In the midst of nascent COVID-19 work, our core research program marches on. And, excitingly, our work on rewilded mice was recently covered in a fascinating perspective article on what it means, ethically and scientifically, for laboratory rodents to have a good life. They do seem robust and healthy out on the farm… especially since we shield them from the likes of cats!
News
We should all take notes like this
Here’s a bit of good nerdy cheer in the midst of these fascinating but troubling times….
When Andrea recently gave the Blodwen Lloyd Binns Memorial Lecture to the Glasgow Natural History Society — a profound honor for Andrea, not least because Blodwen Lloyd Binns was an exceptional woman! — a member of the audience took the extraordinary step of drawing the whole talk in real time. How cool is that?!
Sneak previews: from rewilded lab mice to domesticated bat cells
Well, we’ve finally dipped our toes into preprint waters, so sneak previews are now available for our latest results on immune function in rewilded and fungus-filled lab mice, as well as for Cara’s bat cells cultured in vitro!
Demystifying duration of infection
Our collaborative work on infection duration with the awesome Anieke van Leeuwen, the capital Clay Cressler, and the superb Sarah Budischak was recently featured in a great news story along with charming photos of both Clay and parasites!
Andrea named a Kavli-NAS Frontiers of Science Fellow
Andrea was honored to be named a 2018 Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Kavli Foundation. The associated symposium was truly inspiring, and the NAS website includes the full program as well as a link to Andrea’s symposium talk. This post was stuck in HTML traffic for an unfathomably long time, but it has arrived in public view at last to make the announcement!
Article for kids AND outreach to sculptors!
November brought us exciting new opportunities for outreach. First, Jackie and Andrea worked with editors from the Biomedical Science Journal for Kids (who knew!??), as well as Young Experts from our own families, to rewrite our 2018 PLoS Biology paper on city mice and country mice, for a 10-13 year old audience. Andrea then gave a public lecture at The Cooper Union in NYC. She loved fielding questions from the public and from students of painting and sculpture. Our worms are now reaching whole new audiences, it seems!
autumn 2018 news
This autumn brings 2 new arrivals, graduate student Alec Downie and GHP postdoc Jerry Nutor. A very hearty welcome to both!
The autumn also brings departures of various sorts. Former graduate student Jackie recently started a postdoc with Micaela Martinez at Columbia, to investigate circadian and seasonal rhythms in human immune function. Former postdoc Sarah has now started her new job at Keck Science Department of The Claremont Colleges in California. Both seem to be enjoying their new ventures. And former research assistant Tina has moved on to a research support role for the entire EEB department, so although we miss her daily presence, she hasn’t gone too far from us, and we are still determined to get her to a demolition derby one fine day soon! We wish them all well in their new roles.
Finally, congratulations to senior thesis student Teeto, who won a photo contest with an excellent image from her fieldwork at Mountain Lake Biological Station. Well done, Teeto!
A new Doctor is in the house! and a new doctoral candidate, too! and Danny remains a true champ!
Members of the lab have been thriving in very public ways of late. For example, the marvelous Jackie successfully defended her Ph.D. this past week!! Photos coming to the gallery soon. And the fantastic Liana recently defended her dissertation proposal, so she became an official doctoral candidate! And last but definitely not least, one of the undergraduate researchers in the lab, the awesome Danny Navarrete, has been profiled by the university to celebrate his scientific achievements thus far, and the many more to come. Congratulations and thanks to you all!
Jackie’s newsworthy mice
Our lab’s work on worms and germs in rewilded mice, especially a huge experiment led by Jackie, has been getting a lot of TLC lately! For example, Princeton’s Office of the Dean for Research featured a synopsis of our city mouse-country mouse comparisons on the university website. Further afield, the work has been featured in scientific journals such as Lab Animal and, most recently, in a news feature in PNAS.
Making sense of worm-malaria co-infections
Our collaborative work on human worm-malaria co-infections in Indonesia has recently been featured (together with awesome custom artwork!) on Princeton’s website and subsequently on The Franklin Institute website and in science media in the Asia-Pacific region. We found that competition among parasite species for red blood cells is an important determinant of the outcome of these co-infections. Very well done to Sarah for leading the charge on this project!