Epigenetics has the potential to help us understand key differences in how divergent species control gene expression. Recent work published by Brown et al. in GENETICS delves into the epigenetic mechanisms of Pristionchus pacificus, providing significant insights into the evolutionary dynamics of epigenetic regulation.

Many developmental traits are sensitive to environmental factors, and the differences in how close evolutionary relatives respond to their environments can help demystify development. The nematode Pristionchus pacificus has been established as a comparative system to the well-studied Caenorhabditis elegans, but a thorough exploration of the conservation of epigenetic pathways between the two species has not been conducted—until now.

P. pacificus is known for its remarkable morphological plasticity, especially in its feeding structures. It appears to be a perfect model to study the epigenetic regulation of these adaptive changes; however, its relative newness as a model system means its epigenetic “toolkit” isn’t well-defined. To manipulate the proteins and modifications involved in the epigenetics of plasticity, they first must be identified.

To address this gap, Brown et al. began with an in-silico approach to identify potential epigenetic genes, followed by biochemical analysis to identify histone posttranslational modifications. By orthology, they then predicted which proteins might be responsible for adding or removing these marks. Their work provides a comprehensive “epigenetic toolkit” for P. pacificus and reveals significant differences in epigenetic machinery between P. pacificus and C. elegans, highlighting the evolutionary flexibility of epigenetic regulation and underscoring the importance of understanding species-specific epigenetic landscapes.

One of the authors’ most striking findings is that P. pacificus lacks the repressive PRC2 complex, which is usually crucial for histone methylation. Surprisingly, the enzymatic product H3K27me3 is still present, suggesting an unknown methyltransferase is responsible for this modification. The revelation that P. pacificus can maintain a critical histone modification while missing its canonical enzyme opens the door to myriad new paths of investigation.

This work serves as a foundational resource for future studies on developmental plasticity and epigenetic regulation in P. pacificus. It also provides a comparative framework for studying similar mechanisms in other species, offering new avenues for research in evolutionary biology and epigenetics.

Amy MacQueen
Senior Editor, Genome Integrity and Transmission

Amy MacQueen has a long-standing interest in the molecular mechanisms that facilitate the unique chromosome dynamics of meiosis. After substantial training in classical genetic and cytological approaches in Drosophila as an undergraduate in Dr. Tulle Hazelrigg’s lab at Columbia University, she turned to C. elegans for her PhD research. Working in Dr. Anne Villeneuve’s lab at Stanford University, Amy credits an elegant forward genetics screen developed by Anne, tremendous cytology offered by the worm germline, and brilliant colleagues in the Villeneuve lab with helping her identify several key trans-acting factors required for homologous chromosome pairing in C. elegans meiocytes. Her thesis research also identified a critical role for cis-acting chromosome domains in coordinating a mechanism of pairing establishment with one that fortifies and maintains homolog alignment—the latter involving assembly of an elaborate, meiosis-specific chromosome structure called the synaptonemal complex (SC). As a Helen Hay Whitney post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Shirleen Roeder’s lab at Yale University, MacQueen discovered cellular pathways in S. cerevisiae meiotic cells that ensure SC assembly is prevented until earlier chromosome pairing events have successfully occurred. MacQueen joined Wesleyan University’s Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Department in 2009, initially funded by an NIH Pathway to Independence Award. Her lab uses powerful molecular genetic, biochemical, and cytological approaches in conjunction with high- and super-resolution microscopy to study the molecular architecture and dynamic properties of budding yeast SC, as well as the functional and spatial relationship(s) between SC structure and meiotic recombination machinery.

Why Publish in GENETICS?

Carolyn Phillips
Associate Editor, Gene Expression

Carolyn Phillips is an Associate Professor in Biological Sciences at the University of Southern California studying RNA silencing and gene regulation in C. elegans. She earned her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, working on the mechanisms of meiotic pairing and synapsis with Abby Dernburg. During her postdoc with Gary Ruvkun at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, she discovered a compartmentalized hub for small RNA biogenesis in C. elegans germ cells. This work led to her overarching interest in understanding how RNA silencing pathways are spatially organized. She further seeks to discover factors that modulate RNA silencing and contribute to the specificity of pathway. The Phillips lab tackles these questions using a combination of cell biology, microscopy, molecular genetics and genomics. Carolyn has been a March of Dimes Basil O’Connor Scholar (2017-2019) and a Pew Scholar (2017-2020).

Why Publish in GENETICS?

Parental chromosomes separate during meiosis and segregate into sex cells, like sperm or egg, transferring genetic information to the next generation. For successful inheritance to occur, chromosomes must communicate with each other to ensure they remain intact throughout the process. Ofer Rog, who is Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Utah, employed cutting-edge genetics and high-resolution microscopy to probe local and chromosome-wide physical changes during meiosis to understand their function in chromosome inheritance.

