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Latest from the Lab:
- May 2024: The Coate Lab is established!
- August 2024: Farewell lunch for Garrett Reynolds as begins graduate school at Vanderbilt!
- August 2024: Dr. Coate recruits incoming IGP/QCB graduate students to rotate in her lab at the faculty poster session
- September 2024: Excited to welcome Grace Nickles and Sowmya Paritala to the Coate Lab!!
- October 2024: Excited to welcome Neha Mohanty to the Coate Lab for her 2nd IGP rotation!
- November 2024: Excited to recruit Cristina (Cris) Harmelink as Lab Manager for our growing team!
- …We were hacked! Sorry for the gap in posts…
- April 2025: Excited to welcome our newest members to the Coate lab for their PhD studies: Grace Nickles and Neha Mohanty!! We are thrilled to have you join us!
- April 2025: The Coate Lab’s first MPB retreat is in the books!
- April 2025: Sowmya Paritala won 2nd place o her research poster and the Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Symposium. Congratulations Sowmya on all your hard work!
- June 2025: We’re so excited to welcome Elaina Prince to the lab! She is a Vanderbilt Summer Science Academy scholarship recipient from Sewanee University.
- June 2025: We’re also excited to welcome Nandita Dey back to the lab! First as a talented undergrad at VU…now a rising star at Meharry Medical College! Welcome back Nandita🙂
Translating islet biology into diabetes breakthroughs
The Coate Lab investigates how adult pancreatic islet β- and α-cells preserve their specialized identity and hormone secretion – and why these defenses collapse in diabetes. We utilize a variety of state-of-the-art approaches in primary human islets, including CRISPR- and RNAi-edited “pseudoislets,” dynamic secretion assays, single-cell and bulk multi-omics, advanced imaging, and in-vivo xenografts to chart the transcription factor circuits and lipid signaling pathways disrupted earliest by metabolic stress. Our emphasis on human-focused methodologies ensures our findings are directly translatable and will inform precision therapies that safeguard functional β-cell mass and improve outcomes for adults with diabetes.
We foster an interactive lab culture built on scientific curiosity, personal and professional integrity, excellence, and lifelong learning. If you’d like to join our dynamic team, please contact Dr. Coate at kathryn.coate@vanderbilt.edu.