Major congratulations to our latest PhD (coadvised by @ClarkLabCornell) Dr. @NoraAndFauna for successfully defending her thesis on the function & evolution of drosophila reproductive molecules! Our many thousands of arthropod lab members are abuzz with the news! 🪰

Thrilled to share our freshest PhD grad Dr. @gordonkathleene (coadvised by @bplazzaro) brilliantly defended her thesis on the genetics and mechanisms of trade offs between reproduction & immunity in mated flies! An exciting and beautiful story soon to come, watch this space! 👀

We had a blast teaching the @FIRbees all things fly repro (expert help from testis pro Erika Matunis)! They did a fantastic job dissecting/staining tracts, and even isolated a WT female with THREE ovaries! 🥚🥚🥚#FIR2023

The flies are abuzz for their annual road-trip east to @MBLScience @FIRbees where we will spread the good gospel of Drosophila reproductive genetics 🧬 ✨

The accessory gland is obviously the best tissue in the male repro tract, but okay okay the testes are nice to look at too 😍 taken on our beloved @Discover_Echo revolve

It's our favorite time of the year, the fly meeting is upon us! Come find us and say hi, we're super excited to share our latest findings and catch up with all our friends in the amazing fly community! Check out 🧵👇where we'll be at #Dros23: (1/6)

(7/8) We also characterize the evolution of these genes across closely related Drosophila species and find extensive copy number variation, turnover, and expression differences across species, which mirrors their coming-and-going patterns in the seminal fluid "suite":

(6/8) Using functional genetics, we found males lacking Obp56g have low fertility, likely due to loss of the mating plug and subsequent ejaculate loss from the female post-mating:

(3/8) We also delve into evolutionary genetics to compare WDY sequences in species where the gene is Y-linked vs. autosomal and find some compelling evidence suggesting functional evolution associated with Y-linkage:

(2/8) Using this approach, we were able to generate mutants in WDY and PRY to directly test the long-standing hypothesis that Y chromosome genes regulate sperm motility (spoiler--they do!).

And we were here for less than 2 hours when we spotted our first (but not last!) calcium wave!