Biochemical Journal Young Investigator Award winner

Verline Justilien

Verline Justilien attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where she earned a BSc in Microbiology and Cell Science in 2001. As an undergraduate, she pursued her interest in biomedical research by participating in the McNair Scholars program and conducted research in molecular biology in the laboratory of Dr Francis Davis. Verline earned a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics in 2006 from the University of Florida's Interdisciplinary Program of Biomedical Sciences in the laboratory of Dr Alfred Lewin. In her graduate work, Verline developed a mouse model for the eye disease age-related macular degeneration to study the development and progression of this disease. Her graduated work resulted in three peer-reviewed publications. During her graduate career, she was also the recipient of the University of Florida Alumni Fellowship, an Infectious Diseases Training Grant, an NIH Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research and various travel awards to conferences to present her research. Currently, Verline is a post-doctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Dr Alan Fields at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. Her current research focuses on the oncogenic PKC (protein kinase C) ι signalling mechanisms in lung cancer. Most recently, her work demonstrating that the guanine nucleotide-exchange factor, Ect2, links the PKCι–Par6α complex to Rac1 activation and cellular transformation was published in the journal Oncogene. Verline is also an adjunct professor at the University of North Florida, where she teaches laboratory courses in biology