Aug 16, 2024    The lab celebrated our 25th anniversary! May former lab members returned to Chapel Hill to enjoy each others' company and talk about old times and new. Please see our reunion page for full details.

July 28, 2025    The lab hosted three undergraduate researchers through the Healthcare Pathway Program for Transfer Students (HPPTS). Elijah Pabon, Kendra Torres, and Jenifer Benedict (L to R in photo) spent 4 weeks doing genomic mapping of Hawley sites that regulate meiotic crossovers. They gave an outstanding oral presentation of their research at the HPPTS Symposium.

July 23, 2025    Sudi Harbool spent the summer engaged in research in the lab through the UNC Amgen Scholars Program. Sudi, an undergraduate student at Case Western Reserve University, studied the role of H3K4 methylation in regulating meiotic crossovers in Drosophila.

May 10, 2025    Josh, Ilan, and Nina went through the Department of Biology Commencement ceremony. All three graduated with Honors in Biology, having done multiple semesters of reserach, written Senior Honors Theses, and giving Honors Symposium talks. Congratulations to all three!

April 4, 2025    Evan was interviewed for the Genetics in Your World podcast produced by Genetics Society of America. The interview covers his career and focuses on his recent publication on the N-terminal intrinsically disordered region of Drosophila Bloom syndrome helicase (which is structured when in complex with DNA topoisomerase 3 alpha).

April 3, 2025    Nina wrote a Senior Honors Thesis based on her research under the direction of Evan. She presented her findings at the John J. Koeppe Honors Symposium. Nina's thesis is titled "Non-Crossover Repair Events in CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated DNA Double-Strand Breaks in Drosophila melanogaster."

April 3, 2025    Ilan wrote a Senior Honors Thesis based on their research under the direction of Jeff, and presented the findings at the John J. Koeppe Honors Symposium. Ilan's thesis is titled "X Marks the Spot: Hidden Treasures in Drosophila Meiotic Recombination Patterning."

April 1, 2025    Josh wrote a Senior Honors Thesis based on his research under the direction of Mohamed. He presented his findings at the John J. Koeppe Honors Symposium. Josh's thesis is titled "Investigation of D-loop Progression Dynamics by Empolying APOBEC3A's Mutational Signature in Drosophila melanogaster."

March 28, 2025    A paper by Nila and her undergraduate mentee Sasha was published in GENETICS. Their paper is titled "Suppression of meiotic crossovers in pericentromeric heterochromatin requires synaptonemal complex and meiotic recombination factors in Drosophila melanogaster."

March 27, 2025    Priscila and Mohamed traveled to Univ. of Alabama to attend and present at the joint cancer center meeting involving UAB, UNC, and Vanderbilt cancer centers.

March 21, 2025    The Genetics Society of America's Drosophila Research Conference (aka, the Fly Meeting) was held in San Diego, Mar 19-22. Jeff, four grad students, and Ilan all attended. Mohamed was selected for an oral presentation, on which he did a great job.

March 2, 2025    Nila defended her dissertation, titled Understanding the D. melanogaster centromere effect! She gave a great talk about her research.

Jan 9, 2025    Ilan was selected to receive an Undergraduate Travel Award from the Genetics Society of America. Ilan will be attending the 2025 Drosophila Research Conference in San Diego, CA in March, where they will present a poster (or maybe be selected to give a talk?) on one of their two projects (CRISPR/Cas9 by single-strand annealing and boundary sites in meiotic recombination).

Dec 25, 2024    The paper by Colleen and Evan (co-first authors) was accepted at GENETICS. They deleted locally conserved regions in the poorly conserved N-terminal domain of Bloom syndrome helicase (Blm) and showed varying impacts on different functions. The large N-terminus is predicted to be intrinsically disordered, but structural modeling of Blm complexed with topoisomerase IIIα (image) predicts that this region is in fact structured. Contributing authors were Mohamed Nasr and Venkat Chirasani.

Oct 1, 2024    Nila was selected for Best Poster (shared with Sarah Lester) at the 2024 UNC Genetics Retreat held in Myrtle Beach.

July 31, 2024    Everyone in the lab was on hand to say goodbye to Dr. Evan Dewey, who leaves to start a tenure-track faculty position at Winthrop University. It was no surprise that all the undergraduates came, as Evan was a dedicated mentor to a large number of undergraduate researchers, as well as three high school students from the North Carolina School of Science and Math.

July 26, 2024    Charlene completed the six week WinSPIRE program, mentored by Priscila. Charlene's results provide insights into impacts of chromatin state on mitotic recombination. She explained her results through her poster at the WinSPIRE poster session.

May 10, 2024    Emerson, Reese, and Grey went through the Department of Biology Commencement ceremony. All three graduated with Honors in Biology, having done multiple semesters of reserach, written Senior Honors Theses, and giving Honors Symposium talks. Congratulations to all three!

