December, 2014 - Floating TARDIS!

The lab got Morris a floating TARDIS.

October 23, 2014 - Partial Solar Eclipse


What we saw from Riverside on 10-23-2014. Taken with a Canon 60D with a 75-300mm Canon lens,
Tamron 2xTeleconverter, Baader Astrosolar Filter.

October 8, 2014 - Total Lunar Eclipse montages

A series of images taken by MM of the Total Lunar Eclipse of October 8, 2014.
Taken with a Canon EOS 60D at prime focus on a Meade ETX-90EC Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope.

A montage showing the extent of Earth's shadow.

September 26, 2014 - Celebrating Hailey's Qualifying Exam success!

Hailey with some of the colleagues that stopped by to celebrate completion of her qualifying exam.

August 15-22, 2014 - Undergraduate Presentations

Top: Raman presented a poster at the MSRIP symposium.
Middle and bottom: Christian and Franco gave talks at the MARCU* symposium.

August 10, 2014 - Supermoon

The perigee full moon, August 10, 2014 by MM.
Canon EOS 60D, Tamron 70-300mm lens with Tamron 2xteleconverter, f/13, 1/250 sec.

July 20, 2014 - "The Devo Show" at the SDB meeting in Seattle

Curtis Loer and Morris Maduro host the 'Development Show'
(Click on image or here for YouTube video)
More information appears here: The 2014 Development Show
600 hits as of 8-22-2014!
We're also mentioned in the meeting report.

July 20, 2014 - "Smells Like Development"

Morris' parody of the classic Nirvana song, made for the 2014 SDB meeting in Seattle, WA
(Click on image or here for YouTube video)

June 20, 2014 - Christian's birthday!

Christian, Raman and Jonathan celebrated birthdays in the same week!

June 17-20, 2014 - AAAS Pacific Division Meeting at UCR

Gary Wessel (Brown University) speaks at the
AAAS Pacific Division, Molecular Reproduction & Development Meeting,
held at UC Riverside.

June 16, 2014 - Dinner out to celebrate Saige and Farhad graduating

Dinner at The Salted Pig, celebrating Saige and Farhad getting their BSc degrees!
(Left to Right: Hailey, Christian, Cassie, Saige, Franco, Farhad, MM and Gina)

June 5, 2014 - Joel Rothman (MM's Postdoc mentor) recipient of endowed chair at UCSB

Morris visited UC Santa Barbara, the campus of his Postdoc, to attend the investiture of
his mentor Joel Rothman as recipient of the Wilcox Family Chair in Biotechnology
(6/5/2014)

Winter, 2014 - Undergraduates work with C. elegans in Bio 20 class

Working with C. elegans in a version of the Dynamic Genome course (taught in part by MM).

MM's first International Worm Meeting - Madison, 1993

From the archives: International C. elegans Meeting, 1993, Madison, WI

May, 2014 - Christian gets into MARCU* program!

Congratulations to Christian Turner in our group.

April, 2014 - Total Lunar Eclipse of 14-15 April 2014

March, 2014 - MM and Farhad featured in UCR video

February, 2014 - Visting with Eric Haag

December, 8, 2013 - UCR Chamber Singers concert

December, 2013 - Franco's birthday!

Celebrating Franco's birthday. Inset: "Cake" chart showing % of cake eaten or not eaten.

November, 2013 - Saige's birthday!

Celebrating Saige's birthday with members of the LaRoch and Kaloshian labs

November, 2013 - Our work is in Gilbert's Developmental Biology book!

Specification of MS via activation of TBX-35 is depicted in a figure from Gilbert's 10th edition of
Developmental Biology (see here). This is from our work published in 2006.

November 4, 2013 - UC President Napolitano visits UCR

New UC President Janet Napolitano visits UCR on 11/4/2013 as part of a UC-wide tour.
Above, Pres. Napolitano answers a question from Dr. Manuela Martins-Green.

November 1, 2013 - Reception at Neil Campbell Science Learning Laboratory

MM with Jim Burnette and Dan Hantman at the Neil Campbell Science Learning Laboratory.
Image by Carrie Rosema (UCR). See other images from the reception here.

October, 2013 - Has it really been 10 years?

We started at UC Riverside in summer of 2003, so yes it has been more than 10 years.
Above: Commemorative box and pin from Chancellor Wilcox.
(The quarter is for scale and was not part of the recognition.)

September 25, 2013 - Congratulations to Hailey!

Hailey passed the written qualifying examination for the CMDB program!

September 18, 2013 - Disneyland trip!

We had a great time at Disneyland, as a last summer celebration before fall quarter starts.

