News
Congratulations Dr. Lama!
September 8th, 2021
Congratulations to Jyoti on a succesful presentation of her dissertation research titled “Understanding host tolerance to transposable elements”. Jyoti has started a post-doc at Cornell University.
pre-print
MIRA Award!
$1.8M of funding over 5 years
We are so excited to share that our MIRA application was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The proposed project entitled “Mechanisms and Evolution of Host Tolerance to Transposable Elements”, will allow us to expand our investigation of how cells respond to unrestricted TE prolieration.
UH press
Congratulations Dr. Wang!
July 27th, 2020
Congratulations to Luyang for nailing the zoom defense of his dissertation entitled: “Evolution of piRNA mediated TE repression in Drosophila”. Dr. Wang will be moving on to a post-doc at the Wistar Institute this fall.
New Publication: Genomic Autoimmunity
June 11, 2020
In a new publication, Ph.D. Candidate Luyang Want shows that piRNA pathway proteins can exhibit auto-immunity, exhibiting off-target repression of host genes. Luyang further showed that auto-immunity exhibited by native proteins is less pronounced than that of foreign proteins from other species, suggesting that autoimmunity is selected against. The paper entitled “Adaptive evolution among cytoplasmic piRNA proteins leads to decreased genomic auto-immunity” was published in PLoS Genetics.
More Info
Congratulations Spring Graduates
May 12th, 2020
Efren Silva and Lisa Nguyen will be receiving their degrees this spring. Although the in-person graduation in postponed, we are celebrating with them in spirit.
New Publication: Evolution of piRNA silencing
April 1st, 2020
Shuo Zhang’s second dissertation chapter examines the genetic basis for evolved piRNA-mediated repression in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster. His work makes the startling observations that repression evolved in a mutation-dependent manner, through the frequent and recurrent insertion of P-elements into piRNA producing sites. The paper, entitled "Rapid evolution of piRNA-mediated silencing of an invading transposable element was driven by abundant de novo mutations” was published in Genome Research.
Read Paper
Congratulations GSA award recipients
February 20th, 2020
Lab undergraduates Efren Silva and Lorissa Saiz each received travel wards from the Genetics Society of America to present their research and The Allied Genetics Conference in April. Efren received a Victoria Finnerty Travel Award and Lorissa Received an Undergraduate Travel Award.
Press
New publication: transposable elements and germline stem cells
January 30th, 2020
Our new review paper, which was authored by Jyoti Lama, Luyang Wang, and Erin Kelleher, we discus the impact of transposition on female germline stem cells, the progenitors of all female gametes. The paper, titled "Uninvited guests: how transposable elements take advantage of Drosophila germline stem cells, and how stem cells fight back”, was published in Current Opinion in Insect Scoence.
More Info
Congratulations Lorissa
December 12th, 2019
Lorissa Saiz graduated with a B.S. in Biology B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in World Cultures and Literature.
Congratulations Dr. Zhang
July 16th, 2019
Shou defended his dissertation entitled “Evolution of P-element repression in Drosophila melanogaster through the Piwi-interacting RNA pathway.