April 1, 2024    Grey wrote a Senior Honors Thesis based on her research under the direction of Priscila. She presented her findings at the John J. Koeppe Honors Symposium. Her talk generated several good questions, which she answered expertly. Grey's thesis is titled "Changes in Chromatin Structure Affect Mitotic Recombination Frequence in Drosophila melanogaster."

March 27, 2024    Emerson wrote a Senior Honors Thesis about her studies of RING finger proteins in meiotic crossover interference. She presented her results, which provide strong support for her hypothesis, at the John J. Koeppe Honors Symposium.

Jan 3, 2024    Nila's paper on mechanisms of suppression of crossovers in centromere-proximal regions was accepted for publication in Genetics! Nila altered the number of centromeres and the amount of satellite DNA sequence, and disrupted meiotic centromere clustering (image). She found that the suppression of meiotic crossovers persists despite these changes.

November 15, 2023    Grey Carver, having completed her second semester of research mentored by Priscila, presented a poster at the Dept. of Biology Celebration of Undergraduate Research.

October 16, 2023    Priscila defended her dissertation research proposal before her committee and passed her oral exam. She is now a candidate for the PhD. Here, she pops the ritual champagne corke at the ceiling.

November 8, 2023    Reese wrote a Senior Honors Thesis titled "Homologous Recombination Repair in the Context of CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated DNA Double-Stranded Breaks in Drosophila." She presented her findings at the John J. Koeppe Honors Symposium. Reese did an outstanding job of making a difficult topic (recombination models) understandable for a broad audience.

October 16, 2023    Mohamed defended his dissertation research proposal before his committee and passed his oral exam. He is now a candidate for the PhD. Here, he does the ritual signing of the ceiling.

April 20, 2023    Shaelin Lee and Koki presented posters on the research they conducted this summer. Shaelin, mentored by Nila participated in the SURE summer research program. Koki, mentored by Evan, was part of the SPIRE summer research program. They now return to their home institutions (U. Georgia for Shaelin, UNC Pembroke for Koki).

April 20, 2023    Emerson Franz and Reese Perini presented posters on the research they've conducted this academic year. Emerson was mentored by Jeff and Susan, Reese by Evan. Both students will continue their research in the lab this summer and write a Senior Honors Thesis next year.

March 12, 2023    Jeff received the Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Support and Program Management from The Graduate School. This award, based on nominations from students, recognizes contributions as a Director of Graduate Studies, a role Jeff held for 10 years in the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology.

April 4, 2023    Emma Kaeppler, who completed four semesters and one summer of undergraduate research under the direction of Carolyn Turcotte, gave a presentation at the John J. Koeppe Honors Symposium. Emma was awarded Honors in Biology.

March 30, 2023    Karl-Julius Muller, who did laboratory research directed by Dr. Evan Dewey, presented his results at the John J. Koeppe Honors Symposium. Karl was awarded Honors in Biology.

Nov 7, 2022    Juan Carvajal-Garcia, who graduated last spring and then moved on to do postdoctoral research in the lab of Houra Merrikh at Vanderbilt, was selected to receive a postdoctoral resaerch fellowship from the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation.

Sept 2, 2022    Evan's paper titled "Effect of repeat length on Marcal1-dependent single-strand annealing in Drosophila was published in GENETICS. Evan and co-authors Julie Korda Holsclaw (former postdoctoral fellow), Kiyarash Saghey and Mackenzie Wittmer (both former undergraduate researchers) investigated the length requirements for single-strand annealing repair of double-strand breaks. They find differences from yeast, which uses Rad52 versus Marcal1 in Drosophila. The results also provide guidance for lengths of homology arms used in SSA-based CRISPR/Cas9 genome integration.

Aug 7, 2022    Nila was awarded an NRSA F31 fellowship from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. Her proposal, titled "Mechanisms and regulation of meiotic recombination," will be funded for three years (unless she completes her PhD before the end of that time!).

July 26, 2022    Leah presented a poster on her summer research at the SURE, SMART, SOLAR Symposium. Unfortunately, that means Leah's time in the SURE program and in our lab is over (at least for now!). Leah now returns to UNC Pembroke to complete her senior year of her undergraduate studies.

July 22, 2022    Lahari gave a flawless presentation of her research at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Summer Mentorship Celebration Symposium. You can view a recreation of her 3-minute talk on youtube.

June 7, 2022    Nila was invited to give a talk at the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on Meiosis, held at Colby-Sawyer College. This conference is a prelude to the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) held immediately after. The GRS showcases resaerch by trainees. Nila and Carolyn both presented posters at the GRS and the GRC.

April 4, 2022    Colleen Bereda delivered a spectacular talk in the John J. Koeppe Honors Symposium. On the basis of her talk and her Senior Honors Thesis, Colleen was awarded Highest Honors in Biology.

February 11, 2022    The BBSP graduate program selected our lab manager, Susan Cheek, to receive a 2021-22 Science Mentoring Award. This is the first year the award was opened to allow nominations of staff. Susan has contributed to the professional and personal development of essentially every former lab member, from undergraduates to postdoctoral fellows.