6th Boston Area Drosophila Meeting: June 16th 2022

Boston College

LOCAL ORGANIZERS:
Dr. Vicki Losick  (Assistant Professor of Biology, Boston College)
Dr. Eric Folker (Associate Professor of Biology, Boston College

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:

Dr. Jennifer Zallen

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and a member of the Developmental Biology Program at Sloan Kettering Institute of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Agenda

For a PDF version of the schedule, click here.

9:00 am Registration & Coffee (Higgins Hall Atrium)
10:00– 12:00 pmSession 1: Technologies, Cell, & Development (Higgins Hall Rm 300)
Moderator: Vicki Losick, Assistant Professor (Boston College)
10:00Sian Gramates, Biocurator (Harvard University)
New and upcoming features at FlyBase
10:15Ying Liu, Postdoc (Harvard Medical School)
Systemic study of tumor-host organ communication using the DRSC FlyPhone online resource
10:30Ben Ewen-Campen, Postdoc (Harvard Medical School)
A split-Gal4 system that is fully repressible by Gal80
10:45Steve DeLuca, Assistant Professor (Brandeis University)
New tools and a new model for studying gene silencing initiation during development
11:00Mary Ann Collins, Postdoc (MIT)
The F-actin disassembly factors, Capulet and Flare, regulate distinct pools of actomyosin dynamics to promote epithelial remodeling during Drosophila gastrulation
11:15Rebecca Oramas, Graduate Student (University of Connecticut)
The bHLH-PAS transcriptional complex Sim::Tgo plays active roles in late oogenesis to promote follicle maturation and ovulation
11:30Shruthi Bandyadka, Graduate Student (Boston University)
Alternative splicing of vha100-2 exon 2 promotes non-cell autonomous clearance of nurse cells in Drosophila melanogaster oogenesis
11:45Stacey Hanlon, Assistant Professor (University of Connecticut)
Uncovering mechanisms that promote and suppress B chromosome meiotic drive
12:00 pm Lunch* (Higgins Hall Atrium and Outside weather permitting)
Lunch discussion groups:
New fly tools & techniques
Building an inclusive lab
Cytoskeleton & Mechanics
Neurobiology
Starting a lab & Networking
What you wish you knew in grad school

*Boxed lunches will be provided per dietary requests to registered attendees only
1:00– 3:30Session II: Aging, Neurogenesis, & Immunity (Higgins Hall Rm 300)
Moderator: Eric Folker, Associate Professor (Boston College)
1:00Zeba Wunderlick, Assistant Professor (Boston University)
Mechanisms of immune priming in Drosophila
1:15Levi Duhaime, Research Assistant (Boston College)
Age-induced polyploidy remodels the actomyosin network altering epithelial mechanics over the fly’s lifespan
1:30Jenna Harris, Graduate Student (Brandeis University)
The role of circRNAs in aging in Drosophila melanogaster
1:45Torrey Mandigo, Postdoc (Massachusetts General Hospital)
Protein Glycosylation is a regulator sleep and circadian rhythms in Drosophila
2:00Dingbang Ma, Postdoc (Brandeis University)
Neural connectivity molecules best identify the heterogeneous clock and dopaminergic cell types in the Drosophila adult brain
2:15Karen Leopold Cunningham, Graduate student (MIT)
Regulation of presynaptic calcium channel abundance at active zones through a balance of delivery and turnover
2:30Rajan Thakur, Postdoc (Brown University)
PDZD8 promotes autophagy at ER-Lysosome contact sites to regulate synaptic growth
2:45Heena Khurana, Graduate student (University of Massachusetts Boston)
Mechanisms of induction of Mps
3:00Julia Nemtsova, Graduate student (Brown University)
Mitochondrial dysfunction in a Drosophila model of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
3:15Juliet Girard, Assistant Professor (University of Massachusetts Boston)
Paths and pathways that generate cell-type heterogeneity and developmental progression in hematopoiesis
3:30 Coffee Break
4:00Keynote Speaker Address: Dr. Jennifer Zallen, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, HHMI Investigator

Signals, forces, and cells: Decoding tissue morphogenesis
5:00-6:00Poster Session & Reception (Higgins Hall Atrium)

This meeting was supported by Boston College and the Company of Biologists.