News:

• April 16, 2025: Amara, Bryan, Chloe, and Kai are presenting their work (again!) at the UNL Spring Research Week.

• April 26, 2025: Kai is presenting his work at the Nebraska Academy of Sciences Event

• April 26, 2025: Sarah is presenting her work at the first LSAMP meeting. 

Upcoming Events:

• New undergraduate student - interested student - information sessions March 28 & April 16, see "joining the group" here

• April 28, 2025: CIBC Symposium

• May 6, 2025: MMoD Symposium 

• Amara, Bryan, Chloe, Kai, and Lexi are graduating! May 17, 2025!!

• December 2024: New publication about HCMV with prior collaborators: 

  • Streblow lab: Third intracellular loop of HCMV US28 is necessary for signaling and viral reactivation

• December 6, 2024: UNL Microbiology Symposium; Amara and Kai presented their work.

• October 22, 2024: in collaboration with the Iverson (Biological Systems Engineering) and Khalimonchuk (Biochemistry) labs, our group host a mini-symposium on the intersection of monocytes, mitochondria, and viral infection as part of NVIBE. Open attendance welcome in Morrison 169 from 1-4pm.

• October 2024: Welcome to AJ Steen, Biochemistry rotation graduate student.

• September 27, 2024: Kai presented his work on UL5 and Haiwei Zhai (graduate student in Mechanical Engineering) presented a collaborative project (Angeletti, Crawford, Meng labs) at the annual Nebraska Center for Virology Symposium.

• August 2024: Welcome to Olivia Warriner, Biochemistry rotation graduate student.

2024

• Dr. Crawford presented at the ND3P Sympoisum May 30-31 and IHW 2024 in July.

• May 18, 2024: Emily Hogg and Kate Thortenson graduated with degrees in Biochemistry and Biological Sciences, respectively. Congratulations and best wishes for your next steps!!

  • Emily - congratulations on your honors program award and great speech at the Biochemistry department celebration!

• Congratulations to Lexi and Kai on receiving the Milton Mohr scholarship for next year (May 14, 2024).

• April 4, 2024: Dr. Crawford was invited to present the Nebraska Wesleyan Fetzer Lecture, https://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/about-nwu/news-center/scientist-examine-virus-impacts-immune-systems 

• March 27, 2024: UNL Student Research Days in Lincoln, NE - Chloe, Emily, Kai, Kate, Lexi presented their projects from UCARE and INBRE

  • Congratulations Kai - 2nd place poster presentation at UNL Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Symposium (April 11, 2024) AND as a top CAS presenter at the 2024 Nebraska Research Days (March 27, 2024)

• March 20, 2024: Congratulations Emily for a successful defense of your thesis (CASNR and Honors College)! 

• March 8-9, 2024: ASM Missouri Valley Branch meeting

• January 25, 2024: the lab welcomes new students to the group: Bryan Suriano and Sarah Larson

• December 1, 2023: Kamryn Pfenning presented at the UNL Microbiology Symposium

2023

• November 1, 2023: Postdoctoral researcher Dr. Lucia Martinez Cuesta joins the group.

• October 30, 2023: Herpesvirus Conference, information here. Dr. Crawford is speaking in the afternoon session.

• New publications about HCMV with prior collaborators: 

  • Goodrum lab, August 2023: Stabilization of the human cytomegalovirus UL136p33 reactivation determinant overcomes the requirement for UL135 for replication in hematopoietic cells.

  • Caposio lab, September 2023: HCMV UL8 interaction with β-catenin and DVL2 regulates viral reactivation in CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cells

  • Streblow lab, October 2023: Proximity-dependent mapping of the HCMV US28 interactome identifies RhoGEF signaling as a requirement for efficient viral reactivation

• October 6, 2023: Nebraska Center for Virology Fall Symposium, register here

• October 9, 2023: NCIBC Symposium on Cyro-EM, register here

• August 2023: Lexi Hauxwell was awarded the Milton E. Mohr scholarship for 2023-2024

• August 2023: Abby Bopp joins the lab as the first 2023 rotation graduate student in Biochemistry.

• August 9, 2023: LPS STEM Connector event, Nebraska Today article link

• August 7, 2023: Kai Waddell spoke at the annual summer INBRE conference in Nebraska City

• August 3, 2023: Emily Hogg presented her work at the annual UNL Summer Research Symposium

• July 2023: new publication with the Helikar lab: Modeling and Remodeling the Cell: How Digital Twins and HCMV Can Elucidate the Complex Interactions of Viral Latency, Epigenetic Regulation, and Immune Responses

• July 2023: International Herpesvirus Workshop (IHW) 

• June 2023: Our group's new review on betaherpesvirus latency and stem cells, here.

• May 2023: NVIBE retreat

• April 2023: Emily Hogg was awarded a second UCARE fellowship to continue her work in the lab over the summer.

• April 2023: Chloe Deabler, Kate Thortenson, and Lexi Hauxwell were awarded UCARE fellowships to work in the lab during the academic year 23-24.

• March 2023: Kai Waddell was awarded an INBRE scholarship. He is now funded to work in the lab for the next two years. 

• January 2023:  Shorooq Al Hikamani, Amara Byrant, and Laura Lienemann joined the group as new undergraduate interns

• January 2023: Lexi was featured in Nebraska Today

2022

• December 2022: our recent publication is live at Current Protocols: Human Embryonic Stem Cells as a Model for Hematopoietic Stem Cell Differentiation and Viral Infection. Current Protocols. DOI: 10.1002/cpz1.622

• October 2022: The 22nd Prem S. Paul Symposium in Virology was a great success, thanks to our visiting speakers for a great day!

• October 2022: Polash Ghosh joined the lab as our second Department of Biochemistry PhD rotation student

• Dr. Crawford presented at these September seminars at UNL - thank you for joining us

  • September 8: Complex Biosystems seminar series: Viral Control of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Fate

  • September 9: College of Engineering 2022-2023 Biomedical Engineering seminar series: Building Better Bone Marrow: Using Chronic Viral Infection to Determine Stem Cell Biology

• August 2022: Alondra Torres joined the lab as our inaugural Department of Biochemistry PhD rotation student

• July 2022: Kamryn Pfenning joined the lab full time as a Research Technician 

• The lab was recently awarded a Layman Award for a seed project titled: "Beta-herpesvirus (HHV-6) control of T-cell differentiation", news article here.

• June 2022: Emily Hogg is joining the lab for a UNL-sponsored research project through the UCARE program

• June 2022: Mary Helms is joining the lab through the Undergraduate Summer Research Experience in Virology, a UNL- and NCV-sponsored REU summer program.

• April 27, 2022: Kamryn Pfenning presented her work on TMC1 and USH1G during cCMV infection at the Nebraska Weselyan Student Research Symposium

• March 2022: Emily Hogg was awarded a UCARE fellowship from UNL to study HCMV UL6 for summer 2022.

• March 2022: Dr. Crawford was featured on the Latency Session panel discussion at the 2022 Annual CMV Workshop (held virtually)

• January 31, 2022: Dr. Crawford was featured in the IANR Faculty Spotlight.

• January 2022: the first groups of undergraduate researchers have joined the lab. Welcome everyone! Details can be found on our members page with content in progress with permission.