September 6, 2013 - Our first CRISPR-Cas mutant!

Our first genome targeting event using CRISPR-Cas9, targeted to the gene dpy-5
using target RNAs of our own design. Gina did the injections, and our undergraduates
Cassie and Franco did the actual cloning! The dpy-5 mutant is on the left, and a
wild-type animal of the same stage is on the right.
(Picture taken using the Exolabs Focus camera.)

July 1, 2013 - The Worm Show video is ready!

Worm Show 2013
Information about the 2013 Show

Worm Show Page
(includes links to all past shows)

Hanging out at the Barbecue outside Royce Hall (UCLA), just before the Worm Show (6/29/2013).
Back row: Joel Rothman (MM's postdoc mentor), Yuanyuan, Stephanie, Franco, Gurjot.
Front row: MM, Hailey, Gina, Farhad, Allison

June, 2013 - Another Worm Show is taking shape!

Curtis Loer and I are (in our copious amounts of spare time, of course) working feverishly to prepare our 5th Worm Show for the International C. elegans Meeting at the end of the month. This year we also have a couple video submissions from other labs! It is not too late to send one in to us, but it would good to have these sooner rather than later.

April 27, 2013 - Morris' puzzler question used on Car Talk (again)

Okay, it's not really lab news, but it's cool, again. MM submitted a question by email to the NPR program CarTalk in 2005, and it was re-used this week.

Question: Read it Hear it (original mp3 from 5/2/2005 broadcast, but identical to 4/27/2013)
Answer: Hear it (original mp3 from 5/9/2005 broadcast)

April 24, 2013 - Visit from Olivier Cinquin, UCI

We had an exciting visit this week with Olivier Cinquin from UC Irvine, who came up to give a seminar! We forgot to document it with an image -- so we will report news item as (data not shown).

April 18, 2013 - Gina's Birthday!

Cupcakes for Gina's birthday!

April 12, 2013 - 25,000 hits to the lab website!

Since January of 2006 the lab website has received some 25,000 views. Google Analytics has been tracking the site since 2009, and it reports that the visits come from these countries:

April 3, 2013 - Malene Hansen visits UCR

We enjoyed a fantastic seminar and visit from Dr. Malene Hansen, of the
Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, CA.

April 2, 2013 - A little excitement

A little bit of ethanol caught on fire from a bunsen burner. It was easily extinguished
with a dry chemical fire extinguisher, but then the dust (mostly monoammonium phosphate)
set off the fire alarm and the whole building had to be evacuated!

March 13, 2013 - Choir Mini-Concert

A short concert from the UCR Chamber Singers.

March 12, 2013 - Comet Pan-STARRS (C/2011 L4)

Taken an hour after sunset, Canon EOS 60D with 70-200mm f/4 lens.

March, 2013 - No, the acting President of Venezuela is not a relative.

Nicholas Maduro, now the acting President of Venezuela following the death of Hugo Chavez, is not a relative of Morris' that he knows of. But it was weird to read the headlines.

February 22, 2013 - Andy Fire visits UCR

2006 Nobel Laureate Dr. Andrew Fire visited UCR to give a seminar!
Top: With YuanYuan, Franco, MM, Stephanie, Saige and Gina.
Bottom: starting the talk; with Dr. Shou-Wei Ding;
Dr. Xuemei Chen introduces Dr. Fire to a packed Genomics Auditorium.

February 11, 2013 - Sean Carroll visits UCR

Sean Carroll (UW-Madison) gave the 9th John A. and Betty C. Moore
"Science as a way of Knowing" Lecture. Top: Meeting with graduate students.
Bottom: Speaking at the UCR Extension center, introduced by Dr. Richard Cardullo.

December, 2012 - Lab Lunch to Celebrate End of Year

Gina, Saige, Gurjot, MM, Stephanie, Hayley

December, 2012 - Congrats to Stephanie

Stephanie passed her oral qualifying exam last week (12/10/12). Congrats PhD candidate Stephanie!

November, 2012 - Farewell to Yuanyuan (for now), visit from Joel Rothman, and Saige's 20th

Lunch out at the Barn to bid Yuanyuan farewell (for now), 10-31-2012


Visiting with MM's postdoc mentor Joel Rothman, 11-7-2012.
Clockwise from top left: MM with Joel and Isgouhi Kaloshian; MM with Pradeep Joshi, visiting
from Joel's lab; Hagop and Ani; Hailey, Stephanie and Stephanie.


celebrating Saige's birthday with cupcakes, 11-13-2012

August, 2012 - Worm Variety Show planned for 2013

Curtis Loer and MM have been asked to plan another show for the 2013 C. elegans meeting at UCLA. This year we are making a real push for involvement from the worm community. Details here. See the past four shows here.

