Week One (partially) - Ushering in my 3 summer here!

Hi everyone, it's been a while!  I am so excited to be back in Peter Zuber's lab, it's amazing to think this will be m third summer here!  I remember starting out the summer after my sophomore year and ... can you believe it, I just finished my first year of college.  Time flies by and through it all, I've still held a special place in my heart for research and Peter's lab.  It's nice to know that I've found my calling and I hope to be here for many more summers.

This summer, I've moved onto bigger and better things.  Er, I've moved onto bigger things (dinoflagellates), but not necessarily better things.  My research is focusing on determining the distribution and actions of a parastitic dinoflagellate in the Euduboscquella family.  This particular dinoflagellate has been found to infect other ciliates (Dinoflagellate infections of Favella panamensis from two North American estuaries, Coats et al).  In this dinoflagellate, there is a variable region in the 28S region of DNA nicknamed a Unique Sequence Element (USE) that is of particular interest to our lab.  Using primers specific to this region, I can identify this Euduboscquella in our samples from various regions (Plume, Red Water {the blooms of Mesodinium rubrum}, Mid-Salinity, and Freshwater samples) to see if there is a pattern of presence.  From this, we might be able to see if there is a correlation of infection with the presence of M. rubrum and Euduboscquella.  

I'm excited for all the research this summer and am truly grateful for both my mentor, Peter Zuber, and the Director of Higher Education and Diversity, Vanessa Green, for giving me such a fantastic oppurtunity and making sure I have a place to live so I can complete this opportunity.

Until next time, Deirdre