Jessie Perlmutter (postdoc) leaves to start her own lab at the University of Virginia

Jessie presenting her work at the KINBRE meeting in 2024

Jessie started at KU in March of 2020 after an incredibly successful graduate degree at Vanderbilt with Seth Bordenstein. She continued to do great things at KU including…

• getting her own funding: an NSF PRFB and an NIH K99!

• publishing: papers in PLOS Genetics, MBE, BMC Biology and more!

• outreach and community building: Jessie founded the Kansas Postdoc Outreach Program (KPOP) and was a leader in KU Center for Genomics efforts including the annual Symposium.

• mentoring: Jessie was an exceptional mentor to others in the lab serving as almost a second advisor and a good sounding board for me

• the lab social organizer: she organized outings (Ren Fest), book clubs, the often disappointing lab trivia team, and more.

Jessie will be missed dearly, but we are looking forward to seeing what she does in her own lab. She is joining the Department of Biology at the University of Virginia and will work on various aspects of symbiosis, Wolbachia and immune defense. Good luck Jessie!

Taiye Adewumi passed his qualifying exam!

Congratulations Taiye!

Presenting Dr. Kent Mulkey!

Kent’s defense

Congratulations Kent on a successful PhD defense! Kent defended his dissertation in March 2025. His work paved the way for new research on DNA virus/host interaction.

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.

Paul gets a job!

Postdoc Paul Ginsberg is starting a faculty position at Ottawa University (the one in Kansas) in Fall 2024! Congratulations Paul!

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

• Evolution of five environmentally responsive gene families in a pine‐feeding sawfly, Neodiprion lecontei (Hymenoptera: Diprionidae)

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

Ecology and Evolution 13 (10), e10506

• SARS-CoV-2 Mac1 is required for IFN antagonism and efficient virus replication in cell culture and in mice

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

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

• The genetic basis of variation in immune defense against Lysinibacillus fusiformis infection in Drosophila melanogaster

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

PLoS Pathogens 19 (8), e1010934