EITS Graduate Kathryn Wierenga Selected for New Investigator Award at ISSFAL 2021 Virtual Congress

August 24, 2021

Recent EITS graduate, Kathryn Wierenga, received the New Investigator Award from the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids (ISSFAL) 2021 Virtual Congress. Wierenga was awarded for her presentation, "Single cell RNA sequencing reveals DHA-induced macrophage polarization toward an anti-inflammatory phenotype." Wierenga trained with IIT-affiliated faculty member James Pestka who is affiliated with the Departments of Food Science and Human Nutrition and Microbiology and Molecular Genetics.

ISSFAL is an International Scientific Society established in 1991, of more than 500 members from more than 40 countries. ISSFAL members are scientists, medical professionals, educators, administrators, communicators and others with an interest in the health effects of dietary fats, oils and lipids; members include researchers carrying out studies on the health effects of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, conjugated linoleic acids (CLA), saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids as well as other lipids. ISSFAL is the foremost International Scientific Society dealing exclusively with the health impact of dietary lipids.

Wierenga will be continuing her education as a postdoctoral student in the laboratory of Dr. Alain de Bruin at Utrecht Unversity in the Netherlands. The de Bruin laboratory is interested in understanding the pathobiology of aging and cancer and how changes to the cell cycle influence these pathways. Initially, Wierenga will participate in a project using single cell technologies to investigate how individual cancer cells respond to replication stress induced by anti-cancer drugs.