Schnitzler Lab News

Diving into Discovery: Dr. Christine Schnitzler's Journey in Marine Biology, Regeneration and Evolution

From the Integrative and Comparative Biology blog post by Lisa Mesrop

Schnitzler Lab Welcomes Martin Winn

Please welcome Martin Winn to the Whitney Lab! He joins the as an Undergraduate Researcher.

Ph.D. Defense Success for Justin Waletich!

Dr. Justin Waletich, a Ph.D. student from the Schnitzler lab, successfully defended his dissertation on November 5th. His work focused on describing the organization of stem cells in the colonial cnidarian Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus.

Schnitzler Lab welcomes Kent Winata

Please welcome Kent Winata to the Whitney Laboratory! Kent joined the Schnitzler Lab as a Ph.D. student.

New genome reveals ancient toolkit

Stem cells can’t hide what they are. At least, that’s the takeaway from the newly sequenced genomes of two colonial hydroids, Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus and Hydractinia echinata. Brent Foster recently sat down with Dr. Christine Schnitzler of UF’s Whitney Laboratory to talk about her experience assembling these genomes.

Schnitzler Lab Welcomes Victoria Rodriguez

Vicky joined the Schnitzler Lab as a Postbaccalaureate Researcher. Vicky worked with the Schnitzler lab recently trying to identify transcription factors in Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus.

Schnitzler Lab and collaborators publish the Hydractinia genome paper

This paper represents the result of a large-scale international collaborative effort to sequence the genomes of two species of the model hydroid, Hydractinia and perform comparative analysis to place these genomes in a comparative evolutionary framework with other cnidarians and other animals.

Schnitzler Lab Welcomes Dr. Zac Lane

Please welcome Dr. Zac Lane to the Whitney Laboratory!  He recently joined the Schnitzler Lab as a Postdoctoral Associate. 

Schnitzler Lab welcomes Nina Mangor

Please welcome Nina Mangor to the Whitney Lab! Nina joins the  lab as a Laboratory Technician where her main tasks involve regular animal husbandry of the marine invertebrate organism of study known as Hydractinia.

Bailey-Niblett Family Endowment helps fund trip to RNA Symposium at UF Scripps Institute

This January the Bailey-Niblett Family Endowment helped fund a Whitney Postdoctoral Research Associate's trip to the symposium “RNA: From Biology to Drug Discovery” held at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology.

Justin Waletich and Jingwei Song win best poster awards at the Florida Genetics Symposium

Congratulations to Whitney Laboratory Ph.D. student Justin Waletich and postdoctoral research associate Jingwei Song, Ph.D. from the Schnitzler Lab as well as the rest of the recipients for their awards for best posters at the 2022 Florida Genetics Symposium.

Dr. Schnitzler contributes to new paper in PNAS detailing the full complexity of an invertebrate histocompatibility gene region in the marine invertebrate Hydractinia

Congratulations to Dr. Christine Schnitzler and her co-authors from the University of Pittsburgh and the National Human Genome Research Institute of the NIH for publishing a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) – “A family of unusual immunoglobulin superfamily genes in an invertebrate histocompatibility complex”

Schnitzler Lab members publish new paper in Open Biology investigating the evolution and function of important stem cell gene GNL3 in Hydractinia

Congratulations to Dr. Gonzalo Quiroga-Artigas, for his recently published paper with Dr. Danielle de Jong and Dr. Christine Schnitzler in Open Biology – “GNL3 is an evolutionarily conserved stem cell gene influencing cell proliferation, animal growth and regeneration in the hydrozoan Hydractinia”

Bailey-Niblett Family Endowment helps fund graduate student Trip to European Evolutionary Biology Meeting

This summer the Bailey-Niblett Family Endowment helped fund a graduate student trip to the European Evolutionary Biology Meeting (EuroEvoDevo) in Napoli, Italy from May 31-June 3.

Whitney's Christine Schnitzler Promoted to University of Florida Associate Professor of Biology with Tenure

We are pleased to announce that Whitney Faculty Dr. Christine Schnitzler was granted promotion and tenure by the University of Florida Board of Trustees to Associate Professor of Biology.

Dr. Danielle de Jong in Stat Article on pipette tip shortage

Dr. Danielle de Jong, Lab Manager of the Schnitzler Lab, was recently quoted in the Stat article, How Blackouts, Fires, and a Pandemic are Driving Shortages of Pipette Tips — and Hobbling Science.