July 3, 2012 - Stephanie's birthday!

MM, YuanYuan, Gina, Stephanie, Jens, Saige, Gurjot

June 17, 2012 - Commencement 2012

Shruthi is awarded her MS at the 2012 UCR Commencement. Congratulations Shruthi! More pictures from commencement here.

Left: Chancellor Timothy White with Shruthi; Right: MM with Shruthi

June 11, 2012 - Jens arrives!

We welcome Dr. Jens Schulze to the lab for the summer.

June 7-10, 2012 - Development Worm Meeting at Madison, WI

A great time at the worm meeting in Madison! This is the last event to be held in the Memorial Union at UW-Madison. On 6/11/2012 a planned two-year renovation started. there were many great talks, including a keynote from Craig Mello.

Dr. Craig Mello (2006 Nobel Laureate) before his keynote talk
at the Development Worm Meeting in Madison, WI.

June 5, 2012 - Transit of Venus

Great view of the last transit of Venus until 2117, under a cloudless sky.
Top: Montage of transit. Small images: Same setup as for eclipse montage below.
Big image: Through a 90mm Meade ETX-90 telescope. Bottom: Observers at UC Riverside.

May 29, 2012 - visit with Sandra Encalanda

MM with Dr. Encalada from the Scripps Research Institute
after her seminar at UCR.

May 20, 2012 - Annular Solar Eclipse from the centerline!

MM and family chased the 20 May 2012 annular eclipse to its path of annularity, choosing the
small town of Newcastle, Utah, which was squarely on the centerline. Above is a montage created
from individual images taken with a Canon 60D, 100-400mm + 1.4x TC, Baader Astrosolar
Safety filter. (Thanks to colleague Mark Chappell for lending me the lens + TC!).

See a real-time video of the annular phase here.

May 15, 2012 - Saige is accepted to MARCU-STAR!

Congratulations to Saige, who was accepted to the MARCU-STAR program at UCR!

May 9, 2012 - Shruthi defends her MSc!

Congrats Shruthi!
Congratulations to Shruthi, who successfully defended her MSc today!

April, 2012 - The 2011 Worm Show YouTube video gets 2000 hits!

Is this really news? Maybe not. And no, Morris did not hit 'Refresh' 1500 times. There will be another show for 2013, as it turns out. But you should take the time to enjoy the 2011 show if you can. See the 2011 show on YouTube. See info on the show here.

March, 2012 - Morris gets a teaching award!

Morris has been selected as a recipient, along with Dr. Len Mueller (Chemistry), of the UCR Distinguished Teaching Award for 2011-2012.

February, 2012 - Melissa gets a tenure-track position!

Congratulations to Melissa (Owraghi) Antonio on getting a tenure-track position at Cal Baptist University in Riverside!

December 16, 2011 - Lab Lunch at Arroyo Vista Café at UCR

Left to right: YuanYuan, Zhihuan, Stephanie, Morris, Gina, Saige

December, 2011 - Morris puts an article in the Worm Breeder's Gazette!

MM hasn't had an article in the Worm Breeder's Gazette since the April, 2002 issue. See the most recent article here on getting better worm transgenesis from column-purified DNA.

December, 2011 - Morris' Bohemian Rhabditid gets mentioned on German ScienceBlogs website

Da steckt der Wurm drin (c.elegans)

Loosely translated, the page says "sometimes you find strange things on YouTube." It was also mentioned on the similar Laborjournal Blog here. You can watch Bohemian Rhabditid on YouTube here.

December, 2011 - Methods Chapters out

Gina's methods chapter on in situ hybridization, and Morris' (with Vida Praitis) on Transgenesis, are out in Methods Cell Biol. Also, can you spot a certain PI singing with UCR's Chamber Singers on 12/1/11?

August 23, 2011 - Farewell lunch for Heather

Congratulations to Heather, who is on her way to Johns Hopkins University for a one-year pre-graduate school training program! Congratulations also to Stephanie, who has been awarded an IGERT fellowship!
[Left to Right: Farhad, Morris, Holly, Zhihuan, Saige, Heather, Leila, Stephanie, Gina, Melissa]

Worm Show 2011 (YouTube)
Information About the 2011 Show

Worm Show 2005 - Worm Show 2007 - Worm Show 2009

The 'Description' in each video has links to various timepoints.

Worm Show Page

April 7, 2011 - Visit to UCSB

Morris made a visit to UCSB, including a stop with the Rothman Lab! More pictures here.

