Merry Worm Xmas!
Luallen Lab photo - post Holiday party
Students learn some C. elegans basics, like dauers, bagging, nictation, dumpys, rollers, and uncs.
Students learn about some of the cool bacteria we’ve found in wild nematodes
We had an amazing visit by two High Tech High Mesa junior high school classes! They all went sampling with the lab, including plating rotten substrates to look for C. elegans and other nematodes. They also watched a presentation from our Host-Bacteria Workshop alumni and took a tour of campus. Thanks to Meghan White and Ryan Urie for bringing their classes and helping organize the visit!
Group photo at the end of the visit
Sampling rotten pomegranates
Plating samples to lure the nematodes out for capture
Our second round of sampling. We found some weird pathogens from round 1, including a bacteria that may cause male worm heads to fall off. Workshop students are Yesenia Rodriguez Reyes, Milan Abdalla, Aysha Walker, and Francis Sarmiento (left to right).
Sampling group photo
Nancy Leon-Rivera and Anupama Singh sampling some rotten spotted leopard plant stems.
Nancy Leon-Rivera and Truc Nguyen sampling some rotting berries in front of GMCS.
Last day of the conference and we got a lovely picture with our close collaborator and my mentor Marie-Anne Felix! Now the lab will split up as everyone travels around the world for vacations. Thanks to Erin Osborne Nishimura for taking this picture of us!
Congratulations Dalaena for an Honorable Mention for your poster: Conjugative plasmids may be necessary for adherence of commensal-like bacteria to C. elegans intestinal epithelium.
So proud of everyone for representing our lab and research with posters, talks, and networking!
And this is them drinking after the poster session the night before.
We all arrived safely in Glasgow for the 24th C. elegans Meeting in Glasgow!
Jonathan Saunder’s worm art piece Nessie Sighting best encapsulates a bunch of C. elegans researchers coming to Scotland.
We have 6 undergraduates graduating this semester! Congratulations to Cece, Kayla, Makaela, Meena, Nathan, and Sandra the Class of 2023!!!
We went bowling with the House lab and also played a little ping pong. Thanks to Omar for organizing this.
We found phage that can infect microbiome bacteria in C. elegans. Thanks to Hamza Hajama from Anca Segall’s lab!!!
Two plaques seen on a lawn of bacteria isolated from the C. elegans microbiome.
We are hunting for phage that can infect C. elegans microbiome bacteria around campus. The first pass plasmid is to go to areas where we normally find wild C. elegans to look for bacteriophage.
Hamza, Johann, Serena, Dalaena, and Beatrice hunting for phage that infection C. elegans microbiome bacteria around the SDSU campus.
We had our first outreach for the Host-Bacteria Interactions Workshop! Undergrads Venus, Aaliyah, and Amanda presented their findings to juniors at High Tech High Mesa.
Venus, Aaliyah, and Amanda (left to right) standing in front of a mural in the high school lounge area
Emily, Serena, Amanda, Venus, and Aaliyah waiting before their first presentation of the day.
Super proud for all of our student presentations at the student research symposium!
Senior Makaela Levine presents her work on type secretion systems required for intracellular bacterial infection.
Senior Sandra Lee presents her work on using bulk sergeant analysis to map resistance to intracellular bacterial infection.
Super proud for all of our student presentations at the student research symposium! Congratulations to Ila for winning the President’s Award for Best Biology Presentation!!!
MS student Ila Peeler presents her metabolic modeling of bacterial filamentation.
Senior Kayla Poirier presents her work showing commensal microbiome bacteria growth and adherence in the gut of C. elegans.
We’re at it again. Looking for wild C.elegans and their associated bacteria. This is our second time sampling with the Host-Bacteria Interactions Workshop students.
Our first round of sampling. It recently rained in SD, so we got a lot of maggots in these samples! Students are Venus Ghani, Amanda Haio, and Aaliyah Ringor (left to right).