Lab News

Lab News

Featured
Our FEDUPP preprint is on bioRxiv
August 2025
Our FEDUPP preprint is on bioRxiv
August 2025

Kudos to Andy Mingyang Yao and Avi Libster for the development of FEDUPP: Feeding Experimentation Device Users Processing Package to Assess Learning and Cognitive Flexibility

doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.08.14.670424

August 2025
Congratulations to our graduate student Shane Desfor for being awarded a F31 fellowship from NIDA!
August 2025
Congratulations to our graduate student Shane Desfor for being awarded a F31 fellowship from NIDA!
August 2025

August 2025
Manuscript accepted in Addiction Neuroscience
August 2025
Manuscript accepted in Addiction Neuroscience
August 2025

Manuscript accepted in Addiction Neuroscience titled “Corticotrophin-releasing hormone binding protein in the basolateral amygdala: divergent roles in cocaine and opioid addiction like behaviors”. Arnav Gurha, Avi Libster, and Francesca Telese are co-authors.

August 2025
Manuscript accepted in Neuropharmacology
June 2025
Manuscript accepted in Neuropharmacology
June 2025

Manuscript accepted in Neuropharmacology titled “Perinatal Fentanyl Exposure Drives Enduring Addiction Risk and Central Amygdala Gene Dysregulation”. Our visiting graduate student Yeji Shin and Francesca Telese are co-authors.

June 2025
Congratulations to our graduate student Shane Desfor for being selected as a UCSD Merkin Graduate Fellow
June 2025
Congratulations to our graduate student Shane Desfor for being selected as a UCSD Merkin Graduate Fellow
June 2025

June 2025
Congratulations to Daimeng Sun for his successful master's thesis defense
December 2024
Congratulations to Daimeng Sun for his successful master's thesis defense
December 2024

December 2024
Congratulations to our collaborator Abe Palmer for receiving funding for the NIDA P30 Core Center of Excellence
October 2024
Congratulations to our collaborator Abe Palmer for receiving funding for the NIDA P30 Core Center of Excellence
October 2024

Francesca Telese was quoted in the press release from UCSD and an article published by Genomeweb.

https://today.ucsd.edu/story/uc-san-diego-awarded-8-million-to-uncover-genetic-foundations-of-substance-use-disorders

https://www.genomeweb.com/genetic-research/ucsd-tackle-genetics-drug-abuse-8m-grant-novel-rat-genetics-repository

October 2024
Yanning Zuo gives a talk at the Complex Trait Community in collaboration with the Rat Genomics Community (CTC-RG) (October 2-5, 2024)
September 2024
Yanning Zuo gives a talk at the Complex Trait Community in collaboration with the Rat Genomics Community (CTC-RG) (October 2-5, 2024)
September 2024

September 2024
Welcome to Nora Ding and Ansh Sarda, two UCSD undergraduate students joining our lab.
September 2024
Welcome to Nora Ding and Ansh Sarda, two UCSD undergraduate students joining our lab.
September 2024

September 2024
Francesca Telese gives a seminar at the Department of Physiology at LSU in New Orleans (September 26, 2024)
September 2024
Francesca Telese gives a seminar at the Department of Physiology at LSU in New Orleans (September 26, 2024)
September 2024

September 2024
Montserrat Rodriguez, a first-year graduate student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program, starts her Fall quarter rotation in our lab. Welcome!
September 2024
Montserrat Rodriguez, a first-year graduate student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program, starts her Fall quarter rotation in our lab. Welcome!
September 2024

September 2024
Francesca gives a talk at the 10th Annual Retreat of the Center for Genetics, Genomics, and Epigenetics of Substance Use Disorders in Outbred Rats
September 2024
Francesca gives a talk at the 10th Annual Retreat of the Center for Genetics, Genomics, and Epigenetics of Substance Use Disorders in Outbred Rats
September 2024

https://ratgenes.org/meetings/nida-center-for-gwas-in-outbred-rats-10th-annual-retreat/

September 2024
Welcome to Dr. Carl Litif, a new postdoc in the lab, and congratulations on the postdoctoral fellowship supported by the NIDA Diversity Supplement program!
August 2024
Welcome to Dr. Carl Litif, a new postdoc in the lab, and congratulations on the postdoctoral fellowship supported by the NIDA Diversity Supplement program!
August 2024

August 2024
Shane Desfor attends the Neuroscience of Addiction Course at Cold Spring Harbor (August 6-13, 2024)
August 2024
Shane Desfor attends the Neuroscience of Addiction Course at Cold Spring Harbor (August 6-13, 2024)
August 2024

https://meetings.cshl.edu/courses.aspx?course=C-DRUG&year=24

August 2024
Mari Williams, a graduate student from the BMS program, joins our lab! Welcome!
July 2024
Mari Williams, a graduate student from the BMS program, joins our lab! Welcome!
July 2024

