Community Voices

Guest post by from Kenneth C. Burtis (University of California, Davis) and Mariana F. Wolfner (Cornell University). We note with great sadness the death of one of the giants of 20th century genetics, David Swenson Hogness, who passed away in Stanford, California on December 24, 2019 at the age of 94. The title of this blog, Genes…

Guest post by Charleen Adams. The Trump administration has proposed legislation that would make it legal to forcibly collect DNA from hundreds of thousands of migrants held in detention centers at the US-Mexico border [1,2]. This type of mass genetic surveillance is unprecedented. The closest comparison we have for it is the routine screening of…

We’re taking time to get to know the members of the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Committees. Join us every week to learn more about our 2019 early career scientist advocates. Ina Anreiter Early Career Scientist Steering Committee Department of Computer Science; University of Toronto Research Interest I’m a molecular biologist and behavioral geneticist, interested in the…

Get to know the TAGC 2020 Keynote Speakers through our interview series. Sue Biggins studies the mechanisms that ensure accurate chromosome segregation and regulation of the cell cycle. Her lab achieved the first isolation of kinetochores and has been applying structural, biophysical and biochemical techniques to elucidate the mechanisms of kinetochore-microtubule interactions and spindle checkpoint…

Guest post by Irini Topalidou, Senior Scientist at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Seattle. I first met Martin “Marty” Chalfie in January 2004, when I visited his laboratory in the biology department of Columbia University to interview for a postdoctoral position. At this point, Marty was already a professor of biological sciences, studying…

Get to know the TAGC 2020 Keynote Speakers through our interview series. Abby Dernburg investigates how genetic information is transmitted from parents to progeny through the specialized cell division of meiosis. She received the Larry Sandler Memorial Award (from GSA’s Annual Drosophila Research Conference) for her graduate work with John Sedat at UCSF, where she…

Get to know the TAGC 2020 Keynote Speakers through our interview series. Keith Yamamoto is Vice Chancellor for Science Policy and Strategy and Director of Precision Medicine at UCSF. After earning a PhD at Princeton, he came to UCSF in 1973. He served as chair of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology from 1994…

Get to know the TAGC 2020 Keynote Speakers through our interview series. John Wallingford is a William and Gwyn Shive Endowed Professor of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Currently at the Wallingford Lab, he and his team combine in vivo imaging with systems biology to explore the cell biological basis of…

Get to know the TAGC 2020 Keynote Speakers through our interview series. Edward S. Buckler is a Research Geneticist with the USDA-ARS and an Adjunct Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University. He began his career studying molecular evolution and archaeology, which got him interested in using natural diversity to improve crops and…

Get to know the TAGC 2020 Keynote Speakers through our interview series. Sarah (Sally) Otto is known for her theoretical studies of how biological systems evolve. Otto investigates the selective forces acting on genetic systems (recombination, ploidy level, gene duplications) and mating systems (sexual vs asexual reproduction, sexual selection, floral reproductive strategies). Complementing this approach,…

Get to know the TAGC 2020 Keynote Speakers through our interview series. Alex Schier obtained his PhD in Walter Gehring’s lab at the Biozentrum Basel. He spent his postdoc in Wolfgang Driever’s lab at Harvard, where he screened for and characterized mutants affecting zebrafish development. He started his lab in 1996 at the Skirball Institute…