Aleesa Schlientz

headshot of Austin Seroka

Vagal axons extending towards organ targets during development

.@austinseroka1.bsky.social of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center will kick off the #SDBPostdocSeminar with his talk "Transcription factor code specifies vagal motor innervation of organ targets during development" Image: Vagal axons extending towards organ targets during development

🚨JOB ALERT🚨

FRIENDS PLEASE SPREAD and RT

We are building a small expert team within the @bokelab.bsky.social at @crg.eu @prbb.org to investigate fundamental questions in oocyte cell biology, focusing on how proteostasis regulation influences dormancy and fertility.

See below 2 calls👇

Now out on bioRxiv. 🥳My research on #cytokinesis, averaging thousands of #ExM images🔬, creating a dynamic atlas of cytokinesis 🦠⏳. Here's an animated sneak peek of what we found. Better resolution on bioRxiv😄 #PSFoftheGIF


1/6 Extremely happy to share my PhD work is out on bioRxiv! We discovered that microtubules deform mitotic centrosomes. When we removed them, the SPD-5 scaffold became denser but didn't lose material. This suggests it's an elastically deformable solid! This only happens in mitosis.

I am honored to be selected as a winner of a 2025 MBoC Early-Career Paper Award for my recent work on the role of kinetochores in establishing neuronal architecture. Thank you to my supervisor @dcheerambathur.bsky.social and co-authors! @ascbiology.bsky.social
www.molbiolcell.org/doi/full/10....

Hybrid incompatibility emerges at the one-cell stage in interspecies Caenorhabditis embryos Bloom et al. show that hybrid incompatibility between Caenorhabditis elegans group nematode species pairs arises immediately after fertilization, before zygotic gene expression. Primary defects in spe...

Our recent study exploring the mechanisms behind hybrid incompatibility in Caenorhabditis Elegans nematodes is now available at @currentbiology.bsky.social!

Many thanks to my collaborators at UCSD - @odlab.bsky.social @greenbeegreen.bsky.social and the Rifkin Lab!
www.cell.com/current-biol...

How do species remain distinct? Our recent collaboration with the Rifkin Lab discovered a new hybrid incompatibility between Caenorhabditis species that results in defects in the first cell division, like irregular spindles! We show how subtle changes in cell biology can reinforce species barriers.

Advertisement for remaining posters from the Oegema/Desai lab at the international worm meeting. Aleesa is presenting two cytokinesis posters (262C/263C), Neha is presenting a poster on protein phosphatase 1/inhibitor l-2 (278C).

Today at #Worm25 come visit me at posters 262C/263C for a cytokinesis double feature!

Long-term ex ovo culture of Caenorhabditis elegans embryos The genetic tractability, transparency and invariant development of the C. elegans embryo have led to its broad adoption as a model system for the study of cell and developmental biology. Its impermea...

New preprint! Grad student Clover Stubbert and undergrad Cherry Soe worked out a serum-free media that sustains eggshell-less C. elegans embryos all the way through development, now making it possible to access any embryonic developmental stage with small molecules
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The Oegema/Desai labs are heading to #Worm25! Mark your calendars and check out the talks/posters from our current lab members @greenbeegreen.bsky.social @nehavarshney.bsky.social @aleesaschlientz.bsky.social and Wanying Tian!

We are excited to share our latest work on the role of anillin during unilateral cytokinesis. Congratulations to Mikhail, the leading author, for his excellent work. Big thanks to the @tdvalilab.bsky.social lab for their tremendous support.

Every one of my friends is asking “do I even have a career going forward”

A sperm-oocyte protein partnership required for egg activation in Caenorhabditis elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.23.634539v1

Genetic Engineering and Screening Using Base Editing and Inducible Gene Knockout Genetic engineering and screening in human cells are powerful techniques for the precise and comprehensive identification and analysis of gene and protein domain functions. Genome-wide knockout screen...

