Enter your address to receive notifications about new posts to your email.
-
Chemical preserves mouse fertility after radiation
After surviving breast cancer, almost forty percent of female patients are affected by primary ovarian insufficiency (POI). This condition, in which ovaries don’t produce normal amounts of hormones or release eggs regularly, can result in health problems and an inability to have children. But POI isn’t caused by cancer itself—the actual culprit is DNA damage…
-
Gene flow from crops into weeds depends on genome location
Even though domestic plants usually appear radically different from their wild relatives, they are often still able to interbreed. For transgenic crops carrying traits like herbicide resistance, this flexibility could pose a problem if they were to pollinate weedy relatives nearby. In the July issue of GENETICS, Adamczyk-Chauvat et al. examine the extent to which…
-
How the genetics of seizure susceptibility changes over time
Epilepsy is characterized by recurrent seizures, often with no immediately obvious cause. In the August issue of G3, Ferland et al. use a genome-wide association study in mice to show that after multiple seizures, the genetic basis of seizure variation shifts from previously identified genomic regions to new ones. This research shows that the genetic…
-
Fast-evolving female-biased genes defy expectations in mosquitoes
Genes involved in male reproduction tend to evolve rapidly. This has been observed in many different species and is thought to be due to sexual selection as males compete over mating opportunities. But in the August issue of GENETICS, Whittle and Extavour present results that flip this paradigm upside down. They find that in the…
-
Revisiting Waddington: A new explanation for an old experiment
In the 1940s, C. H. Waddington discovered a peculiar phenomenon in fruit flies: traits could appear in response to environmental stress in an individual’s lifetime and then be passed down to future generations. Waddington proposed that this wasn’t the inheritance of acquired traits, but actually due to pre-existing genetic variation that had no effect until…
-
In Memoriam: Robert C. King (1928–2017)
Guest post by Pamela K. Mulligan and Susanne M. Gollin. Robert C. King, Professor of genetics at Northwestern University for over four decades and a pioneer in studies of Drosophila oogenesis, passed away on June 25th. He was 89. Among scientists in the field, Bob (as he was generally known) was recognized as a world-renowned geneticist,…
-
Dave Zucker on career changes and the ups and downs of founding a startup
Dave Zucker, founder of startup FlySorter, talks about treating new positions as training, and how he builds his own community of colleagues from different fields. In the Decoding Life series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This series is brought to you by the GSA…
-
Evolution in Philadelphia
Guest post by Aurora MacRae-Crerar. Hosted at the University of Pennsylvania, this year’s Evolution in Philadelphia Conference (EPiC) aimed to foster collaboration among early career evolutionary biologists. The conference was sponsored in part by the Genetics Society of America (GSA) through its Career Development Symposia program, which supports events that contribute to the career development of early…
-
The GSA’s Early Career Leadership Program: Interview with Sonia Hall
As part of the Genetics Society of America’s renewed focus on early career members, Director of Engagement and Development Sonia Hall has created an innovative Early Career Scientist Leadership Program for graduate student and postdoc GSA members. Now that the Program is in full swing, Sonia talks about how it’s going and what has surprised…
-
New leaders join the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Leadership Program
The Genetics Society of America (GSA) is pleased to announce the latest cohort of student and postdoc leaders joining the Early Career Scientist Leadership Program. Participants receive training, mentoring, and serve on committees charged with understanding the interests, concerns, and challenges of early career scientist members of the GSA. As part of this leadership and professional development…
-
Take control of your academic job search
Guest post by Zeba Wunderlich. Applying for academic jobs can conjure a mix of emotions: from excitement to anxiety. One of the specific challenges of the process is that it can be a long wait from when you submit your materials to when you are invited to interview—a distinct difference from other job markets, where…