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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Erik Andersen, Ph.D.
Department of Molecular Biosciences
Northwestern University
ABSTRACT
My laboratory studies the genetics and genomics of complex traits using Caenorhabditis nematodes, including the keystone model organism C. elegans. I will discuss our recent progress on the characterization of genetic variation across the C. elegans species with some new collections from the Hawaiian Islands. We see that population diversity is high in this location as compared to the rest of the world. This genetic variation resource can be leveraged for genome-wide association mappings. I will present our high-throughput fitness assays that measure growth and offspring production after exposures to diverse chemicals and toxins. We discovered and characterized natural variation in response to the metalloid arsenic, identifying a new metabolic effect of this toxin. Lastly, I will present data about how C. elegans disperses in the wild and natural variation in dispersal strategies with implications for niche preferences.