Interested in Base Editing and Genetic Screening?
Check out our method chapter: link.springer.com/protocol/10....
Esther Ng did an excellent job developing these methods in our lab. The constructs will soon be available on @addgene.bsky.social
Many thanks to OIST for supporting open access!

Check out these PAID summer internships and other opportunities for undergraduates and graduate students.
www.pathwaystoscience.org

Interested in the “mind blowing” 🤯 function of Protein phosphatase 1 beta during C elegans embryonic development!!! Come by my microsymposium talk and poster [B348] today at #cellbio2024!

@odlab.bsky.social presentations/posters at #CellBio2024 start today! Cytokinesis folks come find me during the poster session for my back to back posters, and check out Maia Kirkegaard's poster before her presentation in Cytokinesis subgroup part 2!

After our #SciArt subgroup at #CellBio2024, join us for a very special Science Art Show & Reception, where you'll get to interact with our amazing speakers and other pioneers in this field. We are honored to feature over 30 scientists/artists in the exhibition! RSVP: beatascienceart.com/artshow2024/

We couldn't be more excited to present our work at #CellBio2024! Mark your calendars for these talks/posters by our current lab members and recent alumni, including @aleesaschlientz.bsky.social @beatascienceart.bsky.social @nehavarshney.bsky.social & @jiaweixu.bsky.social. Looking forward to it!

Please join two sessions of the 8th Frontiers in Cytokinesis Subgroup on Sunday Dec 15 at #cellbio2024!

Are you planning to perform single-copy insertions in C. elegans???
Check out our first lab paper!! 🥳
Our *Universal SKI System* uses just one plasmid that can be inserted into any chromosome! Easy peasy!
#Celegans #CRISPR #worms #research #science #techniques

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A poster of the #Meiosis4Eva Special Interest Subgroup at Cell Bio 2024, with speaker names, affiliations and titles of their talks.

Heading to sunny San Diego for #CellBio2024 this week? ☀️🌅 Join us for the "#Meiosis4Eva: Frontiers in Meiosis and Germ Cell Biology" Subgroup! 🗓️ Wed Dec 18th 9:00 - 10:30am, Room 33B. 👉 bit.ly/49okQkZ #Meiosis4Eva #meiosis4ever

Hey ASCB and UCSD folks! Hope you all can attend! I’ll be there showing some work by myself and my students. @ascbiology.bsky.social #sciart

CGC1, a new reference genome for Caenorhabditis elegans The original 100.3 Mb reference genome for Caenorhabditis elegans , generated from the wild-type laboratory strain N2, has been crucial for analysis of C. elegans since 1998 and has been considered co...

After 5 years, our team has a new telomere-to-telomere gap-free reference genome for C. elegans. We published our first results in 2019; I thought we'd have our loose ends wrapped up by spring 2020. That prediction was ... slightly off.
But here's the genome now!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Homepage - 25th International Worm Meeting Visit our website to learn more.

Registration and abstract submission is open for the 25th Annual International Worm meeting. June 28-July 2 2025 in Davis CA: genetics-gsa.org/worm-2025
#worm25

Congrats to ODLAB alum @dcheerambathur.bsky.social and team on their work showing KMN network regulates the actin cytoskeleton in the developing nervous system. Check it out here: rupress.org/jcb/article/...

The Oegema/Desai Labs are excited to join this community and share our research! In the meantime, check out our most recent papers:
• pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38759650/ (highlighted in the video)
• pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39105756/
• www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
• www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The CYK-4 GAP domain regulates cortical targeting of centralspindlin to promote contractile ring assembly and facilitate ring dissolution https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.29.620943v1 During cytokinesis, an equatorial contractile ring partitions the cell contents. Contractile ring as

The CYK-4 GAP domain regulates cortical targeting of centralspindlin to promote contractile ring assembly and facilitate ring dissolution https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.29.620943v1

Today at #TAGC24! Come to 𝘊. 𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘴 session 2 for a speed run on cytokinesis signaling (only 5 minutes!), and then come to my poster tonight to learn more!