Brigid Toomey, who is entering a PhD program in Washington University in St. Louis this fall, is the 2025 winner of the James Turpen Scholar Excellence Award, given annually to the top graduating student scientist in the Nebraska IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (NE-INBRE) program who plans to attend graduate school.
Because no NE-INBRE Conference was held in 2025, Toomey is one of two scholars receiving the award this year.
Toomey, a former student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, was an INBRE scholar from 2023-24, working in the lab of Jordan Rowley, PhD, an associate professor in the UNMC Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Anatomy. She arrived at INBRE after working at the lab of Audrey Atkin, PhD, at Lincoln, and remained a member of Dr. Atkin’s lab in between her two summer INBRE sessions and after the program, as well.
Toomey just finished a year studying cellular and molecular biology at Grenoble Alpes University in Grenoble, France, after being awarded the Fulbright-Grenoble Alpes University Award. At Washington University, the North Carolina native’s study focus will be cancer biology.
“I’m really excited by anything translational,” said Toomey, who is studying cancer biology in part because she had a family member who grappled with leukemia. “My lab at UNL had a translational aspect, and that bench-to-bedside aspect is important. The INBRE experience helped me explore that side of research — and now that’s more what I’m moving into as I do my PhD.
“We did mapping of human chromatin organization, how DNA folds up inside cells. These were new techniques for me, and it was really exciting.”
Watching her relative’s years-long battle with leukemia solidified Toomey’s decision to explore research in cancer therapeutics.
“I’m just starting,” she said. “But that was always what drove me — I want to help people.”
Her INBRE experience helped solidify her choice of career path, she said.
“INBRE gave me time to work in a lab; a chance to talk to graduate students about what a career in research looks like; and confirmed that I like the aspect of establishing your hypothesis, creating the experiment and working through the steps of scientific investigation. I enjoy that — and I’m excited to do that the rest of my life.”
Toomey said receiving that Turpen Award is exciting and a little surreal.
“I’m so honored and appreciative,” she said. “As I’m starting my PhD, this helps give me confidence. I remember being at the conferences years ago and seeing the Turpen Award winners and admiring them. It’s cool to now be in their shoes.”
Toomey’s work with Dr. Rowley was in bioinformatics and systems biology, her first experience working with human cell cultures and in a mixed wet- and dry-lab.
“It was my first experience learning how to code,” she said. “Especially now with the entrance of AI into biology, it was like seeing the future of science in bioinformatics, a really special experience for me.”
“I’m thrilled for Brigid and her success, and happy for the part we played in giving her this combined wet-lab and dry-lab experience enabled by the INBRE program,” Dr. Rowley said. “What stood out was her willingness to work at that interface. She learned human cell culture, molecular biology bench work, and data analysis in the same year, and by the end she was asking the kind of questions about how DNA folds that become the center of projects.”