Unraveling chromosome biology  

Rog considers himself privileged to be doing science. Since he started college, he was surrounded by people who were doing research, allowing him to envision a career in academia. “I had crucial connections that helped me land a PhD position in a top-notch research institute in the UK,” says Rog. Since then, Rog has been dedicated to understanding chromosome biology. 

As a PhD student in Julie Cooper’s laboratory at the University College London, Rog showed that a DNA-binding protein is required for replication forks to pass through telomeres. This was a dogma-shattering observation since the prevailing view was that DNA-binding proteins are barriers to replication. Continuing his work in chromosome biology as a postdoc with Abby Dernburg at the University of California, Berkeley, Rog embraced cell biological approaches and dissected molecular mechanisms of chromosome interactions. He first developed tools for high-resolution live imaging of chromosome dynamics in C. elegans and visualized the structure-function relationship between protein complexes that latch onto chromosomes. He provided the first direct observation of a protein network assembly onto parental chromosomes, where many proteins form a railroad-like zipper structure between parental (homologous) chromosomes to regulate exchanges during sexual reproduction. He further discovered that this structure is not static and rigid, as was widely assumed based on electron microscopy images, but rather a liquid-like dynamic compartment.

“Rog developed a cytological method to measure exchanges between sister chromatids in meiosis using pulse-chase experiments. Before his work, exchanges between sister chromatids were effectively invisible since sister chromatids are genetically identical,” explains Lisa Kursel, a Research Assistant Professor working in Rog’s laboratory at the University of Utah.

Launching his independent research group on the back of these remarkable discoveries, Rog now investigates the broader implications of the liquid-like state of the chromosomal-protein complex structure on genetic exchanges during meiosis and on cellular health. “We are interested in why the structure of the protein-chromosome complex behaves as a liquid. We hypothesize that the structure allows communication between different molecules in a very controlled way where the molecular signal diffuses inside a compartment instead of spreading to all directions at once. We are also interested in how this liquid structure can bring and hold chromosomes together to exert force on the genome and shape it into chromosomes,” says Rog. He is now combining powerful stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy and cryogenic electron tomography to look at molecular structures and how they manifest in the complex organization of chromosomes.

A terrific role model with a passion for science communication

Rog is the first openly gay faculty in the College of Science at the University of Utah, and he deeply values inclusion. “It is important to have visibility and have everyone’s voices heard. I have made sure to provide space for members of the LGBTQ community,” he shares. Rog used his position and influence to create changes within his research community, founding an LGBTQ+ STEM group at the University of Utah where he invites LGBTQ+ speakers to campus and discusses their inspiring research journey with students. Rog is also advocating for diversifying science along other axes as an early career researcher. “I think we currently have a lot of walls, such as people coming into a biology PhD from a non-R01 university or non-western countries. We want to hear how people in leadership positions can make science inclusive and bring down walls in the scientific community,” says Rog.

Lisa Kursel describes Rog as an excellent teacher and mentor. “His teaching and mentoring style is welcoming and inclusive. He manages to get undergraduate students excited about genetics. My undergrad mentee told me his dream is to become a genetics professor because of Rog’s influence,” says Kursel. Rog is also deeply involved in the graduate program, where he serves as an advisor on the graduate program committee.

Another of Rog’s passions is to improve science communication. As far as his research is concerned, he believes that the tools to communicate the dynamic chromosome movement are limited. “Anything you draw will look like two separate things and will not convey the dynamic nature. Static images also fail to convey that the molecules are constantly rearranging during sexual reproduction,” he explains. In coordination with Janet Iwasa, a molecular animator and Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Utah, Rog organized a conference bringing together scientists and experts in visualization technologies, such as animators, illustrators, and developers to build virtual reality platforms that communicate his work on dynamic chromosome biology. He also created an intensive fellowship writing course for graduate students to address an unmet need in formal training for science writing.

Join us in congratulating Ofer Rog, who received the Genetics Society of America Early Career Medal at The Allied Genetics Conference 2024 in Metro Washington, DC.

2024 GSA Awards Seminar Series

In a recent seminar, Ofer Rog joined us to discuss two unpublished stories from his lab–the first documenting the unexpected de-mixing of sister chromatids during meiotic prophase and the mechanisms that mediate it, and the second describing a new genomic technique his lab developed to characterize large-scale chromatin organization and its application to meiotic chromosomes. Watch the recording here!

Sejal Davla, PhD, is a neuroscientist, science writer, and data scientist with expertise in research in a variety of life sciences. She has more than a decade of experience studying the brain by using cutting-edge methodologies in microscopy, molecular biology, genetics, and biochemistry, and is a motivated storyteller and science communicator.

