OVERVIEW
The Haag laboratory is based in the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). We study the evolution of animal sexuality, focusing on cases where self-fertile hermaphroditism has evolved from male-female ancestors. These shifts to one-parent reproduction present fascinating developmental puzzles, but also have tremendous organismal significance. Using nematodes and mangrove killifish, we explore the developmental and genetic novelties required to allow a new strategy to emerge, and also the various consequences of adopting it.
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Haag, Fitch, & Delattre (2018)
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LAB NEWS
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First K. marmoratus paper is out! August 9, 2023
We are happy to share our first publication on the fascinating mangrove killifish, Kryptolebias marmoratus. In collaboration with the lab of Matthew Harris (Harvard Medical School) and Kellee Siegfried (UMass-Boston), we report the results of a forward screen for useful mutants, and the first successful use of CRISPR/Cas9 technology for targeted gene knockout. Check it out! |
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New NSF Award August 1, 2023
How did C. elegans evolve self-fertility? A new award from the National Science Foundation will support our ongoing efforts to answer this question. The work focuses on a gene called fog-2, which is essential for hermaphrodites to be able to produce sperm, and is only found in C. elegans. The support will allow us test hypotheses of how FOG-2 regulates germline sex, and also to reconstruct the evolutionary steps that gave it this capacity. We are grateful to NSF's Division of Integrative and Organismal Systems (IOS) for their support.
How did C. elegans evolve self-fertility? A new award from the National Science Foundation will support our ongoing efforts to answer this question. The work focuses on a gene called fog-2, which is essential for hermaphrodites to be able to produce sperm, and is only found in C. elegans. The support will allow us test hypotheses of how FOG-2 regulates germline sex, and also to reconstruct the evolutionary steps that gave it this capacity. We are grateful to NSF's Division of Integrative and Organismal Systems (IOS) for their support.
Congratulations to...
- Dr. Justin Van Goor, an NSF- and USDA-supported postdoctoral fellow in the lab from 2019 -2023, who begins an appointment as a Preparing Future Faculty Postdoctoral Fellow in the University of Missouri, Columbia's Department of Biological Sciences in September, 2023. This transitional position allows him to launch an independent research program, with startup funds and lab space. He will use it to further his work on fig-associated nematodes. Go, Justin!
- Jax Ficklin, who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, entitled "Sex and the Evolution of a Double Hermaphrodite", on July 13, 2023. Jax has been a student in the Biological Sciences Graduate Program's concentration area in Behavior, Evolution, Ecology, & Systematics.
- Kevin Hackbarth and Asan Turdiev, who presented their research at the Molecular Helminthology and International C. elegans conferences this summer
- Undergraduates Jillian Manning and Nicole Rainford, who spent Summer, 2023 deepening their training at the NIH's intramural research campus in Bethesda, MD.
- Eric, who presented a keynote lecture at the 4th International Pristionchus Meeting in Tübingen, Germany on September 22, 2023.