Duffy Lab News

Congratulations to Whitney Laboratory researchers who published an article in Science of the Total Environment -"Multicellular species environmental DNA (eDNA) research constrained by overfocus on mitochondrial DNA". Read More

This paves the way for the rapid deployment of eDNA approaches for any species of interest, without requiring laborious development of targeted approaches, thereby increasing the ease and utility of eDNA research for endangered species conservation and management. Read More

Assistant Professor of Wildlife Disease Genomics Dr. David Duffy and his lab's eDNA research were recently mentioned in the Washington Post Article - The high-tech hunt for one of the world’s most elusive sharks Read More

UF scientists are raising ethical questions in a groundbreaking study, which demonstrated that high-quality human DNA is easily recoverable from our environment. The revelation opens up countless potential benefits for the public good, but the research also cracks open a Pandora’s box. Read More

UF scientists recently announced they had unearthed high-quality, information-rich human DNA from nearly every spot they could think of. The era of human environmental DNA, or eDNA, has arrived. Read More

Drs. David Duffy and Jenny Whilde were recently invited participants to the President of Ireland’s Cherishing our Biodiversity and Sustainability Event. Read More

Dr. David was recently on BBC Radio 4 - BBC Inside Science discussing the benefits and problems of environmental DNA (eDNA). Read More

Please welcome Chris Nolte to the Whitney Laboratory and Dr. David Duffy's lab. While at Whitney Laboratory, Chris will collaborate with Dr. Dave Duffy, studying the population genetics of Hawksbill sea turtles in Florida. Read More

Published May 15 in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the paper by Dr. David Duffy and his group outlines the relative ease of collecting human DNA nearly everywhere they looked. Read the full article in UF News and other international and national news articles. Read More

The award-winning ZDF documentary series with actor, animal advocate and environmentalist Hannes Jaenicke released their latest documentary featuring the Sea Turtle Hospital at Whitney Laboratory showcasing staff, fibropapilloma (FP) research, and hospital patients. Read More

Please welcome Dr. Sophie Dupont to the Whitney Laboratory! Dr. Dupont is a visiting researcher in the Duffy Lab and will be training in the viral detection and quantification lab techniques developed at the Whitney Lab. Read More

Please welcome Gianna Fanelli to Whitney Laboratory! She recently joined the Duffy Lab as a graduate student. Read More

Congratulations to Dr. David Duffy and his lab for being highlighted in the USA Today story about research on Environmental DNA. Duffy hopes their work will shed light on what causes the tumors to spread, why the tumors afflict some turtles more than others – and may hold a key to unlocking those same questions in human tumors. Read More

Congratulations to the Duffy lab whose eDNA research was featured in the National Geographic article - Hidden DNA is revealing secrets of animals’ lives Read More

You’ve heard of crime scene investigations. One team of scientists is applying that same kind of technology used to find criminals as a way to help sea turtles. The University of Florida Whitney Laboratory in St. Johns County have figured a way to collect sea turtle DNA from the water, even when they don’t see any sea turtles around. Read More

A study led by University of Florida researchers is the first to sequence environmental DNA, or eDNA, from sea turtles — genetic material shed as they travel over beaches and in water. “We wanted to test the boundaries of this technology, which hadn't really been applied to sea turtles before and certainly not on sand,” said David Duffy, UF Whitney Laboratory Assistant Professor of Wildlife Disease Genomics and Rising Star Condron Family Endowed Assistant Professor. Read More

On January 24th, Jessica Farrell, a graduate student advised by David Duffy, Assistant Professor of Wildlife Disease Genomics, successfully defended her Ph.D. entitled “Assessing Florida Sea Turtle Populations and their Fibropapillomatosis Tumor Pandemic”. Read More

Congratulations to Whitney Laboratory Ph.D. candidate Jessica Farrell for receiving the University of Florida International Certificate of Outstanding Merit at the 2021 International Student Achievement Award Ceremony on November 16, during International Education Week. Read More

The Whitney Laboratory is pleased to announce that Assistant Professor of Wildlife Disease Genomics and Rising Star Condron Family Endowed Assistant Professor Dr. David Duffy received a grant for $26,355 from the Florida Sea Turtle Grants Program, which is funded by the sales of the sea turtle specialty license plate. He received the grant for a project to study the health impacts of near-ubiquitous plastic ingestion in Florida’s young turtles. Read More

Congratulations to Kelsey Yetsko, Jessica Farrell, Dr. David Duffy and their colleagues who recently co-published a paper titled 'Genotype data not consistent with clonal transmission of sea turtle fibropapillomatosis or goldfish schwannoma' in Wellcome Open Research. The paper involved researchers in the UK, US and Italy. Read More

Please welcome Dr. Samantha Koda to Whitney Laboratory! She recently joined Dr. David Duffy's lab as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Read More