Just like Thomas Hunt Morgan, Paul Sternberg’s scientific legacy dominates many fields of biology, including embryology, evolution, genetics, neuroscience, and systems biology. Sternberg, who is Professor of Biology at California Institute of Technology and Investigator Emeriti at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, studied parasitic nematode worms to make important discoveries in comparative development across different worm species and their behavior. 

Unraveling fundamentals of worm biology

During his undergraduate studies, Sternberg wasn’t particularly interested in science, but classes in quantum mechanics and microbiology attracted him to logic and exploration. He enrolled in mathematics and economics with the hope of applying relevant lessons to complex systems, but “…then I realized you can’t really do experiments in economics. I thought there is an interesting complexity in biology too, so I chose biology,” says Sternberg. As an undergraduate, Sternberg was looking at cell cycle control in slime molds. “By the time I was a graduate student, the worm appealed to me, and I wanted to understand everything about the organism. That is the goal,” he shares enthusiastically.

During his PhD, Sternberg contributed to groundbreaking work in the evolution of cellular lineages and developmental mechanisms for the induction and patterning of worm vulva. “When he was a student, his interest in the evolution of development was way ahead of his time. In the cell lineage paper by John Sulston and colleagues that reported the first comprehensive embryonic lineage analysis in 1983, they cited papers from Sternberg as a student in the Horvitz laboratory, identifying evolutionary changes in nematode cell lineages and cell fate. While Horvitz and Sulston received the Nobel Prize for their lineage work, Sternberg was also dissecting lineages in another genus and investigating how lineages would evolve. In that sense, he was prescient and visionary,” says Ryan Baugh who did his Postdoctoral training with Sternberg and is now a Professor of Biology at Duke University. 

Continuing the vulva development paradigm in his independent research group, Sternberg cloned and mapped numerous receptors and ligands, determining their functions in the signal transduction pathway. This pioneering work is taught today in introductory genetics and developmental biology courses to illustrate intercellular signaling, transcriptional regulation, and genetic epistasis mechanisms in coordinated organ development. Additionally, his students showed the importance of vulva development genes in the male mating structure called hook formation, further demonstrating conserved gene function in different organ patterning.

Sternberg also solved the mystery of the chemotaxis of males to the hermaphrodites, which many believed had no specificity. “People would say, male worms mate with chunks of agar. We looked at different species and found specificity. Hermaphrodites in a conditioned media would give pheromone signals that the males would respond to,” explains Sternberg. He collaborated with chemists to assess the chemical nature of purified mating attractants and discovered nematode-specific chemicals called ascarosides. Over the years, he made discoveries surrounding how males sensed ascarosides and nutrients in their environment to determine whether they should reproduce or wait. Using transcriptomics and CRISPR to knock out multiple genes, he continues to identify neuronal signaling in the pheromone sensing process.

In his quest to understand the worm, Sternberg studied multiple nematode species. His major interest is identifying lineage differences in species different from C. elegans, a commonly studied worm species. “We collected a lot of nematodes from soil and worked with a professional taxonomist, who figured out whether they are a diverse set of worms. Over the years, my students performed numerous comparative developmental analyses and started their research programs,” says Sternberg. 

Behavioral genetics is another field where Sternberg has made a huge impact. “What is the most complicated thing the worm does in the neuroscience sphere? The male mating behavior seemed pretty complicated to me,” shares Sternberg on how he focused his research. Sternberg’s student ablated each male-specific neuron using the knowledge from lineage maps and identified neuron-specific mating behavior defects. Observations from male mating behavior led him to investigate complex behavior like sleep, where he discovered several neuropeptides and signaling molecules controlling sleep in worms. To further strengthen the idea of sleep in invertebrate model organisms, Sternberg says, “I thought to push the defensive perimeter out in phylogenetic evolution in some primitive organisms. We studied jellyfish and found sleep-like states in them.”

According to Baugh, “It is really impressive that he went into neuroscience and behavior in addition to the evolution and development and trained important leaders in that field. I am seeing whole swaths of biology that are monumental as most people would hope to accomplish in their careers. He has just done it many times over.”

A community builder and a problem solver

Sternberg is also a visionary when it comes to building a scientific community and solving problems related to resource sharing and knowledge dissemination as well as developing new tools. “He sees a problem, and he fixes it,” says Maureen Barr, Professor in the Department of Genetics at Rutgers University, who did her postdoctoral research with Sternberg. “The C. elegans genome database was difficult and frustrating to navigate. Sternberg wanted to fix it, so he made WormBase. There are just too many papers – it’s not humanly possible to read them all, so he made Textpresso, which provides detailed information based on a few keywords. There are negative results in science that others might be interested in knowing, so he created microPublication where researchers can publish brief, novel findings and negative results that may not fit a traditional research article,” says Barr. Sternberg actively runs and supports these irreplaceable tools that make science accessible.  

