The Finseth lab published a new review in Current Opinions in Genetics and Development. The review discusses a form of selfish evolution called “meiotic drive” in plants, which has the potential to be a powerful tool in genetic engineering. The paper focuses on what we can learn about the mechanism and dynamics of meiotic drive from natural plant populations.
Congrats to Professor Finseth for being awarded tenure at Scripps, Pitzer, and Claremont McKenna Colleges!
Congrats to Anna for graduating, being inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and presenting at Scripps’ Capstone Day! We will miss you and can’t wait to hear what you do.
Congrats to Margaret Mattson for being awarded an REU to study abiotic stress in plants at Michigan State University!
Congrats to Lauren McAllister, Amelia Douglas, and Natalia Huizar! They will were awarded Keck fellowships to study the molecular basis of costs of female meiotic drive. Should be a fun and productive summer!
Findley is honored to have received a Mary W. Johnson Faculty Award in the Teaching category from Scripps College! Congrats to Findley!
Congratulations to Margaret! Margaret received a grant from the the San Gabriel Mountains Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. Margaret’s project explores how abiotic stressors such as heat and drought affect traits important for pollination, and she has already done an amazing job with the design and execution of the project. Way to go, Margaret!
Anna presented her research at the Keck Summer Research Symposium! She did an amazing job!
Our lab, in collaboration with the Solomon-Lane lab, received an OCAC Faculty Collaboration award! This award will fund our work on the neurogenetic basis of social hierarchies and is a fun interdisciplinary project that incorporates neuroscience, biology, and bioinformatics. My Genomics and Bioinformatics class designed this cool experiment and performed RNA-Seq. Now, students are working to integrate behavioral and transcriptomic data. This award will help us complete the analyses, fund students, and publish the results.
Eden had a very big weekend! She graduated AND her thesis won the Barbara McClintock Award for the best biology thesis at Scripps College! This is a very competitive award and Eden’s thesis was truly outstanding. Congrats to Eden and good luck at Octant Bio, her next venture!
Our paper considering the supergene potential of the gene driver found in MImulus was accepted at Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B! This project was a fun collaboration between our group and the Fishman lab (Montana) and integrated functional and population genomics to better understand the evolution of the gene driver.
Eden leveraged her amazing bioinformatic and genomic skills and got a job at Octant! Congrats, Eden!! We will miss you.
Our paper on the host genetic factors contributing to parasite disease and prevalence in mice was accepted at Evolutionary Ecology! This work was the result of a collaboration with the Budischak lab that began as course-based undergraduate research project in Genomics and Bioinformatics. Undergraduate Sarah Halvorsen is a co-author. Very cool project and so happy to see it in press!
Anna has been awarded (another) environmental analysis award to pursue her work investigating the genetic and environmental factors underlying drought tolerance in Mimulus. Anna completely designed this project independently from the bottom up and has developed an exciting experiment that manipulates soil texture by varying ratios of fine and coarse sand. Congrats, Anna!
Anna Reitman was chosen by Scripps College as a Goldwater nominee! She has proposed an awesome project looking for the genetic basis of adaptations to drought under climate change in Mimulus! Good luck, Anna!
Fiona’s awesome thesis on convergent evolution of titin in mammals won Harvey Mudd’s best biology thesis award. Congrats Fiona and good luck in grad school!
The Finseth lab was awarded a Claremont College’s data science grant for development of a Population Genomics Course, as well as a professional development network grant for enhancing Data Science offerings in the Keck Science Department!
Our lab, along with collaborators at the University of Montana, published work on selfish centromeres/gene drivers and co-evolving suppressors. Check it out here.
Eden Mahdavi was awarded a Johnson fellowship to fund her summer research on reproductive protein evolution in Mimulus!
Anna Reitman was awarded an environmental analysis fellowship to fund her work summer' project on cell shape evolution in Mimulus!