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  • Field Work

    Many genes that organisms use to regulate their mutualists are also used to defend against parasites and pathogens. The shared genetic control of beneficial and harmful symbioses raises the intriguing possibility that susceptibility to infection is a pleiotropic cost of mutualism. Our goal is to understand how a genetic tradeoff between attracting mutualists and repelling parasites has shaped the genomic architecture of traits mediating species interactions, and how ongoing conflict influences adaptation. 

  • Sea Anemone

  • ERK1/2 signaling pathway

     ERK1/2 signaling pathway regulates exocytosis and tumor invasion through phosphorylation of the exocyst complex. 

  • Escherichia coli

    Escherichia coli cells with fluorescently labeled chromosomal loci. 

  • Telomeres

    Giant ‘polytene’ chromosomes (white) from a fruit fly with a fluorescent probe (red) that hybridizes to a telomere-restricted DNA repeat.

Biology is fundamental to our changing world. The 21st century challenge for our students, our scholars, and the greater society is to understand our place in this changing world and to create fundamental knowledge for informed policies, economies, and social structure.

Upcoming Events



Interactions and cooperation in bacterial systems

Dr. Maria Tatulea-Codrean, University of Cambridge
- | DRL 2C8 and via Zoom

Abstract: Cooperation in the natural world occurs across all scales, from molecular interactions such as the binding of receptors, to the large-scale migration of animals across continents. To uncover the…



College Major Restrictions and Student Stratification

Dr. Zachary Bleemer, Princeton University
- | Leidy 109 and via Zoom.

Underrepresented minority (URM) college students have been steadily earning degrees in relatively less lucrative fields of study since the mid-1990s. A decomposition reveals that this widening gap is principally…



Seminar with Kathleen Hoffman

Dr. Kathleen Hoffman, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
- | Zoom