Join us in congratulating Paul Sternberg, who received the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal at The Allied Genetics Conference 2024 in Metro Washington, DC.

2024 GSA Awards Seminar Series

On July 30, at 1:00 p.m. EDT, Paul Sternberg will join us to describe how C. elegans as an extensively-studied research organism holds out the promise of achieving comprehensive understanding of an organism. He will also discuss the status of our knowledge of how a genome sequence specifies the properties of an organism in the context of state-of-the-art technology and cool biology. Save the date and register here!

Sejal Davla, PhD, is a neuroscientist, science writer, and data scientist with expertise in research in a variety of life sciences. She has more than a decade of experience studying the brain by using cutting-edge methodologies in microscopy, molecular biology, genetics, and biochemistry, and is a motivated storyteller and science communicator.

Don’t miss the opportunity to hear these outstanding scientists discuss their work. Access the full conference schedule online.

C. elegans 

Sydney Brenner Award

Sneha Ray 

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center  

The Sydney Brenner Dissertation Thesis Award is presented to a graduate student who has completed an outstanding PhD research project in the area of genetics and genomics of C. elegans.

Drosophila 

Larry Sandler Award

Sherzod Tokamov

University of California, Berkeley

The Larry Sandler Award is presented to outstanding recent graduates who have completed a PhD in an area of Drosophila research. The award serves to honor Dr. Sandler for his many contributions to Drosophila genetics and his exceptional dedication to the training of Drosophila biologists. 

Mammalian 

IMGS President’s Award

Jason Bubier

The Jackson Laboratory for Mammalian Genetics

This new award, the IMGS President’s Award, is presented to an early career scientist in recognition of their exceptional accomplishments in independent research in mammalian genetics. The award celebrates their contributions both to the IMGS and the field of genetics as a whole.

Population, Evolutionary and Quantitative Genetics (PEQG) 

James F. Crow Early Career Researcher Award

Olivia Harringmeyer

Harvard University

The James F. Crow Early Career Researcher Award is presented to students and recent PhDs conducting PEQG research. The award serves to honor Professor James F. Crow and his numerous, impactful contributions to the field of genetics. 

Yeast 

Angelika Amon Award

Xiaoxue Snow Zhou 

New York University

The Angelika Amon Award is presented to an outstanding recent PhD graduate. The award serves to honor Dr. Amon for her many discoveries through the use of yeast genetics, and her exceptional dedication to training and mentorship.

Zebrafish 

International Zebrafish Society Genetics Trainee Award

Mollie Sweeny 

Duke University 

The International Zebrafish Society Genetics Trainee Award recognizes excellence in research, in particular discoveries leading to significant scientific or technological advances through the use of zebrafish genetics.

A new associate editor is joining GENETICS. We’re excited to welcome Chun-Liang Pan to the editorial team.

Chun-Liang Pan
Associate Editor

Chun-Liang Pan is a Distinguished Professor at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, National Taiwan University (NTU), in Taipei, Taiwan. He received an MD and completed residency in clinical neurology at NTU, and then obtained a PhD in neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, under the mentorship of Gian Garriga. After postdoc training with Steve McIntire at the University of California, San Francisco, he established his own lab at NTU in 2010. Using C. elegans as a model, his lab studies the genetic and circuit basis of learning, memory, and other behaviors. He is particularly interested in understanding how the nervous system integrates internal states of the animal to enable behavioral plasticity and regulate physiological homeostasis.

The idea that scientists could create a defensive shield to protect the United States may sound like science fiction, but it’s real, it was begun in the 1960s—and it’s made of insects.

This insect barrier was designed to protect North America from screwworm flies, whose larvae feast on cows and other livestock, inflicting millions of dollars in damage. A screwworm fly-breeding facility along the narrow strip of land connecting North and South America, jointly operated by the United States and Panama, releases sterile male flies across the isthmus at a rate of millions per week. These sterile males mate with female screwworm flies in the wild, ensuring the females produce no living larvae. Perpetual application of this “sterile insect technique” (SIT)—a pesticide-free, genetic method—prevents screwworm fly populations from making their way north from Colombia, keeping North and Central America almost entirely free of a pest that had once been a significant threat in the US south, Mexico, and Central America.

Sterile insect technique—a genetic approach to pest control

The concept of SIT has been around for a long time. During the 1930s and 1940s, scientists working in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Tanzania independently developed the idea of reducing insect numbers by infiltrating the wild populations with lab-raised insects designed to sabotage their reproduction. A main challenge was how to generate large numbers of sterile animals. Research on the fruit fly Drosophila as early as the 1920s showed that X-ray irradiation provided a fast, efficient way to make flies sterile. This finding prompted USDA scientists to test the effects of irradiation on screwworm flies. They found that screwworm flies irradiated in the pupa stage developed into normal-seeming adults, but when untreated females mated with irradiated males, none of the resulting eggs hatched. Scientists now had a feasible way to generate large numbers of sterile male flies.

