now we are 3!

We are almost 6 months old and in the past couple of months we tripled in size!

After doing her spring quarter rotation in the lab, Michelle Chicas, a first year biochemistry graduate student bravely joined the lab as the Vásquez lab’s first ever graduate student!!!

Vesta Baumgartner joined the lab as a Research Scientist in May! She is fearlessly tackling fly husbandry in the face of several bad batches of fly food, the laminator, and naming all the things in lab.

We are still down one incubator, but the confocal is up, running, and churning out beautiful data. We are super excited for what the summer will bring! Stay tuned for updates to the people page for Michelle and Vesta’s bios!

day 168

almost 2 months in!

The lab opened its doors on January 3rd and 56 days in it’s already starting to look like a lab! Albeit with a couple of false starts – including all 82 fly stocks from Bloomington dead on arrival x____X, luckily the second order arrived last Friday and everyone looks alive and healthy!

day 1

day 56

There are still countless reagents and pieces of equipment to order but the lab’s confocal arrives this week!

Also – here is our ad for a research scientist [update: hired!] please apply spread the word or apply if interested! If you’ll be at the annual fly meeting in Chicago (March 1-5) or NW Dev Bio (Mar 15-18) meeting  – say hi to Claudia!