Celeste Cifuentes wraps up a successful SURF fellowship with the lab!

This summer, Celeste Cifuentes took part in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program, where she joined the Kopinke Lab to explore how the transcription factor PPARγ contributes to intramuscular fat (IMAT) accumulation following muscle injuries with glycerol and cardiotoxin injections. Her project also involved testing different differentiation cues in pre-adipocyte cells to better understand fat cell development. With a growing passion for biomedical research, she plans to pursue a PharmD or PhD after graduation to continue investigating the mechanisms behind human health and disease.

She presented her poster titled "Differentiation of Intramuscular Fat in Skeletal Muscle via Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor" for her fellowship to the UF Pharmacology and Therapeutics Department.

Thank you Celeste for all your hard work and contributions to the Kopinke Lab this summer. It was great to see you grow in such a short amount of time!