Özpolat Lab @ WUSTL

B. Duygu Özpolat (she/her)

Assistant Professor

Duygu is a developmental biologist with a passion for live-imaging embryos and regeneration. ("Duygu" is pronounced "Do-ee-goo")

Read Duygu’s mentoring philosophy here.

Duygu’s WUSTL research profile

Faith Stemmler (she/her)

Lab Manager

Faith is our lab manager. She is thrilled to be cultivating meroplanktonic annelids. Faith received her Bachelor’s with Honors in Biology at Park University, and her Master’s from the University of Alaska Fairbanks studying Oceanography and Marine Science.

Julianna Escudero (she/her)

Graduate Student

Julianna is a graduate student in the DRSCB program. She is working on germ cell ablation in Platynereis.

Ranny Passos Ribeiro (she/her)

Post-doc

Rannyele (Ranny) is working on establishing single cell sequencing techniques to investigate germline cell regeneration in Platynereis. Ranny is a Brazilian scientist passionate about annelids and she received her PhD from the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain, where she worked on regeneration in syllid annelids. Twitter

Ryan Null (he/him)

Post-doc

Among many other things, Ryan helped the Özpolat Lab establish Hybridization Chain Reaction as a technique, and he wrote the algorithm for the HCR probe design. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, where he worked on butterfly structural coloration.

Brandon McCrow-Bennett (he/him)

Undergraduate Assistant

Brandon is an undergraduate student at Washington University in St. Louis working towards his B.S in Biology. He is learning how to help with animal care and preparation of molecular biology reagents at the lab.

Katilyn Hong (she/her)

Undergraduate Assistant

Kaitlyn is an undergraduate student who is majoring in biology on the pre-med track. She is working alongside Ranny to conduct PCR testing to establish genetic markers in germline for male vs. female Platynereis dumerilii.

Jasmine Sun (she/her)

Undergraduate Assistant

Jasmine is an undergraduate student majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology. She is interested in exploring stem cell biology and regeneration. In her free time, she enjoys drawing while listening to music, watching documentaries, and learning about marine life.

Lisa Cheung (she/her)

Undergraduate Assistant

Lisa is an undergraduate student majoring in biology on the pre-med track. She is working on gonial cluster isolations to characterize them.

Platynereis dumerilii

The “polychaete” worm

Platynereis is one of the best team members, and our main study organism. Read more about the wide ranges of research that can be done using this organism in this review article here.

Pristina leidyi

The “oligochaete” worm

Pristina is a clitellate annelid with high regenerative abilities and can also reproduce asexually via fission. Read more about Pristina in this article here.

Helobdella austinensis

The leech

You have no idea how cute leeches are! Come visit us an see these adorable dorks. (Aside from that, we have some fun comparative projects in the works, and we thank David Weisblat and Chris Winchell for setting us up with the leeches).