Second preprint from the Lab
Our story on microsporidia diversity, done by Brandon, Ronesh, Jerry, and Jason, is now on bioRxiv! Checkout this thread for more info.
First preprint from the lab!
Our story on inherited immunity, led by Alex and Winnie, is now on bioRxiv! Checkout this thread for more info.
Two new review papers!
Since we couldn’t do experiments during the first part of the pandemic, we spent that time reading about some really cool science and writing a couple of review articles. Alex and Ronesh wrote a review on immune memory in worms and Hala wrote one on molecular mechanisms of microsporidia infection.
MicrosporidiaFest 2020!
Last week over 70 people participated in the first annual MicrosporidiaFest! We had 13 awesome talks about all things microsporidia. Thanks to all the speakers and participants!
Conference logo by Alexandra Willis
Not Shutdown!
Only a couple people can be in at one time, so we don’t get to see everyone, but at least the lab benches are messy again and we are starting to do stuff!
New lab photo!
Scheduling group photos is one thing that might actually better during a shutdown
Shutdown
Just finished shutting down the last things in the lab. Definitely sad, but I am already looking forward to when we can start playing with the worms again!
The lab's first review paper!
Our PLOS pathogens pearl review where we highlight a number of super cool studies on microsporidia evolution was published!
Figure 1 from the review showing a phylogenetic tree of sequenced microsporidia and related species and their properties including hosts that they are known to infect.
Want to find microsporidia that infect nematodes?
Step 1:
Locate the most rotting, disgusting fruit you can find.
Step 2:
Convincing your lab to go apple picking, but conveniently forget to tell them that they will be picking apples off of the ground.
Step 3:
Put the rotting fruit on plates and wait for worms to crawl out.
Step 4:
Screen for microsporidia spores inside of the nematodes using the chitin-binding dye direct yellow 96.
Thanks to everyone in the lab who helped gather samples last fall and rotation students Bryanna Meikle for help collecting and Mashiat Khan for screening through the samples!