Sekelsky Lab Reunion
The lab held a 25th-anniversary reunion the weekend of Aug 16-18, 2024, organized by Susan and former lab members Dan, Kale, Noelle, Nicole, and Talia. Former lab members returned to Chapel Hill to catch up, reminisce, and enjoy each other's company. We had four former postdocs, eight former grad students, the four current grad students, one former PREP postbac, one former undergrad (from when I was a postdoc; to keep it manageable, the >75 former undergraduates could not be invited), 25-year lab manager Susan, and several friends of the lab.
Jeff has a spreadsheet of members of the lab, which he turned into a poster (link opens our page on past members of the lab):
We started off with a casual evening with dinner and drinks at Jeff's house. There was one major snag: Jeff returned from an Annual Review of Genetics editorial board meeting in Jackson Hole with COVID. Socializing was done outside. Jeff volunteered to wear a mask (rather than being asked by others, with is usually the case).
On Saturday we held a symposium on campus. Former lab members gave talks about the exciting things they're doing now. It ended with Jeff, as the "keynote" speaker, giving a talk on the lab through the years.
We got some good group photos during the lunch break:
The organizers also designed the most awesome t-shirts ever! The front has the reunion logo (the background of this page). The back has this great image with names of (some of) the past lab members. "Exceptional progeny" is brilliant. When scoring nondisjunction of meiotic chromosomes, we usually look at the sex chromosomes. Most oocytes get a single X. Depending on whether the sperm contributes and X or a Y, the "normal" progeny are XX daughters and XY sons. If meiotic nondisjunction occurs in the female, the oocyte might have two or zero X chromosomes. These give XXY daughers and XO sons. These are referred to as "exceptional progeny!"
And let us not forget the event poster created by our colleague Bob Goldstein!
