Dozens of students, faculty members, alumni, donors, staff, family, and friends gathered at the UCSF Mission Bay campus on the evening of Oct. 30 for the 2024 Discovery Fellows’ Michael Page, PhD Research Symposium. Launched in 2016, each year this event is a favorite opportunity to celebrate basic science graduate education with short research talks and poster presentations by PhD candidates, and to express appreciation to the many generous donors who have made the Discovery Fellows Program possible.
Sir Michael Moritz and his wife Harriet Heyman established the Discovery Fellows Program in 2013 with an initial landmark gift of $30 million to ensure the future of PhD education programs in the basic sciences. They have since been joined by more than 1,200 donors in order to build an endowment that is currently more than $150 million – the largest endowed program for PhD students in the history of the 10-campus University of California.
The Discovery Fellows endowment provides financial support for all PhD students in the basic sciences, but each year, 79 PhD candidates are designated as Discovery Fellows, charged with using their demonstrated leadership potential, excellence in research, community-mindedness, and communications skills to serve as ambassadors for the initiative and for basic science education.
The annual symposium is a key opportunity for fellows to perform this role and to acknowledge the donors who’ve made it possible. The symposium is named in memory of Michael Page, PhD, who worked as a postdoc in the Craik Lab until his untimely death at 36, and who embodied the spirit of scientific inquiry that is celebrated by the Discovery Fellows program. His father, Roger Page, created an endowed Discovery Fellows Leadership fund in his son’s honor, which garnered support from more than 60 additional donors.
Organized by University Development and Alumni Relations with help from the Graduate Division Dean’s Office, the event was hosted by Nicquet Blake, PhD, dean of the Graduate Division and vice provost of Student Academic Affairs, and included remarks from Chancellor Sam Hawgood and Roger Page, who reflected on his son Michael’s legacy and how UCSF keeps alive his spirit of scientific exploration through the research symposium and the Discovery Fellows program.
Five 5th-year Discovery Fellows were chosen to share their dissertation research in short, accessible talks, after which guests enjoyed a reception and poster session featuring scientific posters from 4th-year fellows. Also attending was the newest cohort of fellows, who were appointed in September.
Symposium Speakers
This year’s speakers were (in order of appearance):
Maggie Colton Cove
PhD candidate in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics
Synthetic Receptors Arm the Immune System Against Pediatric Brain Tumors
Angeline Chemel
PhD candidate in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology
Channeling KCNT1 at the Cilia: Ion Flux and Epilepsy
Cuyler Luck
PhD candidate in Biomedical Sciences
It Takes Two: Dissecting Fusion Gene Function
Camille Moore
PhD candidate in Tetrad
Nucleosome Density and Chromatin Remodeling Affect Chromatin Compaction
Jennifer Langen
PhD candidate in Neuroscience
Phase Separation of Protocadherin Proteins is Required for Neural Self-avoidance and Wiring
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All photos by Sonya Yruel
