The Sombers lab has 2 new alumni, Dr. Dylan Denison and Dr. Alexandra Forderhase! We are so excited for you and cannot wait to see what your future holds! We will miss you very much, thank you for your years of hard work, mentorship, and excellent science!

We are so excited to welcome Hannah Sumner (senior), Emily Phillips (sophomore), Kaffie Kirby (freshman), and Kayleigh Linder (first year graduate student) to our lab! We cannot wait to see all you will accomplish!

The Sombers lab had the great opportunity to engage with the community at Brain Night 2023. We had several educational activities and Jenna gave a public talk!

The Sombers lab traveled to Philadelphia to present their research at Pittcon 2023. Talks were given by Alex, Dylan, Chathuri, Jovica, Jenna, Kalynn, and Laney. Great time had by all!

Alex and Laney both presented posters, and listened to lectures from some of the top neuroscientists in the world.

The 2021 school year is well underway, but at the end of summer we were all able to rendezvous outside for a quick photo! Our current group has expanded. Please see our research team link for more information about our stellar new post-doc., undergraduates, and graduate researchers!

Undergraduate researchers Lailah Ligons, Laney Kimble, Emilie Norwood, Ruby Shah, and Lauren Lamothe presented their work at the Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium

Lailah Ligons presents her work in employing enzyme-modified electrodes for use in neuroenergetics investigations at the summer undergraduate research symposium

Lailah posing with her poster!

Emilee Norwood presents work with using FSCV to detect non-electroactive species via enzymatic activity

Kaylnn Turner works with detecting two electroactive species of interest: dopamine and hydrogen peroxide. Simultaneous detection will empower work investigating chemical relationships

Ruby Shah is working on characterizing a novel double-barrel electrode for simultaneous detection of two separate analytes while on a single, isolated cell model.

Catherine Denisowski (left) with her research mentor Dylan Denison (right) pose in front of her poster detailing work in creating an electrode-petri dish hybrid

Lauren Lamothe’s work investigates the fundamentals of enkephalin detection and release in brain slices. Lauren (right, next to poster) is pictured with her research mentor Jenna Berger (far left).

Laney Kimble works on enzyme-modified electrodes for chemically selective detection of glutamate in the brain

Here at N.C. State we’re swinging into our first week of classes. Many professors, like our own PI, have adopted distance learning formats to ease and stop the pandemic spread. Dr. Sombers is “casually” juggling research, managing her lab, guiding her daughters through remote learning, and running her virtual classroom for the current chemistry undergraduates.

Class just started, but it might already be time to take a break!

Congratulations to Alexandra Forderhase, Hannah Styres, Christie Lee and the entire team on this new publication! Glucose and lactate are key neuroenergetic substrates, but tremendous ambiguity remains regarding how these species change on a second-by-second basis in live brain tissue. This work is important because it uses electrochemistry to provide an unprecedented direct comparison of glucose and lactate dynamics in response to metabolic demand elicited by neuronal activation. Click here to see for yourself!👇
https://rdcu.be/b5C09

Curious about our research? Thinking about going to NC State for graduate school? Please view our lab introduction video if electrochemistry, brain science, and circuits (both neurological and electrical!) interest you!

We made the difficult decision to shut down, so we made this intro video to introduce ourselves to the world...