Screwworm flies are particularly susceptible to control by SIT because females mate only once during their lifespan. Efforts to use SIT to eradicate the screwworm fly began in Florida as early as 1957, spread to other US states and, by the 1970s, continued southward, reaching the narrow and therefore easily covered border of Panama in 2002. Because screwworm flies still live below this border, the need for SIT is ongoing. Every week, millions of sterile males are released along Panama’s southern border, enough to outcompete any fertile males that might try to make their way up from Colombia. Still, in 2016, a screwworm infestation broke out among deer in the Florida Keys. Thanks to shipments of sterile males from the Panama facility, the Florida outbreak was quickly contained. 

SIT has also been used to control some other insect pests, including for the control of crop pests in southern California, northern Mexico, and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. But traditional SIT has limitations, and modern molecular genetics tools might offer improvements. 

One goal for improvement of SIT is to develop practical and effective methods for control of mosquitoes that transmit disease. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego are using the gene editing technology CRISPR to create sterile male mosquitoes in a targeted fashion, by knocking out specific genes. A system called “precision-guided sterile insect technique” allows the creation of sabotaged eggs that will either hatch sterile males or not hatch at all. Eggs are much hardier than irradiated adult mosquitoes. The hope is that these eggs can be shipped to a destination, sterile males will hatch and mate with wild females, and the mosquito population in that region will be suppressed. 

A harmless nematode helps researchers study a deadly parasite 

Genetic tools are helping researchers control and understand other threats beyond insects. Soil-transmitted parasitic nematodes infect more than one billion people worldwide, often by penetrating the skin of the feet. But these parasites are difficult to rear in the laboratory because they require a living host for some stages of life. Studies conducted on common research organisms—which are innocuous and easily reared in labs—can provide important supplements to study of pests, parasites, and disease vector species like these. The nematode C. elegans, for example, is a cousin to parasitic nematodes, and as such, offers both a source of information and a testing ground for genetic technologies.

Back in the 1960s, Sydney Brenner selected C. elegans as a research organism because it has certain favorable characteristics: a rapid life cycle, small size, and a simple reproductive cycle. Since then, C. elegans has become widely used in laboratories, and it was the first multicellular organism to have its genome completely sequenced. Researchers have fully mapped the tiny worm’s “connectome,” a wiring diagram that shows all its neurons and how they connect. Over the years, sophisticated genetic methods for studying the nematode nervous system have been developed and optimized.

“We have methods for monitoring neural activity, for silencing neurons, for cell-specific labeling of neurons, and also for knocking out genes in Strongyloides,” says Elissa Hallem of UCLA, who studies the parasitic nematode Strongyloides stercoralis. Researchers study the worms’ neurons to learn how they sense the world around them, looking for any avenue to exploit in the pursuit of repelling or exterminating the pests. It is estimated that 30–100 million people are infected with Strongyloides stercoralis around the world. The nematode enters the body through the skin and can travel through the bloodstream, reproducing in the small intestine. Symptoms of a Strongyloides infection include intermittent rash, abdominal pain, or cough. The disease can be life threatening in people with a compromised immune system. 

Hallem and others study S. stercoralis because it is a worldwide health problem, but also because it’s one of the only parasitic nematodes amenable to genetic manipulation in the lab. Even so, it’s fussy and time consuming to work with. Not only does it require an animal host to reproduce, but it’s difficult to establish a stable transgenic line. When new DNA is injected, the parasite generally silences it after one generation unless it’s integrated into the genome. There are tools to insert a transgene into the genome, Hallem says, but the process is inefficient and uptake is generally low. By contrast, C. elegans will continue expressing extra-chromosomal DNA generation after generation. That’s one reason researchers look to C. elegans to suggest starting points for genetic experiments in Strongyloides. 

One active area of investigation is how the worms detect temperature differences and respond to them. As a parasite, Strongyloides needs to infect a host in order to reproduce. The ability to sense the heat of a warm-blooded animal and move toward it is critical for survival. Although C. elegans doesn’t need to find an animal host, it can detect changes in temperature. “C. elegans and Strongyloides have, for the most part, the same set of neurons in the same position throughout the body, and their behaviors are totally different,” Hallem says. In C. elegans, certain proteins on the surface of a particular type of neuron allow the worm to sense temperature changes. By searching the Strongyloides genome for genes in the same family, Hallem’s lab found related genes in that organism likely to be involved in temperature sensing. 

