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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
Gates Scholar wins prestigious NASA fellowship
Caitlin Casey (2007) – a recent Gates alumna – has been awarded the prestigious Hubble Fellowship to pursue her research at the University of Hawai’i. The Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute – which awards the fellowships – said “the recently selected Hubble Fellows represent the ‘best of the best’, a new generation of […]
Barack Obama’s New Media Director gives Gates Lecture
Barack Obama’s New Media Director discussed the lessons learned from the US presidential campaign at a distinguished lecture in Cambridge this week. As the UK prepares for a general election in which new media is expected to play a key role for the first time, Joe Rospars discussed his experiences on the US presidential campaign […]
Information for applicants for 2010
The Gates Cambridge Trust has now emailed all candidates who have been shortlisted for interviews at the end of March. If you have not received an email from the Trust this means that you have not been invited to interview and your application for a Gates Cambridge Scholarship has not been successful. However, your papers […]
Gates Scholar’s research suggests on-line security questions are too easy
Joseph Bonneau (2008) – Gates Scholar, Chair of the Scholars’ Council and PhD student at the University’s Computer Lab – has been undertaking research with his colleagues which has found that hackers can successfully access one in 80 accounts if given three attempts to provide answers, such as the maiden name of the web user. […]
Inaugural European Gates Alumni event in Berlin, Germany
For the weekend 16-18 April 2010, Gates Alumni from all over Europe are warmly invited to the Inaugural European Gates Alumni event taking place in the vibrant city of Berlin, Germany. With generous support from the Gates Cambridge Trust and the Alumni Association, a rich programme in attractive, accessible surroundings awaits up to 40 participants. […]
Gates Scholar on podium for closing of Winter Olympics
After volunteering to help with the Winter Olympics in her hown town of Vancouver, Gates Scholar Julia Fan Li was lucky enough to be nominated as one of the four volunteers to take to the podium for the closing ceremony. Julia said “It was the thrill of my life. being up there in front of […]
Gates Alumna wins prestigious Lemelson-MIT Caltech Prize
Gates aluma Heather Agnew (2003) has won the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Caltech Student Prize. Heather (pictured far right) received the $30,000 prize for her work on “Protein Capture Agents for Improving the Performance and Stability of Point-of-Care Diagnostics.”. The Lemelson-MIT Caltech Student Prize is be awarded to a Caltech undergraduate or graduate student who has created […]
Statins and Diabetes
Sreenivasa Rao Kondapally Seshasai is the co-author of an article this month in The Lancet, the world’s leading platform for peer-reviewed publications in medical science. The article, of which a summary can be found here, considers whether a link exists between statin use and the development of diabetes. The study examines the results of statin […]
Distinguished Lecture: Joshua Silver on corrective eye wear for the developing world
Professor Joshua Silver gave his Gates Scholars Distinguished Lecture – entitled ‘How we do we really bring vision corrective to those that need it in the developing world?’ – at the Cambridge Union Society on 3 February 2010. Joshua Silver is an atomic physicist and Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford. He became […]
Gates alumnus Joseph Lim passes away
The Trust is sad to announce the death of Dr Joseph Lim – a Gates alumnus from the Philippines who undertook the PhD in Pharmacology at Selwyn College from 2004. More recently Joseph was working as a post-doctoral researcher in Molecular Physiology at the University of Dundee. Joseph was a well-liked member of the Gates […]