Congratulations to Liam Whitmore, Jessica Farrell, Kelsey Yetsko, Devon Rollinson Ramia, Dr. Brooke Burkhalter, Dr. David Duffy and their colleagues who recently published a paper titled 'Evolutionary Comparisons of Chelonid Alphaherpesvirus 5 (ChHV5) Genomes from Fibropapillomatosis-Afflicted Green (Chelonia mydas), Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) and Kemp’s Ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) Sea Turtles' in Animals. Read More

Drew worked with Dr. David Duffy this summer on genetic drivers of turtle fibropapillomatosis. Read More

Registration and abstract submission are now open for the Sea Turtle Fibropapillomatosis Research Symposium 2021. The 2021 meeting will be held virtually on October 14 and 15, 2021. Read More

Please welcome Dr. Narges Mashkour to Whitney Laboratory! She recently joined Dr. David Duffy's Lab as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. She joined the Duffy lab to continue working on the genetics behind FP and the possible roles of this papillomavirus. Read More

Jessica Farrell, Dr. David Duffy and Liam Whitmore have a discussion of environmental DNA and RNA (eDNA and eRNA, respectively) and its potential for pathogen monitoring. Read More

Congratulations to Whitney PhD student Jessica Farrell, Kelsey Yetsko and Dr. David Duffy for their article in Nature Portfolio Ecology and Evolution Community - Tracking an oncogenic sea turtle virus with eDNA. How to better understand the role of an oncogenic virus in driving a debilitating sea turtle disease? By applying genomics to sea turtle tumor tissues and environmental DNA (eDNA) to rehabilitation tank water. Read More

Congratulations to Sea Turtle Hospital Staff and Whitney Faculty and Students who recently published a paper titled "Environmental DNA monitoring of oncogenic viral shedding and genomic profiling of sea turtle fibropapillomatosis reveals unusual viral dynamics" in Communications Biology. Read More

Congratulations to Whitney PhD Student Jessica Farrell who recently won an award for Outstanding PhD Oral Presentation at the The Dauphin Island Sea Lab Marine Science Graduate Student Symposium. Read More

Congratulations to Jessica Farrell, Dr. David Duffy and Liam Whitmore recently featured their research in The Conversation article, Environmental DNA – how a tool used to detect endangered wildlife ended up helping fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Read More

Congratulations to Jessica Farrell, Dr. David Duffy and Liam Whitmore who recently published a paper titled "The Promise and Pitfalls of Environmental DNA and RNA Approaches for the Monitoring of Human and Animal Pathogens from Aquatic Sources" in Bioscience. Read More

Congratulations to Dr. David Duffy and colleagues who recently published a paper titled "A chemo-genomic approach identifies diverse epigenetic therapeutic vulnerabilities in MYCN amplified neuroblastoma" in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology. Read More

Congratulations to Sea Turtle Hospital Staff and Whitney Faculty who recently published a paper titled "Molecular characterization of a marine turtle tumor epizootic, profiling external, internal and postsurgical regrowth tumors" in Communications Biology. Read More

Oceana recently published a report, "Choked, Strangled, Drowned: The Plastics Crisis Unfolding in Our Oceans," that included data from the Sea Turtle Hospital's recently published paper on Plastic Ingestion in Post-hatchling Sea Turtles. Oceana reveals for the first time the available data on marine mammals and sea turtles swallowing or becoming entangled in plastic in U.S. waters. Read More

Sea Turtle Hospital Program Manager Cat Eastman and Dr. David Duffy talk with First Coast News about sea turtle hatchlings that come to the hospital and what they have discovered in the First Coast News story. Read More

Please welcome Assistant Professor of Wildlife Disease Genomics and Rising Star Condron Family Endowed Assistant Professor, Dr. David Duffy, to Whitney Laboratory! The Duffy Lab focuses on questions at the interface between wildlife and human health, with the aim of identifying disease mechanisms and novel therapeutic treatments. Read More

Congratulations to Sea Turtle Hospital and Whitney Laboratory faculty and staff who recently published a paper in Frontiers in Marine Science on plastic ingestion by post-hatchlings. This research was also featured in an article in The Conversation. Read More

Dr. David Duffy, Whitney Laboratory Assistant Professor of Wildlife Disease Genomics, and Dr. Jenny Whilde provide some perspective on pandemics and zoonotic diseases as they relate to human activities. Read More

Congratulations to Dr. David Duffy and Dr. Brooke Burkhalter who recently published a paper about rehabilitation of tumor-afflicted sea turtles, and their utilization as a natural model for human and wildlife cancers in Springer Nature titled "When is a lab animal not a lab animal?" Read More

Congratulations to Dr. David Duffy, courtesy faculty at Whitney Lab, and Dr. Mark Martindale, director and professor of biology at Whitney Lab, for their recent publication in Communications Biology titled “Perspectives on the expansion of human precision oncology and genomic approaches to sea turtle fibropapillomatosis.” Read More