Join us on February 22nd to hear Prof. Josien van Wolfswinkel talk about “How to Grow a New Head: The Secret of Eternal Life.”
Science Saturdays is an award-winning lecture series designed for families that brings the excitement of research and the passion of scientists to the community. Each event involves a lecture by a Yale professor and hands-on science demonstrations run by Yale College students. This weekend will feature an inflatable planetarium! Bring the whole family! Refreshments will be served. Free parking is available at the Sachem-Prospect Garage on Prospect Street. Entrance to the garage is in the Yale Ingalls Ice Rink lot. For more event information go to: www.yale.edu/scienceoutreach
Time: Demonstrations by Synapse of Yale Scientific Magazine from 10am - 11am; Talk from 11am - noon.
Location: Sterling Chemistry Laboratory, 225 Prospect Street
About Dr. Josien van Wolfswinkel:
Josien van Wolfswinkel, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology. She received her M. Sc. In Molecular Biology and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Her doctoral research in the labs of Ronald Plasterk, Albert Heck, and Rene Ketting, focused on the endogenous role of the small RNA mediated silencing mechanism RNAi in the development and genome stability of the nematode C.elegans. She found that RNAi plays an important role in chromosome maintenance during meiosis and showed that the stability of siRNAs in the C. elegans germline is regulated by uridylation. She also showed that worms express a methylating enzyme HEN-1 that protects the ends of small RNAs against methylation and thereby against destabilization, just like it does in plants. As a postdoc she continued research into the relationship between non-coding RNA and chromatin in the planarian Schmidtea mediterranea. In the lab of Peter Reddien in the Whitehead Institute (Cambridge, MA) she worked on characterization of the planarian transcriptome, establishment of ChIP, single cell analysis, and characterization of heterogeneity in the planarian stem cell compartment.
More info about Dr. Josien van Wolfswinkel can be found here: https://mcdb.yale.edu/people/josien-van-wolfswinkel