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Crespi Lab News

Two research grants awarded to Crespi lab graduate students

Bernie Traversari was awarded the Northwest Scientific Association Student Research Grant for his research investigating the impact of the larval environment on post-metamorphic behaviors of the Northern Leopard Frog.

Grace Curtis was awarded a Grant-in-Aid of Research from the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology for her work investigating whether leptin promotes angiogenesis in embryonic development and during regeneration in amphibians.

Bernie Traversari wins best poster prizes at the 2020 BGSA Research Symposium

Bernie’s poster, titled, “Importance of the early environment on amphibian development: Application for head-start, translocation, and reintroduction programs,” won one of two best poster prizes at the event. Bernie presented research that bridged the basic science our lab has conducted on the impact of the larval environment on post-metamorphic traits with the work Bernie conducted with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Northern leopard frog reintroduction program in 2019.

Marietta Easterling (Ph.D., ’19) starts postdoctoral research position at University of North Carolina Medical Center

Marietta Easterling graduated in August with her Ph.D in August with the successful defense of her dissertation, “Leptin: A Novel role as a nutritional modulator of limb development and regeneration in Xenopus leaves tadpoles.” She  started this month as a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Bressan at the University of North Carolina  School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, where she will be studying morphogenic patterning and differentiation of the heart.  We miss you Marietta! Best of luck!!

Review on endocrine and environmental regulation of regeneration published in General and Comparative Endocrinology

Marietta Easterling (Ph.D., ’19) and Kristin Engbrecht (MS, ’14) put together a great review on how the environment affects epimorphic regeneration (regeneration of structures) and what is known about the endocrine factors that regulate regeneration.

DOI: 10.1016/j.ygcen.2019.113220

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016648019302400

 

 

 

Crespi lab participates in Washington state Northern leopard frog reintroduction project

In a project lead by graduate student Bernie Traversari, we were able to work with Washington Department Fish and Wildlife and the Oregon Zoo, raised Northern leopard frog tadpoles at our Airport Gardens research site and released almost 200 recently metamorphosed frogs at the Columbia Wildlife Preserve. This is a part of a reintroduction program to sustain a new population of Northern leopard frogs in Washington, where it is locally endangered. Read more about the releases event that occurred this summer.

 

Travis Seaborn obtains Postdoctoral Research Position at University of Idaho!

Starting in August, Travis will be a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the University of Idaho Department of Fish and Wildlife Sciences in the College of Natural Resources and the Center for Modeling Complex Interactions and Institute for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies. He will be working on agent-based modeling in the NSF-funded Genes by Environment: Modeling , Mechanisms and Mapping project [https://www.idahogem3.org] under the supervision of Dr. Chris Caudill with support from collaborating faculty Drs. Lisette Waits and Paul Hohenlohe.  Congratulations Travis!

 

New NSF award to investigate microbiome-disease interactions

We are excited to work with Dr. Myra Hughey, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Vassar College to investigate how salinity alters skin microbial communities and whether this contributes to a change in susceptibility to ranavirus infections experienced by wood frog larvae in high salinity ponds. We received an NSF Research Opportunity Award to fund both field and experimental studies and an undergraduate researcher to address this question, and probe how the microbial community relates to immune responses to ranavirus infections. We will also work with Dr. Robin Warne at Southern Illinois University to look at intestinal microbiome interactions as well.

Dr. Myra Hughey, Assistant Professor at Vassar College

Marietta Easterling receives the WSU College of Arts and Sciences Fodor-Wells Award

Congratulations to Marietta Easterling for receiving the Fodor-Wells Outstanding Graduate Award in Chemistry and Molecular Life Sciences from the WSU College of Arts and Sciences, for her research investigating the role of leptin in limb development and regeneration. Marietta will a receive $2000 fellowship as part of this recognition. She will be graduating in August 2019.