Several pictures of lab events, talks and posters...

This includes the 2024 KU Center for Genomics Symposium (Nilanjan was runner-up for best talk!), a few dinners, the KINBRE symposium in January 2024, and Paul throwing axes.

Maggie's defense

Maggie Schedl defended her Masters thesis in May 2024. Maggie worked on establishing DiNV (a nudivirus) as a lab experimental system. She did amazing work and we will miss her very much!

Lab Updates

We have several exciting developments in the lab…

  • Several members walked in support of the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention.

  • We participated in the second annual KU Center for Genomics Symposium. The event was a success with many great research talks from colleagues both near and far, two poster sessions, and a fun Up-Goer-5 competition where scientists explain their research using only the 1000 most commonly used words in the English language (it’s harder than you think!).

  • Rob attended a mini Meiotic Drive conference in Switzerland, where 25 researchers from around the world worked on finalizing a new review for the field.

  • Anjali, Jesse, and Rob attended the Evolution meeting in Albuquerque, NM, where Jesse and Anjali gave talks and took pictures with some old lab friends of those of us who couldn’t attend the conference.

  • Nilanjan studied hard all spring and summer and successfully passed his qualifying exam at the end of summer!!!

  • There was a successful outing to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, which it seems like we are making an annual lab event.

Recent Papers and Preprints

KL Vertacnik, DK Herrig, RK Godfrey, T Hill, SM Geib, RL Unckless, ...

Ecology and Evolution 13 (10), e10506

YM Alhammad, S Parthasarathy, R Ghimire, CM Kerr, JJ O’Connor, ...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 (35), e2302083120

BR Smith, KB Patch, A Gupta, EM Knoles, RL Unckless

PLoS Pathogens 19 (8), e1010934

New special issue of Journal of Evolutionary Biology focusing on sex chromosomes

ESEB’s Journal of Evolutionary Biology published a special issue on sex chromosome evolution today. The issue features several contributions from lab members. First, Wen-Juan Ma (postdoc) organized and served as one of the guest editors for the issue. Maggie Schedl (graduate student) designed the cover image (see right). The lab (including Wen-Juan, undergrads Emma Knoles and Murtaza Shoaib, and technician Kistie Patch) published a paper on aneuploidy and meiotic drive. Wen-Juan also wrote an introduction and review with Michail Rovatsos.

Several new members of the lab!

This fall we have several new arrivals:

Maggie Schedl: Maggie started as a technician in the lab in fall 2021, but has transitioned to become a masters student this fall. Maggie works on the Drosophila innubila Nudivirus.

Emma Knoles: Emma was an undergraduate and technician in the lab and is now in the KU PREP program (https://prep.ku.edu/) , a post-baccalaureate program. Emma works on the evolution of immunity and is applying to PhD programs this fall.

Anjali Gupta: Anjali is a new EEB PhD student in the lab. She comes from NG Prasad’s lab at Mohali IISER in India. Anjali will work on the role of antimicrobial peptides in the gut and systemic immunity.

Taylor Conway: Taylor is a new EEB PhD student in the lab. She comes from Rebekah Rogers’ lab at UNC Charlotte. Taylor will work on aspects of meiotic drive in Drosophila.

Paul Ginsberg: Paul is a new KU Center for Genomics Postdoctoral Fellow. He comes from the University of Georgia, where he did his PhD with Kelly Dyer. Paul will be co-advised with Justin Blumenstiel and will work on B chromosome evolution.