March 12, 2011 - Neil Shubin

Morris with Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish, and cast of Tiktaalik, at the
Biology Leadership Conference #8, at the Hotel Del Coronado.

February 25, 2011 - David Bird visits UCR

Morris with David Bird (North Carolina State University)

February, 2011 - Collaborative paper published

A collaborative effort led by Dr. Tami Panhuis and Dr. David Reznick (at UCR) is in press at Journal of Heredity. Papers

January, 2011 - Southern California Worm Meeting!

The re-boot of the Socal Worm Meeting, January 29, 2011 at UCLA.

Just before the meeting started, Biomedical Sciences Research Building, UCLA

More pictures here.

December, 2010 - Trip to New York

Martin Chalfie (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2008) invited the Worm Show guys (Morris and Curtis) to Columbia University to give a comedic capstone to their lecture series commemorating 100 Years of Drosophila.

Morris with Marty Chalfie, Curtis Loer

More pictures here.

November 13, 2010 - Morris gets to emcee at a gala

MM was emcee at a gala at the Marriott Hotel in Riverside, CA, on Saturday 11-13-2010. The celebrity guest was Rob Reiner, and he got to take a photo with him afterwards.

Morris with Rob Reiner
(photo by John Cruz)

October 30, 2010 - Morris gets a solo part in the Raincross Chorale concert

October, 2010 - Worm Show 2011 is being planned

The 18th International C. elegans Meeting will take place June 22-26, 2011 at UCLA. Another Worm Show is in the works for Saturday, June 25, 8:00pm in Royce Hall!

October, 2010 - New student joins the lab

We welcome Shruthi Satish, in the Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology (CMDB) Graduate Program, to the lab. Shruthi has successfully completed the CMDB Written Qualifying Exam, congratulations!

August, 2010 - Collaborative paper, and Melissa gets a job!

A collaborative paper with the Rothman lab on elt-2 and elt-7 and their role in endoderm specification/differentiation has been accepted at Developmental Biology. Papers

Our PhD student Melissa Owraghi Antonio has just accepted an Adjuct Professor position at California Baptist University. Congratulations Melissa!

Our lab has gone uv-free! We finally said goodbye to Ethidium Bromide, and bought ourselves a Dark Reader Transilluminator for nucleic acid gels. We should have done this ages ago.

July, 2010 - Santa Cruz Dev Bio Meeting

Mule Deer can be easily seen roaming the UC Santa Cruz campus.

We were at the Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting. Check out a few pictures from the conference.

Just before the meeting, we visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and saw this specimen:

Say hello to Aequorea victoria, the jellyfish that gave us GFP!

June, 2010 - Melissa graduates, Leila gets an award

Melissa walked at the 56th Annual UCR Commencement Ceremony for the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences on Sunday, June 13th, and Morris got to place the ceremonial hood on her. Congratulations Melissa!

Melissa at graduation

Leila is the recipient of the 2010-2011 Janet Boyce Memorial Scholarship! Congratulations Leila!

Check out pictures from the trip to London and Hinxton and UCR Commencement 2010.

June 4-7, 2010 - Meeting in England

We are having fun at the Evolution meeting in Hinxton. We made a pilgrimage to Cambridge to visit some famous sights.

 

Upper left: Outside the famous Eagle pub in Cambridge, where Watson and Crick
announced they had found 'the secret of life'; Upper right: The Laboratory for Molecular Biology;
Bottom: Punting on the Cam

May, 2010 - Melissa gets an award!

Melissa has won an Outstanding Teaching Assistant award for the 2009-2010 year!

March, 2010 - Hanging out at UCOP

For 2009-2010 MM has been serving as UCR representative to the CCGA (Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs). This involves meeting once a month in Oakland, CA at the UC Office of the President (UCOP). At the March, 2010 meeting we got to talk with President Yudof about graduate education.

UC President Yudof at CCGA: [L. to R.] John Sutton (UCSB), Fred Wan (UCI), Michael Beattie (UCSF), Steven Nelson (UCLA), Morris Maduro (UCR), Rachael Goodhue (UCD), Jim Carmody (Vice Chair, UCSD), John Hildebrand (UCSD), President Mark Yudof, Farid Chebab (Chair, UCSF), Robert Martin (Student Rep., UCSD), Katherine Warnke-Carpenter (Student Rep., UCI), Chris Kello (UCM). [Not pictured: Ira Tager (UCB), Sue Carter (UCSC).]

