New academic year - what we’re up to!

New year! We are celebrating 6 years as a lab and have lots of fun things going on. To end the summer, David presented at the CURO Fellows Symposium. We also had the annual Cell Biology Retreat and enjoyed good company and good science. Taylor won a Golden Pipette award for her short talk!

As we swing into the new academic year, we have lots of excitement going on:
- Rachel is back to teaching Cell Biology and a GradFIRST course. She is also cooking up some grant applications.
- Tulip just had her paper accepted and she is writing her dissertation to defend her Ph.D. in the coming months!
- Taylor is taking a well-deserved break from teaching after TAing for two semesters at UGA and being the instructor of record for a virtual class this fall.
- Kendall is TAing for Intro Biology, gaining some teaching experience.
- Taylor and Kendall are finishing up revisions on our LDB/SSDP paper and working on their neurogenesis project, putting together data for their screen paper.
- Christina, Macey, and Skylar are starting a new slate of grad courses, scheduling their first committee meetings, and beginning the process of preparing for their qualifying exams. They are busy at the bench, too, with some awesome new results and project trajectories!
- Catherine is returning as the senior undergrad (she is the same year as Pierce and Natalie, but 1 semester more experienced!). She is transitioning to more independence at the bench and is doing great!
- Pierce and Natalie, two new undergrads, are joining us! They are mentored by Macey and Kendall.

Rachel to Brazil for ISFB!

Rachel traveled to São Sebastião, Brazil to participate in the International Symposium for Flatworm Biology. She presented Tulip’s work on glia and learned a lot about flatworms - from parasitic worms to new species! Brazil was beautiful and it was wonderful to meet new colleagues in the flatworm field!

Welcome back, Catherine!

Lab undergrad Catherine spent a few weeks this summer traveling to the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) for the Business of Biotechnology study away program. She and her colleagues were able to visit biotech companies, see the Edinburgh Genome Foundry, and explore Scotland. Here are some photos of Catherine getting a certificate in bioprocessing and enjoying the scenery with her group!

Off to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory!

Grad student Taylor Medlock-Lanier is off to CSHL for the 2023 Molecular Neuroscience Course. Have fun and learn a lot, Taylor!

We are always grateful for opportunities to learn new things and the grad students have often made use of short courses to learn and network. Taylor is the first R-G grad student to attend CSHL for a course (Jen and Tulip attended SCARE at MBL), so it will be fun to hear back on how the course is! Grateful for all of the scholars who contribute their time at CSHL, MBL, and other institutions to offer these opportunities for our students!

North American Planarian Meeting 2023

Most of the lab traveled to Portland, OR last weekend for the first post-pandemic North American Planarian Meeting. It was so great to reconnect with colleagues, to hear about exciting new research, and to learn new techniques and findings about our favorite worms.

Tulip, Kendall, and Taylor presented talks on their work on glia and dopaminergic neuron regeneration, respectively. They did a beautiful job sharing their data and current hypotheses. Kendall also wore a skirt that matched her slides!

Tulip presenting on planarian glia.

Kendall (L) and Taylor (R) presenting their work on neuronal regeneration.

We also brought lots of new planarian scholars who have joined the lab in the past year. Though they are early in their projects, it helped to get good feedback that we can use to shape their future plans and experiments. Christina presented on neuropeptide processors in regeneration. Skylar presented her work on characterizing the parenchymal space. And Chris presented a project started by Britessia (former technician) to identify new signaling molecules important for regeneration.

Christina and her first planarian poster.

Skylar showing off her work.

Chris showing off his new NAPM swag.

This is the first time I have been to a planarian meeting with my group (the last such meeting was in 2017 as I was just starting the lab). It was great to introduce them to colleagues, some of whom they have met virtually. We appreciated the feedback and support and enjoyed getting to be together as a lab and broader scientific community. We are really grateful to Dr. Bret Pearson (OHSU) and his group for hosting us! And thanks to all who asked great questions, offered ideas, or shared suggestions for improving our work.

R-G lab 2023 (Portland, OR). Front row: Kendall, Taylor, Christina, and Skylar. Back row: Tulip, Rachel, Macey, and Chris.