Duygu will give a talk as an invited speaker, Emily will present a poster and will give a lightening talk at the AQMHD meeting, at the MBL in Woods Hole.
Upcoming - Maria Mitchell Foundation Talk (Public Outreach)
Duygu will give a public outreach talk at Maria Mitchell Association on August 29th, 7-8 pm, on Nantucket.
A Worm Fondness for Regeneration: A Story in Several Segments
Segmented worms (or Annelids) have amazing abilities to regrow their lost body parts; a phenomenon called regeneration. When cut into small pieces, many worms can regrow new heads (including a new brain!) and new tails from the small pieces, eventually each piece becoming a new individual. As humans, we have much to learn about regeneration from these organisms. What kind of cells, genes, and processes are involved? How can we visualize regeneration as it is happening? Dr. Özpolat will provide an overview of the wondrous things these creepy crawlies can do, and discuss how her lab is studying them to understand the mechanisms of regeneration.
Upcoming - SDB Meeting in Portland
Duygu will give a talk as one of the invited speakers in the Evolution and Development session at the 77th annual SDB meeting in Portland, OR.
Duygu will also host 2 discussion tables:
- "Working in new and emerging model systems: establishing & building community resources" Saturday (7/21) from 12:30-1:45pm in Salon H-I
- "How to infuse drawing into your classroom, posters and website." 2018 SDB Special Workshop (Education) Soft Skills Monday July 23rd, 1:30 - 3:30 PM Salon G-I
Upcoming - Dome at Highfield Hall Talk (Public Outreach)
Duygu will be giving a public talk at 5:30 pm on July 16th for the Thinking Out Loud series at the Dome at Highfield Hall. The organization brings artists, scientists, designers together, and aims to revive the Dome in Woods Hole, one of Buckminster Fuller’s originals.
Thru the lens of time opens today
"Thru the lens of time" exhibit opens today and runs through June 22 @MBLScience. Only for today there will be actors bringing some of the historic MBL figures to life. They are great! I am deeply touched to have my portrait next to E. B. Wilson <3
Thru the lens of time
A photographic retrospective featuring the men and women of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL). Modern portraits paired with their historical predecessor telling the story of the MBL.
Free and open to the public. The exhibit will be open daily in the Woods Hole MBL Club from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM, from Sunday June 17 to Friday June 22.
Brought to you by Art Lab LLC
Duygu will be featured as one of the MBL scientists.
Embryo Journal Club at the MBL
Duygu's artwork on µChicago
An article about Duygu's artwork was published in µChicago magazine (a monthly newsletter that brings highlights University of Chicago's science).
Click here to read the article.
Beatrice Steinert has been awarded McDonnell Fellowship to visit Özpolat Lab
Beatrice Steinert will be joining the Özpolat Lab for the summer as a McDonnell fellow. Beatrice visited MBL before and worked on recreating Edwin G. Conklin's cell lineage work in the slipper snail Crepidula. You can read more about this work here, and watch the video here.
McDonnell Initiative at the MBL brings scientists, historians, and philosophers together.
Our lab's first mature Platynereis dumerilii!
These are 2 of the first 3 mature individuals we got from our lab cultures (grown from larvae over the last few months). We are so excited! Let the injections begin!
For those who are interested, we actually opted for using spirulina and Sera Micron powders only to feed the cultures, instead of the traditional "organic spinach and fish flakes" regimen. The worms have been growing very well, so I was hopeful everything was fine on this diet, but a part of me was afraid that they may be lacking some important nutrient that is absent in spirulina, and maybe their sexual maturation would be delayed. Well, I am so happy to see that they are maturing right on time. So, we may have simplified Platynereis culturing big time!
See the Twİtter thread about Platynereis for more information on the life cycle (and tragedy!).
Upcoming - Clark University Seminar
Duygu will give a seminar at Clark University on April 4, 2018.
Loving Worms
GIF and Eel Pond (background) photo by Ryan Null. Duygu's photo by Aaron Pomerantz.
Upcoming - UConn seminar
Duygu will be giving a seminar at UCONN School of Medicine on February 7, 2018.
Emily Kuehn joins the Özpolat Lab as a research assistant
We are so happy to have Emily Kuehn joining us all the way from Minnesota!
Finding the Art in Science: A Profile of Duygu Özpolat, MBL Hibbitt Fellow
This article was published about Duygu in The Well (MBL's news blog).
Our work on Platynereis cell lineage is published in eLife
Access the article from here.
Cell lineage, cell cycle, and cell fate are tightly associated in developmental processes, but in vivo studies at single-cell resolution showing the intricacies of these associations are rare due to technical limitations. In this study on the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii, we investigated the lineage of the 4d micromere, using high-resolution long-term live imaging complemented with a live-cell cycle reporter. 4d is the origin of mesodermal lineages and the germline in many spiralians. We traced lineages at single-cell resolution within 4d and demonstrate that embryonic segmental mesoderm forms via teloblastic divisions, as in clitellate annelids. We also identified the precise cellular origins of the larval mesodermal posterior growth zone. We found that differentially-fated progeny of 4d (germline, segmental mesoderm, growth zone) display significantly different cell cycling. This work has evolutionary implications, sets up the foundation for functional studies in annelid stem cells, and presents newly established techniques for live imaging marine embryos.
ML lineage tree indicating known and novel sub-lineages in P. dumerilii, and comparison of P. dumerilii with the leech.