Poster judge and Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Miles Blencowe hands Cori her award.

Congratulations to biology PhD candidate Cori D’Ausilio who was one of four winners of the Graduate Poster Session held recently at the Top of the Hop! Enjoy your winnings, Cori! (Read on for a summary of D’Ausilio’s poster.)

“The Role of Nuclear Position and Ploidy in Asynchronous Nuclear Divisions in Multinucleate Cells.”

We use the multinucleate fungus Ashbya gossypii to understand how nuclei are able to behave independently when they reside in the same cytoplasm. In these cells, the nuclei divide at different rates despite access to the same proteins and cues from the cytoplasm. My research shows that there is an underlying pattern in nuclear division, in which nuclei that arise from the same mitotic event have similar timing. This relationship is maintained even when the related nuclei travel far from one another in the cell after they are born.

We have also discovered that not all of the nuclei within these cells have the same number of chromosomes, indicating that the deleterious effects of improper chromosome numbers are buffered within the context of a syncytium. Using this model system, we are beginning to understand how division is coordinated within a common cellular environment and are exploring mechanisms that generate these observed patterns.

poster summary by Cori D’Ausilio
photo by Erin O’Flaherty