The Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience
The University of Florida Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience Evenings at Whitney Lecture Series continues Thursday, February 8, 2024, at 6 p.m. with the program titled “Tapeworm Tails: Understanding stem cells and regeneration in Hymenolepis diminuta”. Tania Rozario, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Genetics and Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases at the University of Georgia, will be the speaker.
This free lecture will be presented in person at the UF Whitney Laboratory Lohman Auditorium, 9505 Ocean Shore Boulevard, in St. Augustine. Those interested also have the option of registering to watch via Zoom live the night of the lecture.
https://ufl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vjZZFlVdQuaVZdqmsDNAaQ
Tapeworms are notorious survivors that thrive due to their enormous capacity to grow. regenerate, and reproduce at prolific rates. These physiological feats are driven by stem cells but the molecular mechanisms that regulate them have remained mysterious. The difficulty of studying tapeworms in the lab is largely driven by the complex multi-host life cycles of many pathologically significant tapeworm species and a dearth of tools. Dr. Rozario will address how her lab has made the rat tapeworm, Hymenolepis diminuta, and excellent model for understanding how stem cells regulate the regenerative capacity of tapeworms.
Tania Rozario is an Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia at the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases and Department of Genetics. She got her BA from Wesleyan University, CT exploring yeast genetics and PhD from the University of Virginia studying embryonic development in frogs. During her postdoc she joined Phil Newmark's lab (Morgridge Institute for Research, WI) to study planarian regeneration but pivoted toward their parasitic cousins- tapeworms. She is using her expertise as a basic developmental biologist and geneticist toward elucidating the success of parasites. Her work (re)established the rat tapeworm, Hymenolepis diminuta, as a non-traditional model to explore the molecular regulation of stem cells in tapeworms.