The title of our talk is, “Clocks, Cleavage, and Aging Control in the ShiCan Lab”. We have two papers for the students to look over.

We chose these papers because they illustrate the power of our model systems. Mimi works on circadian-regulated physiologies and behaviors (activity, metabolism, sleep, immunity) and their contributions to diseases ranging from autism to bacterial infection to aging; she uses Drosophila melanogaster as her model organism of choice to take advantage of their powerful genetic tools, technical ease, and short lifespans. Importantly, circadian biology, sleep, and metabolism are all highly conserved between flies and humans. Julie works on the role of cell fate in regulating cell division, using C. elegans as her model organism of choice; while the classic text book view of cell division implies that cytokinesis, or the physical division of one cell into two, occurs identically in all cells, she has found that different cell types can have quite different regulation of cytokinesis under stress. C. elegans offers optical transparency for light microscope accessibility and live imaging; powerful genetic tools; an invariant cell lineage map for development; and, importantly, highly conserved cell division and cell fate signaling machinery.

We are presenting together because, even though we work on very different topics and organisms, we co-mentor our students together and collaborate on all our projects. We believe that students benefit from the exposure to different types of science, pushing them to be creative and independent. We are also now converging on reproductive aging as an exciting field of overlapping interest. Flies, worms, and humans all appear to age in very similar ways; like humans, flies and worms decline in fertility with age. This has become an increasingly important problem as more people choose to have children when they are older. Julie investigates the impact of aging on cell division in the early embryo in C. elegans; Mimi investigates the impact of dietary lifespan extension on fertility and the transgenerational effects of advanced maternal age on progeny lifespan, health, and behavior.

Connors et al 2024 MBoC.pdf

Ulgherait et al Nature 2021 (3).pdf