Once they uncovered the candidate genes in Strongyloides, it still wasn’t a simple matter to test the genes’ function. Technical issues around rearing the little worms make it very difficult to establish breeding populations that contain mutated versions of the genes of interest. Again, C. elegans was there for the assist: researchers in Hallem’s lab engineered C. elegans to express the Strongyloides genes, enabling them to study its effect on the temperature-sensing neurons using cheaper and faster methods than would be needed to study genetically modified Strongyloides. Understanding the molecular process underlying the parasites’ heat-seeking capabilities could suggest ways to thwart the process and prevent infection, Hallem says.

Planarians, all but abandoned as a research organism, make a comeback

Planarians, free-living flatworms, enjoyed a brief heyday as a research organism in the 1960s when many laboratories studied their regenerative properties. By the 1990s, however, their popularity had subsided. “When I got interested in studying them, there were just a handful of labs left,” says Phil Newmark of the Morgridge Institute in Madison, WI. “As a postdoc, I went to the University of Barcelona, the only group I knew about that was actively using molecular biology to understand planarian regeneration.” Now, the little flatworms are making a comeback.

Over the last decade or so, researchers working with planarians noticed that they share many features of their biology with parasitic flatworms, called schistosomes, which infect some 200 million people worldwide. When the parasites lay their eggs in the body, they trigger an inflammatory reaction that eventually leads to severe organ damage. A schistosome infection can persist for decades, but not because the eggs hatch into new worms inside the body–schistosomes are just extremely long lived. This extraordinary longevity appears to be related to the type of stem cells that give planarians their regenerative ability, Newmark says. “As we started working on them, we really kind of adopted the toolkit from planarian biology to begin to understand how these parasites operate,” he says. “It’s been really rewarding to see the basic biology of planarians used to help us understand new aspects of the biology of these parasites.”

A major hurdle for controlling schistosomes is that only one drug exists, setting the stage for resistance to emerge. To develop more treatments, researchers are investigating schistosome biology to look for weaknesses that could be exploited with new drugs. Recently, researchers discovered that a gene involved in regeneration in planarians is necessary in schistosomes for digesting their blood meal. Understanding this and other genes involved in the organisms’ fundamental biology could lead to new angles for treating schistosome infections. 

Across a variety of species, research organisms provide anchor points that allow us to understand what might be true of related but harmful species. If the adage “know thy enemy” holds true, then the knowledge we gain from their study might one day help us control a broader range of threats in the future.

To learn more about how genetics contributes to the control and study of pests, parasites, and disease vector species, visit any of the links below.

1. National Geographic on SIT in the screwworm

2. World Health Organization on SIT in mosquitoes  

3. Rockefeller Institute on a study of how mosquitoes sense us

4. In G3, publication of the genome of the invasive crop pest Drosophila suzukii

5. In G3, analysis in a pathogenic yeast points to potential drug targets

6. VEuPathDB database of eukaryotic pathogen and host information

7. Importance of Vector control

We’re taking time to get to know the members of the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Committees. Join us to learn more about our early career scientist advocates.

Tammy Lee

Multimedia Subcommittee

University of Toronto

Research Interest

How is genetic information that is stored in the germline passed on from one generation to the next? The germline is considered ‘immortal’ since it has an unlimited proliferation capacity, and it can pass on its genetic material to give rise to subsequent generations. Therefore, safeguarding germline immortality is crucial for species survival. I use the transparent nematode C. elegans to understand how genetic information is inherited through small RNAs and proteins that associate with tiny condensates called germ granules. The small RNA’s pathways are interconnected with chromatin pathways, and together, they collaborate to regulate gene expression. This form of gene regulation helps to safeguard germline immortality—that is, the continuity of life. Prior to my current research, I dipped my toes into the worlds of cancer metastasis and integrin activation through undergraduate research opportunities abroad.

As a PhD-trained scientist, you have many career options. What interests you the most?

I am interested in careers in science communication, such as content marketing, education and outreach, and publishing. During my undergraduate studies, I founded the Science Communication Club at the University of Toronto. Because most outreach opportunities are related to teaching, there was a lack of opportunities to practice and explore the means of communicating science as a student. I created the club to serve as an inclusive platform to write, illustrate, and promote science to non-scientists, which is an important aspect of being a scientist. In my graduate studies, I continued to explore ways of science communication in pedagogical practices where I managed a project that revamped outdated and tone-deaf teaching material for an introductory biology course. I also write about communicating science in our graduate student newsletter. I believe that science communication skills are crucial to excel in and advance the scientific enterprise.

