Since we couldn’t do experiments during the first part of the pandemic, we spent that time reading about some really cool science and writing a couple of review articles. Alex and Ronesh wrote a review on immune memory in worms and Hala wrote one on molecular mechanisms of microsporidia infection.
MicrosporidiaFest 2020!
Last week over 70 people participated in the first annual MicrosporidiaFest! We had 13 awesome talks about all things microsporidia. Thanks to all the speakers and participants!
Conference logo by Alexandra Willis
Not Shutdown!
Only a couple people can be in at one time, so we don’t get to see everyone, but at least the lab benches are messy again and we are starting to do stuff!
New lab photo!
Scheduling group photos is one thing that might actually better during a shutdown
Shutdown
Just finished shutting down the last things in the lab. Definitely sad, but I am already looking forward to when we can start playing with the worms again!
The lab's first review paper!
Our PLOS pathogens pearl review where we highlight a number of super cool studies on microsporidia evolution was published!
Figure 1 from the review showing a phylogenetic tree of sequenced microsporidia and related species and their properties including hosts that they are known to infect.
Want to find microsporidia that infect nematodes?
Step 1:
Locate the most rotting, disgusting fruit you can find.
Step 2:
Convincing your lab to go apple picking, but conveniently forget to tell them that they will be picking apples off of the ground.
Step 3:
Put the rotting fruit on plates and wait for worms to crawl out.
Step 4:
Screen for microsporidia spores inside of the nematodes using the chitin-binding dye direct yellow 96.
Thanks to everyone in the lab who helped gather samples last fall and rotation students Bryanna Meikle for help collecting and Mashiat Khan for screening through the samples!
People have been curious about what we've been up to
Did a couple interviews recently talking about some of the cool new projects in the lab!
https://medicine.utoronto.ca/news/tiny-bug-and-simple-worm-offer-clues-infectious-disease
Summer Happenings!
The lab exploded this summer, but just with people, which was good. We hosted a visiting scientist, Robert Luallen, who we took out to ping pong when his time was over.
When he didn't end up leaving the lab got him a cake which finally convinced him to head back to San Diego.
We also had the first annual Reinke lab Worm Olympics! Here is a WormOlymPic:
We also had a joint lab BBQ with the Claycomb and Ensminger labs. Rain happened and it had to be moved inside but that at least allowed for an epic match of Jenga.
In the meantime, we mapped genes involved in resistance to microsporidia, identified small molecule inhibitors of microsporidia, sequenced and assembled new microsporidia genomes, and figured out how transgenerational immunity to microsporidia might be induced!
Happy Pi day!
The lab celebrated the day in the traditional manner, by having apple and sour cherry pie during lab meeting. This was followed by a lab selfie that the king and queen of Belgium happened to accidentally photobomb.
