Our very own Megan Wang was highlighted in a Commencement 2026 Spotlight for the Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute written by Gretchen Schrafft. In this spotlight, Megan talks about her research in the lab, done in collaboration with Dr. John Hernandez, and her love for the open curriculum which allowed her to pursue her additional interests in Early Modern World.

Dr. John Hernandez gave the first ever fly talk at the International Congress on Alcoholism and Stress in Volterra, Italy 12-15 May, 2026. John presented work on the circuit and molecular basis underlying high alcohol self-administration. This is directly relevant to John's COBRE pilot award investigating the mechanisms through which stress impacts alcohol self-administration.

In collaboration with the Fleischmann Lab, the Kaun Lab just received a new Carney Innovation Award entitled 'Cross-species gene regulatory networks underlying addictive behaviors'. The purpose of this grant is to identify the molecular mechanisms that link the sense of smell to addictive behaviors. Our approach combines innovative behavioral assays as well as cutting-edge molecular and computational approaches to identify conserved molecular mechanisms underlying both natura

Congrats to senior undergraduate Megan Wang who recently received Honors for her impressive undergraduate honors thesis! Megan is pictured here presenting her poster at the undergraduate research symposium, and next to her mentor in the lab, Dr. John Hernandez.

Congratulations to Sam Stea, who successfully defended his Masters of Science in Biotechnology thesis entitled "Characterizing Choice Behavior in Drosophila Olfactory Classical Conditioning". Sam did a fantastic job presenting his research and fielded some great questions from his committee consisting of Dr. Kate O'Connor-Giles and Dr. Carlos Aizenman. Sam will be finishing up his M.Sc. research this summer, and then working on the mechanistic basis of relative reward signal

April 3, 2026 was Book Club Day! In lab meeting we discussed 'She Has Her Mother's Laugh' by Carl Zimmer. There was a lot of discussion about how the history of the field of behavioral genetics was couched in eugenics, and surprise about some genetic mechanisms we weren't aware of. We were also intrigued in thinking about the future of our understanding of genes that contribute to behavior. We enjoyed Easter treats and John brought in Cascarones, so that we all had a chance t

The Kaun Lab demonstrates Drosophila behavioral neurogenetics experiments at the Brown Brain Fair

Dr. Karla Kaun attended the 2026 Alcohol in the Nervous System Gordon Research Conference on Behavioral, Circuit, Cell, and Molecular Mechanisms of Alcohol in Ventura, California February 22-27. She presented a talk titled ' Circuit Mechanisms Underlying Approach-Avoidance Conflict in Ethanol Self-Administration ' which summarized new work in the lab by Dr. John Hernandez, Reza Azanchi, Nelson Le, Megan Wang, Amanda Waterman, Dr. Mukulika Ray, Ananya Pavuluri, and Dr. Tariq

Congratulations to Assistant Professor (Research) Dr. John Hernandez, postdoctoral fellow Dr. Rebecca Oramas, MSc student Nelson Le, lab manager Reza Azanchi, lab alumni Nick Mei, collaborator Dr. Andrew Dacks and undergraduate members of his lab from West Virginia University and Case Western University for the recent publication of " Shaping of olfactory responses by taste in a new assay for operant learning in Drosophila melanogaster " in the Company of Biologists Journal o

Friday, December 5 was our Book Club and Annual Cookie Swap! We discussed Brave Genius by Sean Carroll and reflected on how important it is to understand how events in WWII impacted scientists in order to understand how current events are affecting scientists today. We had a wealth of treats on the table and guest cookie appearances as well! Dr. Tim Mosca from Thomas Jefferson University sent some freshly baked peanut-butter cup cookies for everyone to enjoy. And Nadine Now

Karla and Reza hosted lab members and their families that were around for the Thanksgiving holiday for Thanksgiving dinner at their place this year. We decorated gingerbread houses, then lamb, turkey and a plethora of vegetarian side dishes were served, and later John mediated a rousing game of the Werewolf.

Karla and first year NSGP student Amelia Harman attended the 2025 Society for Neuroscience Conference in San Diego November 15-19. They caught up on the latest in neurogenetics, addiction and synapse growth and formation and enjoyed catching up with friends and lab alumni and collaborator Kristin Scaplen at the IBANGS Breakfast. Highlights were a Meet-the-Expert talk by Daniel Colon-Ramos, A Taylor Swift-inspired talk on engrams by Sheena Josselyn, learning about new transmi

Lab Meeting October 31, 2025 was in homage to Halloween as we all decorated pumkpins while updating everyone on our projects. Exchange student Matthew Kim (a graduate student visiting from Marla Sokolowski's lab at the University of Toronto) treated us all to Buffalo chicken dip, and we welcomed Pathobiology graduate student Nola Ihejirika as she completed her first week of her rotation in the lab.

Postdoctoral associate Dr. Lewis Sherer presented his work at the 9th Northeast Glenn Foundation Symposium on the Biology of Aging held at UConn Health on October 24, 2025. Lewis presented a collaborative project between our lab and the labs of Dr. Tara White and Dr. Carolina Haass-Koffler . This work demonstrates that in humans and flies, the alpha1 receptor is reduced with age. Lewis demonstrated that this reduction plays a causal role in the efficacy of blood-pressure m

The Kaun Lab is hiring new full-time Research Assistants! The position is ideal for someone interested in investigating how changes in gene regulation impact individual variation in addictive substance use. We are interested in people at all levels of experience but you must have a Bachelor's degree and some experience working in a laboratory. This includes: 1) someone who just graduated with their undergrad degree and is looking for a 2 year research experience ('Grade 7'),

Congratulations to Assistant Professor (Research) Dr. John Hernandez who was just awarded his first grant as a Principal Investigator! This COBRE Center for Nervous System Pilot award provides $100,000 for John to investigate the mechanisms through which stress impacts motivation for alcohol self-administration. The lab is very exciting to see what interesting findings emerge from this new research direction. Well done John!

Karla gave a talk on 'The Functional Consequences of Alternative Splicing on Polysubstance Use', a collaborative project between the Kaun lab and O'Connor-Giles Lab, at the 2025 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting October 7-11, 2025. It was fantastic catching up with brilliant friends and learning all the latest in the field.

Investigating pharmacotherapies for alcohol use disorder using Drosophila melanogaster

Karla attended the 2025 National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Genetics and Epigenetics Cross-Cutting Research Meeting at the NIH Campus in Bethesda MD. She gave a talk in a symposium titled "Regulation of Alternative Splicing in Addiction" with Liz Heller, Luana Carvalho and Rohan Palmer and chaired by Amy Lasek. As a reward Karla enjoyed a dinner at a Bethesda Ethiopian restaurant with Adrian Rothenfluh, Tamara Phillips, Dez Coleman, Paul Meyer and Brock Grill.

Every year the last week of August brings everyone together in two graduate program retreats. Our lab tries to attend both retreats as it's always fun to catch up with everyone at the end of the summer. The Neuroscience retreat was held Thursday August 28, and the Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry retreat was held Friday August 29. This year Rebecca represented the lab by presenting her poster "Use of Drosophila melanogaster to identify pharmacotherapies of al