I am also interested in designing curriculum or developing programs in postsecondary education. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I had the opportunity to create and convert the laboratory practicum of a second-year molecular biology course into an online format. We curated a set of open online teaching tools, developed multimedia modules, and designed assignments to increase engagement with students. While I’m still uncertain about my career path in either academia or industry, I’m keeping options available and taking as many opportunities as possible.

In addition to your research, how do you want to advance the scientific enterprise?

Aside from being a strong science communication advocate, I actively engage in building inclusive scientific communities that foster mentorship and collaborations and equip scientists with the right tools to excel. Graduate studies play a huge role in shaping work ethics and social skills that are transferable and important throughout one’s career, and graduate experiences can greatly influence how students behave as they transition to making an impact as scientists in society. Therefore, efforts in strengthening scientific communities and networks can contribute to advancing the scientific enterprise.

Strong scientific communities provide a platform for researchers to discuss their work, and they can also act as a source of motivation for good science. Programs that build trust and promote the right values will nurture great scientists. As the co-president of the Cell and Systems Biology Graduate Union, I act as the liaison between the department and the student body. We organize social/wellness events and graduate student seminars that help to increase interactions and communication between grads. One key factor in community-building is listening to the needs and opinions of the community. Ever since COVID-19, the inflation rates have skyrocketed, but our graduate stipend has remained the same. This year we asked for transparency between the student body and the faculty, as well as a stipend increase to adjust for inflation. Such initiatives and actions help us build vibrant, diverse, yet cohesive communities.

As a leader within the Genetics Society of America, what do you hope to accomplish?

I joined GSA’s ECLP program hoping to explore scientific communities outside of my institution. I enjoy making connections with scientists and researchers from different fields and backgrounds and learning about their experiences. I am hoping to gain experience in an international organization and use the substantial resources that GSA provides to become a better leader, using my experience in GSA to improve and strengthen other communities I’m involved in.

As a member of the Multimedia Subcommittee, I hope to tell stories using different media formats, not just about the genetic study but also about the story behind the work of many scientists. I am excited to take up different roles and learn about the tools used in our Genetics in Your World podcast.

Previous leadership experience

Co-President, Cell and Systems Biology Graduate Union, University of Toronto, 2022-2023

Communications Director, Cell and Systems Biology Graduate Union, University of Toronto, 2020-2022

Founder and President, Science Communication Club, University of Toronto, 2018-2019

Advisor, Science Communication Club, University of Toronto, 2019-2020

Mentor, New Connections peer mentorship program, University of Toronto, 2017-2018

We are pleased to announce the election of five new leaders to the GSA Board of Directors:

2023 Vice President/2024 President

Mariana Wolfner

Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow

My research has focused on the genes and pathways that mediate sexual development and reproduction, primarily in Drosophila. From my undergraduate research on yeast and a very recent mouse-mutant made by a co-mentored student in my lab, I also feel professional kinship with geneticists who study other systems. I teach an upper-level course on genetic methods for dissecting cellular and developmental processes, and I previously taught developmental genetics. On top of that, I have participated in local outreach efforts to bring genetics to middle school students.

As Vice President, I will work hard to further GSA’s mission of supporting geneticists, genetics research, and genetics education and outreach. My main priorities include continued community building and information dissemination to the research community, efforts to keep the importance of basic genetics research front-and-center to funding agencies and legislators, and responding to financial pressures on society journals. Another priority is to continue GSA’s efforts to be a central resource for genetics mentors and educators about principles of genetics as well as how genetics has been used (or misused) in the past and lessons to heed for the future. Another priority is to support and retain the excellent GSA staff who, often unseen, do so much to keep the community connected and vibrant. And it is a priority to do all of these in a way that fosters the inclusiveness of GSA, welcoming and supporting all members of its diverse community in all ways.

Treasurer (2023-2025)

Tin Tin Su

Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder and Program Leader, University of Colorado Cancer Center

My reason for wanting to be on the GSA Board is to repay for all the support I have received throughout my career. I had not seen a fruit fly under the microscope until I began my post-doc with Pat O’Farrell at University of California, San Francisco. I grew up in Burma, finished high school in India, and came to the US to start college as a chemistry major. As a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, I spent hours in the cold room purifying enzymes for a biophysics project on DNA topology. Therefore, seeing my first Drosophila was an intimidating experience—so beautiful and yet so many moving parts! My experience at the first GSA meeting I attended, an Annual Drosophila Research Conference, was equally intimidating. But I kept going back because I increasingly felt that I belonged. I felt supported and heard. I felt my students and postdocs could get the support they needed. I know now that GSA does much more than run conferences. I am grateful for its efforts to give geneticists a voice, to keep lines of communication open through journals in addition to conferences, and to support geneticists of all backgrounds, persuasions, and career stages.

