April 15, 2016
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Dr. Eirin-Lopez at Ocean Life Series 2016

Posted by | Chromatin, Conference, corals, DNA, Education, Epigenetics, FIU, Marine Biology, Outreach | No Comments

Dr. Eirin-Lopez will be presenting the conference “The Epigenetics Revolution Reaches the Ocean” next Friday, April 15th, at the Murray E. Nelson Government Center in Key Largo, FL. A meet & greet will take place at 6 pm, followed by the conference at 7 pm. We’re looking forward to meet our Friends Of The Key Largo Cultural Center.

 

March 22, 2016
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Congratulations to Gabriel (Lu) Diaz on getting a McNair Award!

Posted by | Awards, DNA, Education, FIU, Marine Biology | No Comments

Our own Gabriel (Lu) Diaz is a new Fellow in the 2016 Ronald E. McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program (mcnairscholars.com), BIG congratulations!!! The McNair Scholars Program is a federal TRIO program funded at 151 institutions across the United States and Puerto Rico by the U.S. Department of Education. It is designed to prepare undergraduate students for doctoral studies through involvement in research and other scholarly activities. McNair participants are either first-generation college students with financial need, or members of a group that is traditionally underrepresented in graduate education and have demonstrated strong academic potential. The goal of the McNair Scholars Program is to increase graduate degree awards for students from underrepresented segments of society. The induction ceremony will take place next Tuesday, March 29th at 6pm, in the MMC Campus at FIU.

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March 14, 2016
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New Ph.D. student Javier Rodriguez Casariego joins Chromevol next fall

Posted by | Epigenetics, FIU, Genetics, Graduate student, Marine Biology, Oysters, Red Tides, Toxicology | No Comments

Javier graduated from the University of Havana, Cuba (B.S. Biology, 2008; M.S. Marine Biology, 2012) and has worked as a research scientist for the Marine Research Center at this institution until his transition to FIU. During the last 2 years he acted as senior research technician for FIU’s Ecotoxicology Laboratory before joining the Biology Graduate program. Javier is already participating in several Chromevol projects examining environmental epigenetic responses in marine invertebrates. His collaboration has been instrumental for the simulation of HAB episodes using Eastern oysters last summer (he presented preliminary results about this work in the Biosymposium last month), as well as for the analysis of coral samples exposed to nutrient loading. Those preliminary results will constitute the conceptual basis for his Ph.D. project. Welcome!!!

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March 11, 2016
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Meet new graduate student Andria Beal

Posted by | Education, Epigenetics, FIU, Graduate student, Marine Biology, Research | No Comments

We have a new Ph.D. student joining us next fall!!! We are excited to welcome Andria Beal to the group! Andria got her Bachelors of Science in Biology at Tarleton State University (2014) and will be getting her Masters of Science in Biology from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, this spring. Andria is already working on the outline of her Ph.D. project, involving sharks, stable isotopes and epigenetics. Really cool stuff! Welcome to sunny Florida Andria!

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December 22, 2015
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Chromevol is back from ACCEC 2015, Asilomar chromatin is back!

Posted by | Cellular biology, Chromatin, Conference, Epigenetics, Histones, Research | No Comments

Last week we attended the 37th Asilomar Chromatin, Chromosomes and Epigenetics Conference (asilomarchromatin.com) in Pacific Grove, CA. It was a great opportunity to interact with old and new colleagues as well as to enjoy the beautiful setting of this conference in the Monterey peninsula. We had the chance of presenting our research in three talks, including our latest work about histone macroH2A in invertebrates (now under review), network analyses in environmental epigenetic responses and chromatin specialization in marine organisms. Overall it was a great experience (and we had the chance of experiencing the winter for a few days before returning to south Florida!). We’re looking forward for next year’s edition already!

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November 19, 2015
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Our last work has been just published today on Peer J!

Posted by | Bioinformatics, DNA, Marine Biology, Omics, Red Tides, Research, Toxicology | No Comments

Victoria (Vicky) Suarez-Ulloa, a Graduate Student at Chromevol, has led our last paper entitled “Unbiased high-throughput characterization of mussel transcriptomic responses to sublethal concentrations of the biotoxin okadaic acid”, published today in the journal Peer J. In this work we have collaborated with researchers from UK and Spain characterizing the genes involved in responses to the effects of marine biotoxins. In the pictures below you can see the now traditional “hanging ceremony” of the paper reprint below the corresponding poster (presented at the Gordon Conference in Ecological and Evolutionary Genomics last summer) in the hallway near our lab. Vicky was fortunate enough to count with the help and indications of three gentleman during this operation.

Congrats!!!

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October 27, 2015
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Chromevol’s research featured at AMLC’s bulletin!

Posted by | Conference, corals, Epigenetics, Evolution, Marine Biology, Research | No Comments

This month’s edition of the Notes of the Association of Marine Laboratories of the Caribbean (AMLC) features our research group!

AMLC is a confederation of 27 marine research, education, and resource management institutions endeavoring to encourage the production and exchange of research and resource management information, advance the cause of marine and environmental education in the region, and facilitate cooperation and mutual assistance among its membership. AMLC also has more than 500 Individual Members with professional research and management interests in the Region. We presented our work at the AMLC meeting in Curaçao last May and we’ll repeat for sure in the next edition (Cancun 2017).

October 19, 2015
2

Chromevol’s Sean Campbell at the McNair Conference

Posted by | Conference, corals, Education, Epigenetics, Research | No Comments

Last Friday, Sean Campbell (undergraduate student volunteer at Chromevol) got his first shot at presenting in a scientific meeting! Sean presented preliminary results from the project “Epigenetic responses to nutrient loading the staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis“, on which he collaborates, at the FIU McNair Scholars Research Conference. This study is the result from fieldwork done during last summer in collaboration with Deron Burkepile’s lab at UC Santa Barbara. Our experiments with corals are consistently moving forward showing very interesting results, more info soon! Congrats Sean!!