Jeff Sekelsky

MRI of brain showing gliosis where tissue was removed from the right temporal lobe.

In personal good news, my new brain surgeon says the gliosis (white area on right) from my surgery in 2006 looks the same as it did on my last MRI in 2013. He'll keep me on the anti-seizure med I started in May (the one that made me mean 20 yrs ago) but reduce the daytime dosage.

In the category of good news amidst a sea of bad, the T32 that supports UNC's Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology was renewed! July 1 started our 51st year of continuous support from NIGMS that has funded students & driven changes that improve training & outcomes.

Dr. Nila Pazhayam in her doctoral gown and hood, accompanied by her advisor Jeff Sekelsky

Dr. Nila Pazhayam, PhD! Nila authored a review and 2 research papers, was on T32, had an F31, mentored undergrads, and more. Fun fact: Since Nila did a straight-to-MS degree (no BS) before her PhD, if she were to apply for a job in India that requires a BS she would be deemed unqualified.

Photo of Sekelsky lab Biology majors graduating with Honors in 2025.

Congratulations to Nina Wozniak, Ilan Socolovsky_Hull, and Josh Ponder, who all earned Honors in Biology for research they did in the Sekelsky lab! (Also to Sasha Sagar; her degree is Neuroscience so a different venue.)

@jeffsekelsky.bsky.social Corbin Jones, & I give huge thanks to Frank McNally, Christoph Haag, Andy Kern, Bengt Hansson, @takashiakeralab.bsky.social & @scienceleah.bsky.social for being guests in our #Meiosis, Recombination, & Evolution of Sex class at UNC. A pic from our final session w/ students

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ACTION ITEM-----ACTION ITEM

Implementation of Schedule F

This is what a lot of us have been worried about.

This allows for many civil service positions to replaced with political appointees. This could include NIH institute directors and even POs.

BUT THERE IS A COMMENT PERIOD...

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Congratulations T$ - well-deserved and long overdue!

Our (@jeffsekelsky.bsky.social Corbin Jones, & me) #Meiosis, Recombination & Evolution of Sex class @uncchapelhill.bsky.social loved talking w/ @scienceleah.bsky.social about her lab's @plos.org Genetics paper on a unique chromosome segregation mechanism in holocentric moths. doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Our (@jeffsekelsky.bsky.social, Corbin Jones, & me) #Meiosis, Recombination & Evolution of Sex class @uncchapelhill.bsky.social loved talking w/ @takashiakeralab.bsky.social about his lab's @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social on meiotic cohesin errors & sterility in hybrid mice. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Reprint of LV Morgan's "A closed X chromosome in Drosophila melanogaster" (1933)

Reprint of LV Morgan's "Non-cross-cross inheritance in Drosophila melanogaster" (1922)

Enjoyed reading this history of a great Drosophila geneticist. Among my prized possessions are original reprints (not an oxymoron) of LV Morgan's compound X and ring X papers, a gift from Scott Hawley, who got Parker's collection, who got Cooper's collection, who got Bridges collection...

Photo of Nila Pazhayam next to screen showing her slide of the summary of the results of her research.

Congratulations to Nila Pazhayam for a successful defense of her PhD dissertation! Her research provided important insights into how crossovers are kept away from the centromere.
doi.org/10.1093/gene...
doi.org/10.1093/gene...

Our (@jeffsekelsky.bsky.social, Corbin Jones, & me) #Meiosis, Recombination & Evolution of Sex class @uncchapelhill.bsky.social loved talking w/ Bengt Hansson from @lund-university.bsky.social about his lab's #G3journal paper on bird male-biased CO patterning + new work: doi.org/10.1093/g3jo...

Our (@jeffsekelsky.bsky.social , Corbin Jones, & me) #Meiosis, Recombination & Evolution of Sex class @uncchapelhill.bsky.social loved talking with Any Kern @uoregon.bsky.social about his lab’s @currentbiology.bsky.social paper on octopus ZZ, ZO sex chromosome system: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Poster for defense seminar of Nila Pazhayam, March 7, 10 am EST, on campus and by zoom.

It's happening on March 7: Nila's PhD defense!
(We know this conflicts with #standupforscience2025, but this was scheduled months ago.)

The Biology Dept @uncchapelhill.bsky.social is searching for a Teaching Assistant Professor or Teaching Associate Professor. We're a vibrant community with fantastic colleagues and students. Apply and tell all your friends too! Here's the job posting link:

unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/297...

