Announcements
Drosophila 2017
Several Lab Members were able to attend the Drosophila conference in San Diego this year. Lindy presented her Lifespan research in the Physiology, Metabolism, and Aging session; Amber talked about Life History Tradeoffs in the Microbiome workshop; Rachel shared a poster about fly starvation resistance; and Carrie's poster was all about Bionano and Drosophila sequencing. Dr.Chaston provided patient mentoring, answered incessant questions, and kindly overlooked his undergrads' short excursion to the beach...
Weekend of Celebrations
Our lab had a busy weekend celebrating Lindy's wedding (a few members even made the 5 hour drive to Boise for it) and Johnny's birthday (he has now lived as many years as a fruit fly's average lifespan in days). Our new lab mantra is "To get a Florida body, eat Florida produce "...or cookies, donuts, and cake works too!
UCUR 2017
Lindy Koyle presented her research on the microbiome's affect on fruit fly lifespan at this years Utah Conference on Undergraduate Research.
ORCA Awards
Huge shout out to Anthony Caruso and Rebekah Rushforth who were both awarded ORCAs for their research this year. Anthony will be studying the effects of the microbiome on cancer and Bekah is looking at how the microbiome helps reduce the effects of alcohol.
Secret Santa was a Success
We built some great alliances, destroyed all trust, and got lab productivity practically to zero by Friday. There was only one "Office" situation with a MacBook Pro but it turns out it was just a box full of candy so we avoided that disaster. Most importantly plenty of skat jokes were made. Most people received gifts that meant a lot to them - especially John who received a cup full of live fruit flies. We ended the week with a lab party where we spent a good hour trying to deduce who gave to who. Let's just say, hopefully we are better at analyzing microbiome data than we are at analyzing gift giving. We hope that everyone travels safe this holiday season and has a very merry Christmas!
Lab Members Present at ASM Conference
Lindy Koyle was able to present in the poster session on her research with bacterial effects on fruit fly lifespan. Corinne Penrod presented on her pipeline MAGNAMWAR that she has been developing
Savoring Heritage: Alexa Tanner’s Study on the Health and Cultural Value of Mexican-American Cuisine
Alexa Tanner's passion for Mexican American meals led her to conduct a study to more fully understand the relationship between acculturation and perceptions of the healthfulness of a traditional Mexican diet.