Congratulations to Sudarshan Aryal on his New Job!


Postdoctoral researcher Sudarshan Aryal has accepted a position as a Senior Scientist in Nematology at Marrone Bio Innovations. Sudarshan came to work with us after obtaining his PhD in 2015 from the University of Florida, Gainesville. He worked as a postdoc in the Dillman lab for two years. We will miss him but wish him well in his future endeavors. Hopefully we’ll get to catch up with him at the Society of Nematologists Meetings in the future.

Workshop in Israel


Dr. Dillman is participating as an invited keynote lecturer in a BARD workshop on “Chemosensation of Plant- and Insect-Parasitic Nematodes and its Role in Pest Control.” He’s excited to meet new colleagues and catch up with old friends. Other workshop attendees include David Bird, Johnathan Dalzell, Itamar Glazer, Elissa Hallem, and Valerie Williamson, among others. Lots of exciting behavioral work being done.

Lab Members Attend Several Conferences this Summer

Members of our lab will be presenting research at a variety of meetings this summer. First up we have Tiffany Baiocchi and undergraduate Kassandra Kin attending the GSA C. elegans Conference at UCLA at the end of June. Next Dr. Dillman and Dennis Chang will represent the lab at the 56th Annual Meeting of the Society of Nematologists in August. Then Dihong Lu and undergraduate Paul Medina will attend the Golden Jubilee Conference of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology in August. We are excited to be interacting with our colleagues at all of these scientific venues and are anxious to see what other labs are working on.

Kassandra Kin wins best oral presentation at the UCR Undergraduate Research Symposium!

Congratulations to Kassandra Kin, who represented the lab by presenting a talk at the recent undergraduate symposium. Of 64 oral presentations over the two day symposium, Kassandra was honored with the prize for best oral presentation. Kassandra’s hard work, practice, and careful planning has been rewarded. In addition to this recent award, Kassandra was accepted into the Computational Entomology Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) over the summer here at UCR. We are excited to see what she learns over the summer. Keep up the excellent work!

Four undergraduates from the Dillman lab are presenting in the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium

Lauren Allison, Carter Gerke, Kassandra Kin, and Paul Medina are sophomore undergraduate students in the Dillman lab and all four are presenting research at the 11th annual Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Symposium at UCR May 3rd and 4th. Congratulations to each of them. They have worked hard and we are excited to see where their experiments will take us.

Making Science Accessible

We just published the results of our PLoS One paper in the Science Journal for Kids. This is our first experience with this journal and we are excited to see the results of this work.
http://www.sciencejournalforkids.org/articles/why-are-some-parasites-picky-eaters
We think it is important to engage the public and to make science accessible and this seemed like a great way to do this. We are always looking for more ways to engage and welcome your feedback and ideas.

Activated entomopathogenic nematode infective juveniles release lethal venom proteins

Congratulations to Dihong Lu, Dennis Chang, and our collaborators. Our manuscript, “Activated entomopathogenic nematode infective juveniles release lethal venom proteins,” was just accepted by PLoS Pathogens. The paper is scheduled for early release on April 20th. Great work!

Molecular Helminthology 2017

Congratulations to Dennis Chang, for being awarded a travel scholarship to the Molecular Helminthology meeting in Cape Code this month!
https://www.elsevier.com/events/conferences/molecular-helminthology-an-integrated-approach/program

Be on the lookout for Dennis’s poster where he details our latest work in his poster: “The insect-parasitic nematode Steinernema carpocapsae releases a composition of lethal proteins inside hosts.” Good luck at the conference Dennis.

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