At the University of Colorado, I have been teaching undergrads since 1999, have published research papers on pedagogy, and have served as the departmental Director of Graduate Student Affairs. In the Drosophila community, I have co-organized Fly Meeting workshops, served on the Larry Sandler award committee, chaired the organizing committee for the 2018 Fly Meeting, and served as the President of the Drosophila Board. I advocate for model organism research during NIH grant reviews; and, I am currently on my fifth stint as a study session chair. I am active in mentoring and diversity and inclusion efforts at my institution as well as in neighboring states to make laboratory research accessible to non-traditional students. I plan to bring my abilities, guided by experience, to the GSA Treasurer position.

Directors (2023-2025)

Daniel Barbash

Professor and Chair of Molecular Biology and Genetics Department, Cornell University

We use Drosophila to investigate the genetic barriers that evolve between populations and species to cause reproductive isolation. These barriers include preferences of populations to mate among themselves and to avoid mating with other populations, and sterility and lethality phenotypes that evolve in interspecific hybrids. A major open question in these areas is to identify the evolutionary forces within species that drive these reproductive barriers.

I look forward to working with our colleagues to maintain the prominence of the GSA and strengthen its ability to be a leader in supporting the training and development of junior scientists, publishing successful and well-respected journals, and advocating for genetics and biological research at the national and international levels. The GSA has shown great foresight in adapting to the changing needs of our community over the last decades, including launching the G3 journal, prioritizing career development initiatives, increasing policy-related activities, and rethinking how to successfully plan and organize conferences. I will strive to contribute to these efforts and to represent the interests of the population and evolutionary genetics communities in the GSA.

Shawn Burgess

Head, Developmental Genetics Section, National Human Genome Research Institute and Adjunct Faculty, University of Maryland, College Park

I received a PhD in Genetics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where I studied the genetics of mitochondrial fusion and fission in yeast. I trained with Nancy Hopkins, PhD, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I was part of a large effort to develop insertional mutagenesis in zebrafish, coupled with a genetic screen to identify genes essential for early development of a vertebrate. Since 2001, I have been at the National Human Genome Research Institute, where I am a senior investigator and head the Developmental Genomics section.

For over 20 years, I have used zebrafish genetics and genomics to study inner ear development and regeneration. Starting with my postdoctoral work, and now central to my research at the NIH, my goal has been to develop resources and techniques that will benefit not just my own research, but the broader zebrafish community. My lab has generated thousands of mutations in zebrafish genes through retroviral integration and freely distributed them. We developed robust protocols for gene targeting through CRISPR and shared them widely. My lab helped develop one of the first microarrays for zebrafish research. We categorized over 14 million SNPs in the zebrafish genome and generated a semi-inbred fish line for the community. I have also significantly contributed to the zebrafish community through participation in various scientific advisory boards and boards of directors. In particular, I have been on the advisory board for the zebrafish data website zfin.org for ten years and on the Alliance of Genome Resources advisory board for five years. These resources are essential to the success of model organism research, and if I were to join the board of GSA, protecting these data hubs would be a central issue for me.

Teresa Lee

Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

A lifelong Tar Heel, I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with honors in Biology and Creative Writing. As an undergrad, I studied telomere structure in the lab of Shawn Ahmed. I received my PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, where I was supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. There, I worked with Barbara Meyer on how chromosome structure regulates crossover recombination during meiosis. For postdoctoral training, I moved to Atlanta to work with David Katz at Emory University investigating how the transgenerational inheritance of chromatin landscapes affects lifespan. With the support of an NIH IRACDA postdoc fellowship, I have developed and taught classes at Clark Atlanta University, the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, and Oglethorpe University. I care deeply about inclusive teaching and thoughtful mentoring. Outside of lab, I can be found in a coffeeshop, on my yoga mat, exploring the city, or (most likely) reading a book.

I am excited to work with the GSA because the Society values excellent science and the people who do it. Our country has a tangled history with the use of genetics as tool of exclusion, whether by race, sex, or disability status. I’ve been impressed with GSA’s commitment to address this past, in part by creating a space that genuinely welcomes those that have historically been excluded from becoming biologists. Cultivating inclusive spaces is the first step—the next is to ensure that scientists, especially those from historically excluded populations, have the support they need to flourish. As a Board member, my priority is to further deepen GSA’s support for historically excluded populations and generate resources that benefit all researchers. This might include extending professional development efforts for early career scientists or providing strategies for members interested in equity and inclusion initiatives. Despite being a junior PI, I have led institutional initiatives that promote supportive mentoring environments for early career scientists, both as a PhD student and a postdoc. At University of Massachusetts, Lowell, I work closely with our program for first-generation college students, in part to develop course-based undergraduate research experiences that can help make research truly equitable for all students. I look forward to applying this experience toward GSA’s existing programs and working with the Board to build new ones.