check out his hand drawn figures!)
Dec 2016 – Kimberly Krautkramer‘s work linking gut microbiota to host epigenetics is published in Molecular Cell. Congratulations!
Nov 2016 – Zhangli Su‘s work on KDM4 reader domain specificity is published in Nature Communications! Nice work!
Oct 2016 – Wallace Liu joins the lab. Welcome, Wallace!
Sept 2016 – Michael Smallegan departs the Denu lab to travel the world for a year before starting graduate studies at UC Boulder. Have a great trip!
Aug 2016 – Jing Fan begins her one year fellowship in the metabolism theme at the Morgridge Institute for Research before becoming a Morgridge investigator and assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Nutritional Sciences. Congratulations!!!!!
July 2016 – Jing Fan and Josh Baeza’s work is published in Methods in Enzymology. Congratulations!
June 2016 – Zhangli Su heads off to to start her Postdoc in Anindya Dutta’s Lab at University of Virginia Medical School. Congratulations and good luck!!
May 2016 – John is awarded Vilas Faculty Mid-Career Investigator Award.
May 2016 – Nicole Rademacher graduates with a BS in Microbiology and joins the Shelef Lab in the UW Department of Medicine as a research assistant! Congratulations and best luck!
May 2016 – Keighley Reisenaur graduates with a BS in Genetics and a second degree in Spanish and starts graduate school at Baylor in the Department of Biology! Congratulations and best luck!
May 2016 – Ben Baeten graduates with a BS in Computer Sciences! Congratulations!
April 2016 – Kim Krautkramer speaks at the Keystone Symposium for Gut Microbiota, Metabolic Disorders, and Beyond.
March 2016 – Zhangli Su successfully defended her doctoral thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Su (aka Dr. Ninja Kitty)!
March 2016 – Rush Dhillon awarded R03 grant for Comparative Physiological Studies of Aging.
March 2016 – Pedro Lattore joins us from Zaragoza, Spain, for a 6-month study abroad fellowship.
John receives 2016 University of Wisconsin Kellett Mid-Career Award from WARF. Congratulations, John, for winning this award!
Feb 2016 – Review article on combinatorial histone modifications (Zhangli Su) is published in ACS Chemical Biology. Review article on protein acetylation in mitochondria (Josh Baeza and Michael Smallegan) is published in Trends in Biochemical Sciences. Congrats, Zhangli, Josh and Michael!!
Jan 2016 – Mark Klein accepted to the Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Program.

2015

Dec 2015 – The Denu Lab has a fun cookie party for the upcoming Christmas. Check out the lab images page.
Dec 2015 – Spencer Haws and Beatriz Camacho join the lab. Welcome!!!
Oct 2015 – Jessica Feldman‘s work is published in Cell Reports. Congrats, Jess!
Sep 2015 – Eric Armstrong joins the lab. Welcome, Eric!
July 2015 – Kim Krautkramer and James Dowell’s work is published in Journal of Proteome Research. Congratulations, Kim and James!
July 2015 – Zhangli Su’s work is published in Current Protocols in Molecular Biology. Congrats, Zhangli!
June 2015 – Jin-Hee Lee receives postdoctoral fellowship from American Heart Association. Congratulations, Jin!
May 2015 – Jessica Feldman heads off to to start her Postdoc in Craig Peterson’s Lab at University of Massachusetts Medical School. Congratulations and good luck, Jess!!
May 2015 – The Denu Lab had a girls’ climbing night. Check out the lab images page.
May 2015 – Ana Lindahl passes her preliminary exam to advance to candidacy. Congratulations, Ana!
May 2015 – Jessica Feldman and Kristin Dittenhafer-Reed’s work is published in ACS Biochemistry. Congrats, Jess and Kristin!
April 2015 – Kim Krautkramer passes her preliminary exam to advance to candidacy. Congratulations, Kim!
April 2015 – Kristin Dittenhafer-Reed’s work is published in Cell Metabolism. Congratulations, Kristin!
February 2015 – Kim Krautkramer wins best poster presentation at the annual Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Nutritional Sciences poster session. Congrats, Kim!
January 2015 – Jing Fan’s review article is published in ACS Chemical Biology. Congratulations, Jing!
January 2015 – Josh Baeza and Michael Smallegan’s work is published in ACS Chemical Biology. Congratulations, Josh and Michael!

2014

December 2014 – Josh and Shuiming win the BMC Holiday Party Ping Pong Tournament! Congrats! Way to take home the victory for the lab.
December 2014 – Mark Klein (IPiB) joins the lab. Welcome, Mark!
December 2014 – Jessica Feldman successfully defended her doctoral thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Feldman!!
October 2014 – The Denu Lab spent the day hiking up at Devil’s Lake. Check out the lab images page for pictures from the day.
October 2014 – Zach Kemmerer and Mark Klein (IPiB) join the lab for rotations.
August 2014 – Kristin Dittenhafer-Reed heads off to start her Postdoc in Jeff MacKeigan’s lab at the Van Andel Research Institute. Congratulations and good luck, Kristin!
August 2014 – We are currently accepting rotation students for Fall 2014. Please check the opportunities page.
August 2014 – Kristin Dittenhafer-Reed successfully defended her doctoral thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Dittenhafer-Reed!!
August 2014 – The work by Josh Baeza is chosen as a paper of the week in the JBC. Congratulations, Josh!
June 2014 – It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our dear pet and lab mate, Tuffy Jr. His presence will certainly be missed, but he will not be forgotten.
June 2014 – Josh Baeza’s work is published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Congratulations ,Josh!
2014 MCEM (Midwest Chromatin and Epigenetics Meeting) will be held in WID from May 18 to May 20.
April 2014 – Zhangli Su’s work is published in Epigenetics and Chromatin. Congratulations, Zhangli!
March 2014 – Rush Dhillon joins the lab. Welcome, Rush!
March 2014 – John is featured in ASBMB Today.
February 2014 – Jing Fan joins the lab. Welcome, Jing!
February 2014 – Wei Yu heads off to Fudan University in Shanghai, China to start his career as a professor. Congratulations and good luck, Wei!
January 2014 – Viacheslav Kuzniestsov joins the lab. Welcome, Slava!

2013

October 2013 – The work by Jessica Feldman is published and chosen as a paper of the week in the JBC. Congratulations, Jess!