Lyczak Lab presents at the Society for Developmental Biology’s 82nd Annual Conference
Dr. Rebecca Lyczak, Professor of Biology, took three students and her Lab Technician to Chicago for the Society for Developmental Biology’s (SDB) 82nd annual conference. Dr. Lyczak’s lab focuses on certain genes that regulate early embryonic development in the model organism C. Elegans. Using genetic techniques, students in her lab perform experiments to investigate the role the pam-1 gene plays in the development of C. elegans early embryos. Dr. Lyczak’s lab receives direct funding from NIH grants that allow her to take students to meetings such as the SDB.
The students who attended the meeting are all rising seniors who have been working in her lab since their sophomore year at Ursinus. Sarah Bell, Brooke Adams, and Ilyssa Marsh have also completed Ursinus College’s Summer Fellows program in the summers of 2023 and 2022, in Dr. Lyczak’s lab. At the conference, the three presented a poster titled “Interaction of PAM-1 with CDK-1 and MBK-2 Cell Cycle Regulating Proteins in Oocyte Maturation and Embryogenesis in Caenorhabditis elegans.” The poster included work done by another student in the lab, Alexa Alassandrini, and Laboratory Technician, Aidan Durkan. Durkan presented his work from being with the Lyczak lab on a poster titled, “The pam-1 Suppressor spam-3 Rescues Polarity and Mitotic Defects in C. Elegans.”
The group enjoyed a long weekend full of learning, presentation experience, and networking. As well as sightseeing in Chicago in between conference sessions. Including visiting the “Bean” and taking an architectural boat tour of the city.