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Benjamin Cocanougher
- Alumni
- United States
- 2016 PhD Zoology
- St Catharine's College
I grew up catching praying mantises and damselflies in rural Kentucky. As an undergraduate at Centre College, I majored in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; I spent my summers taking care of sick children at the Center for Courageous Kids and doing research in organic chemistry and neuroscience. I matriculated directly to the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and completed my first three years of medical school. I then moved to Janelia Research Campus as a HHMI Medical Research Fellow; there I studied the neural and genetic bases of behavior. As a PhD student in Zoology, I will study adaptive behavior. All animals integrate information about past experience into future decisions; this is the basis of learning and memory. I am proposing to write a specific memory and read the memory trace in the brain. I will use the fruit fly as a model organism. By understanding mechanisms of memory storage, we can begin to investigate changes in memory formation in disease; this may allow us to develop rational therapies for disorders of memory formation, including autism and Alzheimer’s disease. After completing my PhD, I will return to finish my last year of medical school and pursue a career as a child neurologist and neuroscientist, using my lab to better understand the patients I see in clinic.
Previous Education
Centre College
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Latest News
Listening to women’s history
Indian women’s accounts of the impact of partition have been little heard. Anjali Datta wants to focus not only on how the partition of 1947 affected them, but on the longer term effect of that impact on the history of modern-day Delhi. “In most histories of partition women have not had a voice. It was […]
The educational impact of the Arab Spring
What will the wider impact of the Arab Spring be on social policies around the Middle East region? Gates Cambridge Scholar Elect Mona Jebril is interested in looking at the effect of changing attitudes to education in Egypt on higher education in Gaza. “Egypt and Gaza have a close relationship. From 1948 to 1994 Palestinian […]
Mutating proteins
Scientists have used bioinformatics approaches to shed new light on the way our bodies produce proteins, which could help design therapeutic strategies for tissue-specific diseases such as cancer. Next-Generation Sequencing technologies have enabled researchers to discover that most human genes are alternatively spliced, a mechanism that allows our genes to produce multiple versions of a […]
Good neighbours
Derron Wallace’s research trip to Ethiopia didn’t begin well. The person he stayed with was arrested and Derron was not allowed to access any of his belongings or his room. He had no money, no food and nowhere to stay. He went to a local barbershop and spoke to residents there, many of whom gave […]
Film of Gates Cambridge vision event released
A short film of this summer’s unveiling of the new vision for the Gates Cambridge Scholarships has been released. The film includes footage of the event which was attended by over 250 academics, business and social leaders and Gates Cambridge Alumni and Scholars in June. In the film, Gates Cambridge Scholars and Alumni talk about […]
The young brain
How young adults remember events may occur in a different part of the brain to older adults, meaning that perhaps a developmental change takes place in the brain in older adulthood, according to new research. The research, by Gates Scholar Elect Brielle Stark, has been accepted for publication in the Yale Review for Undergraduate Research […]
Divided city
Can culture act as a bridge to connect groups who are in conflict? How do divided cities operate on a day to day basis? And how do people negotiate contested spaces in cities as politicised as Jerusalem? Hanna Baumann [2012] has been fascinated by the subject of divided cities since she was young. Her PhD […]
Aid agencies ‘failing urban displaced’
The humanitarian sector has failed to act on the issue of urban displacement and has struggled to employ existing knowledge and to adapt practice, according to a new report co-edited by a Gates alumna. The report, Urban vulnerability and displacement: a review of current issues, is published in a special edition of the peer-reviewed journal […]