July 2024
Francesca gives a seminar at the Department of Naples of the Federico II University of Naples (June 19, 2024, Naples, Italy)
June 2024
Francesca gives a seminar at the Department of Naples of the Federico II University of Naples (June 19, 2024, Naples, Italy)
June 2024

June 2024
Congratulations to Shane Desfor for passing his spring evaluation 2nd year exam
June 2024
Congratulations to Shane Desfor for passing his spring evaluation 2nd year exam
June 2024

June 2024
Francesca delivers the Early Career Achievement Award Lecture at the annual IBANGS meeting (June 2-7, 2024, London, Ontario)
June 2024
Francesca delivers the Early Career Achievement Award Lecture at the annual IBANGS meeting (June 2-7, 2024, London, Ontario)
June 2024

June 2024
Francesca presents a poster at the 2024 NIDA Genetics and Epigenetics Cross-Cutting Research Team Meeting (May 22-24, Bethesda, MD)
May 2024
Francesca presents a poster at the 2024 NIDA Genetics and Epigenetics Cross-Cutting Research Team Meeting (May 22-24, Bethesda, MD)
May 2024

May 2024
Francesca Telese is invited to be a keynote speaker at the 2024 Summer Symposium at the Clemson University Center for Human Genetics (May 17, 2024, Greenwood, SC).
May 2024
Francesca Telese is invited to be a keynote speaker at the 2024 Summer Symposium at the Clemson University Center for Human Genetics (May 17, 2024, Greenwood, SC).
May 2024

May 2024
New paper in Cell Metabolism
April 2024
New paper in Cell Metabolism
April 2024

A manuscript titled “TM7SF3 controls TEAD1 splicing to prevent MASH-induced liver fibrosis” was accepted in Cell Metabolism. Francesca Telese, Narayan Pokhrel, and Avraham Libster are co-authors. This work was in collaboration with Dr. Olefsky’s research group at the School of Medicine at UCSD.

April 2024
Poster Presentation at Lewis L. Judd Young Investigators Research Symposium
April 2024
Poster Presentation at Lewis L. Judd Young Investigators Research Symposium
April 2024

Shane Desfor, Naryan Pokhrel, Yanning Zuo, and Daimeng Sun present a poster at the 19th Annual Lewis L. Judd Young Investigators Research Symposium at the Department of Psychiatry, UCSD

April 2024
Welcome Yeji Shin to our lab
April 2024
Welcome Yeji Shin to our lab
April 2024

She is a visiting graduate student from the Department of Biological Sciences, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea.

April 2024
Francesca Telese is elected as Member-at-Large for the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society
April 2024
Francesca Telese is elected as Member-at-Large for the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society
April 2024

The position of Member-at-Large is a 3-year term. The Members-at-Large work with the President, Executive Committee and other IBANGS Committees on specific issues.

April 2024
Manuscript accepted in Cell Genomics
April 2024
Manuscript accepted in Cell Genomics
April 2024

Titled “A revamped rat reference genome improves the discovery of genetic diversity in laboratory rats” in collaboration with the International Rat Omics Consortium (IROC). The authors include Francesca Telese.

April 2024
Francesca Telese is listed in the top 100 of the 2023 BRIMR Rankings of NIH Funding for Psychiatry Departments
March 2024
Francesca Telese is listed in the top 100 of the 2023 BRIMR Rankings of NIH Funding for Psychiatry Departments
March 2024

Read More

March 2024
Yanning Zuo and Francesca Telese present at the Project 8p Research Roundtable
March 2024
Yanning Zuo and Francesca Telese present at the Project 8p Research Roundtable
March 2024

Read More

March 2024
Mari Williams starts her rotation project in our lab
February 2024
Mari Williams starts her rotation project in our lab
February 2024

Mari Williams, a first year Ph.D. student from the Biomedical Science Graduate Program, starts her rotation project in our lab

February 2024
Avi Libster is promoted to Assistant Project Scientist. Congratulations!
February 2024
Avi Libster is promoted to Assistant Project Scientist. Congratulations!
February 2024
February 2024
Congratulations to Francesca Telese on being selected as the recipient of the 2024 Early Career Achievement Award for the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society
January 2024
Congratulations to Francesca Telese on being selected as the recipient of the 2024 Early Career Achievement Award for the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society
January 2024
January 2024

Press/Media

Black and white image of The Scientist logo.
A black and white abstract image of the human brain.
Purple and gold Active Motif logo.

Epigenetic Underpinnings of Human Addiction

Active Motif Podcast | Dec 21 2023

A still from an animated video depicting two large red cells moving towards a cluster of yellow and orange structures. Above this cluster, an overlay shows an oval shape containing a small tetrahedral molecule and the text "LSD1n."

Join Our Team

Learn more