Sombers Lab

Huge shoutout to superstar Catie Mason! She was a Sombers Lab undergrad, back in the NCSU days, working with Leslie Aksu on understanding the role of H2O2 in modulating striatal function and movement. But today, she is DR. CATIE MASON! She put in the work and just finished her PhD at Emory and we are all SO PROUD of her !!! Her topic - EFFECTS OF AGING AND COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT ON CORTICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO STANDING BALANCE CONTROL - This is super important! The elderly are so prone to falls.....

I have the BEST TEAM!!! Can't wait to see what's next for this young scientist! Go Dr. Catie!!!! You are AMAZING! Keep making the world a better place!!!

We are proud of Kalynn Turner!

Two UF College of Pharmacy trainees win AFPE fellowships » College of Pharmacy » University of Florida Kayla Smith and Kalynn Turner were recognized for their pharmaceutical science research.

Kalynn Turner has won a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education - it's a national award - she is killing it! 💪💪💪 Young Kalynn sets a standard of excellence that reflects the very best, and I am so proud to be her mentor!

BOOM.

Heck yassssss!!!! We got another journal cover!!! Beautiful work by Jenna Berger Martyr and Dylan Denison deserves the spotlight!!! 💪💪💪

ACS Chemical Neuroscience features Dr. Sombers’ research as cover art » Department of Cellular and Systems Pharmacology » College of Pharmacy » University of Florida ACS Chemical Neuroscience selected artwork from Dr. Leslie Sombers’ latest publication to appear on the journal’s cover in May 2026.

Hot new paper out!!! 🔥 This one describes the latest in our relentless quest to monitor and understand the enkephalins.....

This study was led by Jenna Berger Martyr and Dylan Denison working in collaboration with the lab at Illinois. It combines electrochemical monitoring of exocytosis with mass spectrometry to characterize the temporal complexity and chemical diversity of peptide participants in opioid signaling. Go team!!! 💪💪💪

Profiling Endogenous Opioid Peptide Release from Adrenal Chromaffin Cells Despite longstanding recognition that the adrenal medulla is a major source of both catecholamines and opioid peptides, direct measurements of opioid peptide release kinetics─and characterization of the full complexity of the peptidergic forms released─remain under studied. Here, this gap is add...

In loving memory of my long-time mentor and dear friend, Howard Fields, MD PHD, Professor of Neurology and Physiology at UCSF, who passed away on May 1. Howard was a pioneer in the pain research field, who discovered and characterized the inhibitory and excitatory descending brainstem mechanisms that regulate pain. His work revolutionized our understanding of endogenous opioid peptide contributions to pain processing. Howard was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Science, and he was a GREAT person whose joy and curiosity inspired many. He is deeply missed – 💔💔💔

Watch out, world, her comes Kayleigh! Kayleigh Linder won a generous travel fellowship from UF CARE (Center for Addiction Research and Education)! This award will support her travel to Amsterdam this fall to present her work on the co-detection of dopamine and glutamate at the International Symposium for Monitoring Molecules in Neuroscience. 💪💪💪

Guess who passed her qualifying exam today to officially became a UF College of Pharmacy doctoral candidate.... this girl!!! 👇👇👇Congratulations Kayleigh Linder! 💪💪💪

The 2026 UF CARE Symposium (Center for Addiction Research and Education) was excellent! Kalynn Turner is on 🔥🔥🔥!!! Another poster award, this time for work done with Jenna Berger Martyr, Jovica Todorov , and the Sweedler Lab at the University of Illinois. The project is focused on the co-detection of dopamine and enkephalin, an endogenous opioid peptide. CRUSHING IT!!!! Couldn't be more proud of this team.