Three students recognized with CBS Graduate Student Best Paper Prizes

The College of Biological Science is recognizing three graduate students who published exceptional peer-reviewed articles in 2025 with CBS Graduate Student Best Paper Prizes. The competition, now in its seventh year, awards one graduate student from each department with a $500 prize.

This year’s winners are Nick Gervais, a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology student, Nicole Notaro, a PhD in Human Health and Nutritional Sciences student, and Dr. Charlotte Ward, a recent PhD in Integrative Biology graduate.

Nick Gervais, a PhD student from Dr. Rebecca Shapiro’s lab, for his paper “HyperdCas12a-based multiplexed genetic regulation in Candida albicans,” which was published in Nucleic Acids Research in December 2025.

Antifungal drug resistance is rarely driven by a single gene, and genes do not act in isolation, but researchers have been limited in their ability to understand how combinations of genes interact to drive resistance. To address this challenge, Gervais developed a dCas12-based CRISPR regulatory platform capable of simultaneously modulating multiple genes. By integrating CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) and CRISPR activation (CRISPRa), the system enables efficient, tunable, and multiplexed gene repression and activation in Candida albicans. This platform represents a powerful, scalable set of tools that could accelerate the discovery of mechanisms underlying antifungal resistance.

“This work truly reflects Nick’s exceptional independence as a trainee,” writes Dr. Shapiro in her nomination letter. “He conceived, executed, and drove nearly every aspect of this project himself, from initial idea through to final manuscript. His ability to lead a strong research study while simultaneously mentoring junior trainees speaks to his leadership and potential as an emerging early-career scientist.”

Nicole Notaro, a PhD student from Dr. David Dyck’s lab, for her paper “Exercise is required to maintain unacylated ghrelin response in adult male rat skeletal muscle, regardless of dietary fat consumption,” which was published in Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics in October 2025.

The study, which represents original research from Notaro’s MSc thesis, explores the development of ghrelin resistance in skeletal muscle, a condition in which the hormone’s protective effects, particular its ability to stimulate fatty acid oxidation, are lost. Notaro found that both high-fat diets and prolonged sedentary behaviour contribute to the development of ghrelin resistance. She also found that high-intensity exercise helps protect muscle, whereas more modest exercise does not appear to prevent resistance.

“Nicole’s attention to detail, self-learning/direction and troubleshooting is very impressive and among the very best that I have ever seen in my own lab,” writes Dr. Dyck in his nomination letter. “This study would easily be challenging for a doctoral student. The fact that Nicole was able to do this as her first major study as a master’s student is truly impressive.”

Dr. Charlotte Ward, a recent PhD graduate from Dr. Kevin McCann’s lab, for her paper “Global changes asymmetrically rewires ecosystems,” which was published in Ecology Letters in July 2025.

This research examines how global environmental change affects habitats unevenly across landscapes, driving structural and functional reorganization of ecosystems. Drawing on evidence from stable isotope analyses, energetic modelling, and gut content studies, Ward demonstrates that anthropogenic pressures often alter some energy pathways within food webs more strongly than others. This asymmetric rewiring can simplify ecosystem structure, reducing the capacity of ecosystems to respond to environmental variation and increasing their vulnerability to instability and collapse. By identifying general patterns in how environmental change restructures energy flow through food webs, this work provides a novel framework for understanding and predicting ecosystem responses to global change.

“She led the conceptual development, analytical design, and manuscript preparation with a level of intellectual ownership that is rare at this career stage,” writes Dr. McCann in his nomination letter. “The paper required months of careful extraction and synthesis of patterns from a dispersed and complex literature, demanding both technical rigor and conceptual clarity. Throughout this process, Dr. Ward demonstrated remarkable perseverance; her enthusiasm and commitment to refining the central idea never waned.”