On June 3, 2010, Sabrina Lin, a PhD student in Dr. Talbot's lab, successfully defended her PhD research in an open seminar that was part of our spring seminar series. On 6-13-2010, Sabrina participated in the UCR graduation ceremonies, was hooded, and officially became Dr. Sabrina Lin.

Sabrina is the first UCR student to receive a PhD for work using human embryonic stem cells. Sabrina studied the effects of conventional and harm reduction cigarettes on prenatal development using both mouse and human embryonic stem cells to model the earliest stages of development. She made the important discovery that sidestream smoke from harm reduction cigarettes, which are purported less toxic than conventional brands, was indeed more potent in most assays that conventional sidestream smoke. This is an important finding that could influence smoker's choices and regulation of the sale and advertisement of harm reduction products.

During the course of her program at UCR, she presented her work at numerous meetings and played a vital role in helping with the establishment of the Stem Cell Center and Stem Cell Core Facility. She trained many students to work with stem cells and helped host many seminar speakers and visitors to the Center. Sabrina received many accolades for her work. In 2009, Sabrina won an award in the CIRM image contest and her work appeared on the cover of Human Reproduction. She also received in 2009 the first place award for her presentation at the annual symposium sponsored by the Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology graduate program at UCR. Her work was also featured by Nikon in one of their ad campaigns. Sabrina published 3 research papers and is the author on three review papers which all were included in her dissertation. She is currently continuing her work in Dr. Talbot's lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow.