Three H-SC biologists are currently working up north and representing the department in New England.  Two of them, James Hughes ’14 and Alan Fish ’14, are working with Assistant Professor Mike Wolyniak at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.  James is focusing on the annotation of the genome of a bacteriophage discovered at Hampden-Sydney while Alan is studying cell division properties in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.  Both of them are assisting Dr. Wolyniak with his work on genetic knockout strains of Arabidopsis thaliana, a plant used in the study of genetics.

Meanwhile, Giovanni Torres ’14 has been working on a project of his own design with Dr. Jennifer Rocklein-Canfield at Simmons College in Boston.  Gio is cloning human genes involved in the formation of keloid scars and developing a series of DNA constructs in which interactions between human proteins can be studied in a yeast model.

Dr. Canfield works with Gio on setting up an experiment

The view from Gio’s lab—-Boston’s signature skyscrapers, the Prudential Center and the John Hancock Tower, are visible in the center

The Dartmouth crew visited Gio and Dr. Canfield for a joint lab meeting in which all 3 H-SC students could discuss their summer projects and plan future experiments.

H-SC biologists doing science in Boston

Alan, James, Gio on the Dartmouth green

Dartmouth green panorama—Alan, James, Mike Wolyniak, and Gio