Our (@jeffsekelsky.bsky.social,Corbin Jones, & me) #Meiosis, Recombination & Evolution of Sex class at UNC loved talking w/ Christoph Haag @cnrs.bsky.social about his lab’s @journal-evo.bsky.social paper on recombination and asexuality in #Daphnia plus some unpublished work: doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Feeling very lost today with the news of the passing of my undergrad advisor Scott Hawley. He had a huge impact on the field and on me personally. He was the first person to see me as a scientist and gave me the confidence to apply to grad school. I am so grateful to be a part of his legacy.

Honored to have had Scott and a mentor and colleague for more than 30 years. He will be missed greatly. Last week I asked how he’d feel about us following up on Hawley 1980, his PhD research. He said in typical Scott form, he’d feel incredibly honored and gracious. Glad I was able to tell him that.

Our (@mei_newt, Corbin Jones, & me) #Meiosis, Recombination & Evolution of Sex class at UNC had a great talk w/ Frank McNally from UC Davis on his lab’s #GENETICS paper showing C. elegans can correct trisomy and triploidy during female meiosis using spindle asymmetry: doi.org/10.1534/gene...

📢The 2025 MAYosis webinar series will be held on consecutive Wednesdays, May 7-28, at 4 pm CET (7 am PST; 12 am JST) meiosis.cornell.edu/mayoss2025/ Apply to give a talk (deadline is March 8, trainees and junior faculty only): tinyurl.com/47k3cjpn Registration is free: tinyurl.com/39rs53yv

What's the biggest Drosophila gene?
Priscila Santa Rosa, co-mentored by Bob Duronio and me, is studying fragility within Myo81. In FlyBase, Myo81F is at least 1.966 Mb, but Pri has this exciting Nanopore sequencing that adds at least 24 kb to that.

It didn’t ask whether you meant an African or a European swallow?

Thanks to everyone that made this best gift ever happen! The organizers: Dr. Noelle Romero, Dr. Nicole Crown, Dr. Talia Hatkevich, Dr. Kale Hartmann, and the lab manager this entire time, Susan McMahan. And everyone that came, some from distant states.
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Logo for Sekelsky Lab 25th Anniversary. Tagline: 25 years of pushing flies and scientific boundaries.

Back of t-shirt. Title: Exceptional Progeny. Image: tree where trunk is words Sekelsky Lab, 25 years, 1999-2024. Crown is made of names of people from the lab.

Of course, there had to be t-shirts...and they are fantastic! They made a reunion logo on the front and this spectacular image on the back clever title. (In the lab, we refer to flies resulting from nondisjunction as "exceptional progeny".)
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Screen-printed poster by Bob Goldstein, for Sekelsky Lab Reunion. He titled it SekelskyFest and made an image of Jeff's head with fly legs and wings.

Bob Goldstein, UNC Biology's talented faculty printmaker, asked me why he wasn't asked to make a poster. I suggested it to the organizers and they asked...Bob declined. Because they had ideas - he only does it if he has complete artistic freedom. Here's what came out of that. Nice!
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Sekelsky lab reunion symposium schedule

Sekelsky lab reunion symposium schedule speakers

We started with dinner & drinks at my house Friday. Saturday morning was a scientific symposium. SO great to hear people talk about their amazing accomplishments after leaving the lab! That evening we enjoyed each others' company at Haw River Taproom, then finished with lab visits Sunday.
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Screenshot of Sekelsky Lab 25th Reunion website

Timeline of everyone that has been in the Sekelsky lab

Now that there are people here, I want to post about the highlight of the summer for me: My lab's 25th anniversary reunion, organized by several former members. They made a wonderful website that I looked at frequently. I made a timeline poster of everyone that's been in the lab.
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Graduating Honors students from my lab.

Congratulations to our three undergraduate researchers that graduated with Honor in Biology. Emerson & Reese are off to graduate school, while Gray goes into the real world.

CVS Specialty: How can I help you?
Me: It’s my monthly call to see why you didn’t ship yesterday.
Last month, I repeatedly told them to ship Thurs. They shipped Fri. Sat delivery requires signature. After an hour on phone w/ UPS, driver kindly came back with my $8k of refrigerated Humira.

It’s an effort to convince the students* that they (the faculty & institution) are really awesome and applicants should be honored to get in. How could they turn that down if accepted?
*or maybe to convince themselves