March 16, 2010 - Melissa defends her PhD

Bob, Morris, Melissa, Heather and Gina

Today Melissa gave a fantastic seminar on her work, and defended her PhD in the Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology graduate program. She is the first student to get a PhD from our lab. Congratulations, Melissa, on a job well done!

March, 2010 - Collaborative grant awarded

A collaborative NIH grant has been awarded to Dr. Shou-Wei Ding's lab and our lab, to fund work on mechanisms of antiviral RNAi in C. elegans!

Also, congratulations to Leila for winning an Undergraduate Research Grant award for Spring, 2010!

January, 2010 - a trip east

Catching up with Dave Sherwood and Ryan Baugh, both at Duke University, NC

January, 2010 - Review of Cell Specification In Press

A review by MM on cell specification is in press as part of a Developmental Dynamics special issue on C. elegans as a model system.
Papers

We also welcome undergrad Leila Magistrado and BMSC grad student Olivia Sakhon who will both be working with us this quarter.

On our way to lunch at The Barn (1/8/10)
Left to Right: Paul De Ley, Philipp Schiffer (visiting from Einhard Schierenberg's
lab, Koeln, Germany), Mark Blaxter (on his way to Pasadena, from Edinburgh, Scotland),
Morris, Gina

December, 2009 - Juan defends his PhD

Collaborating student Juan Fraire-Zamora has successfully defending his PhD! His work was on sperm activation in C. elegans. Juan will be returning in winter quarter to do some postdoc work with his PhD advisor, Dr. Richard Cardullo. Congratulations Juan!

October, 2009 - paper on POP-1 function in MS/E accepted

Our paper on restoration of MS fate in pop-1 mutant embryos in which end-1 and end-3 are also mutated is in press at Developmental Biology. Congratulations to Melissa, its first author!
Papers

We also welcome Bo Zhao from the GGB program, who will be rotating with us this quarter.

September, 2009 - Pictures from the summer

Highlights from the summer, including a trip to Europe and our move to Genomics (and featuring the epic moving of our -80 freezer by crane) have been posted.
Pictures

September, 2009 - Moving to the Genomics Building

We have finally relocated to the Genomics Building!

Artwork in front of Genomics	future (shared) lab space
View from Morris' office window: L-R: other Genomics wing, Carillon Tower, Life Sciences/Psychology, Biological Sciences, and Batchelor Hall

Jens Schulze from Einhard Schierenberg's lab in Koeln, Germany has been visiting UCR this summer.

Jens in the lab

July 16, 2009 - CEH-51 / TBX-35 paper is out

Our paper on CEH-51 and TBX-35 in MS specification is available from Development ePress online.
Papers

June 27, 2009 - Worm Show 2009

Morris Maduro & Curtis Loer

Whew! Curtis and Morris encountered some technical glitches but managed to pull off their final(?) Worm Show. The DVD is now ready! Worm Show 2009 page As well, our PhD student Melissa won a poster prize at the meeting, congratulations Melissa!

June, 2009 - Collaborative paper on CEH-51 / TBX-35 accepted

A collaborative manuscript with the Sternberg lab (Caltech) has been accepted! This paper will report the overlapping function of the homeobox regulator CEH-51 and the T-box regulator TBX-35 in specifying the MS blastomere. The work, with our lab as corresponding authors, will appear in Development.
Papers

As an aside, Morris & Curtis are now working feverishly to put a good Worm Show together.

We are also excited to have a MARCU* trainee with us this summer, Heather Roberson.

February, 2009 - Worm Show planned for International Meeting

The 17th International C. elegans Meeting will be held at UC Los Angeles from June 24-28, 2009. Another Worm Show is in the works!

17th International C. elegans Meeting website 2005 Show 2007 Show

January, 2009 - Collaborative study on MED-1 solution structure accepted

An ongoing collaboration with the Mackay lab at University of Sydney, Australia has yielded its first publication. Our previous work established that the recognition sequence of MED-1 (GTATACTY) has a different core consensus, and is longer than that of a typical GATA factor (HGATAR). This study shows that the additional bases interact with a novel alpha-helix in the MED-1 DNA-binding domain. The work, which has Joel Mackay as senior author, appears in Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Papers

Plus, our website has logged more than 10,000 hits since January, 2006.

December, 2008 - Moving across the street

Our lab will be moving to the 2nd floor of the new Genomics building at UCR in Sept-Oct of 2009.

October, 2008 - A couple papers accepted

Our paper on the differences in regulatory logic in maternal endomesoderm specification in C. briggsae as compared to C. elegans is now in press at Developmental Biology. As well, a review on the endomesoderm network is in press at BBA-Gene Regulatory Mechanisms.
Papers