June 11, 2014: Our lab's research is featured on the www.msstate.edu home page. Check it out HERE!

June 10, 2014: Our lab's first amoebozoan RNAseq libraries are now being sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq platform! This project is supported by the Hunter Henry Family Research Fund, and will be used for an upcoming NSF proposal. 

June 2, 2014: A Current Biology dispatch by Finlay Maguire and Thomas Richards on our Pygsuia mitochondria paper is available online here (http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)00397-2). 

May 22, 2014: Our Current Biology paper on Pygsuia's mitochondrial related organelle and the BMC Genomics paper on the chlorarachniophyte Lotharella's nucelomorph genome are now online. Follow the links to the papers. 

May 8, 2014: My lab's first completely independent manuscript was accepted for publication in the international Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology! The manuscript was authored by two undergraduate researchers, Pamela Watson and Stephanie Sorrell. In the manuscript we describe the new genus, Ptolemeba, with 2 new species in it P. bulliensis and P. noxubium. The genus is named after Mississippi State University's first bulldog mascot, Ptolemy, with the specific epithet of bulliensis after Bully, the mascot of Mississippi State. We chose this name because the type isolate came from soil collected in between Harned Hall's lecture hall and its annex on our campus. Videos of the new amoebae are available here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ5V3tch6CY and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px2y976unlo). 

April 28, 2014: Our next paper was accepted in BMC Genomics on chlorarachniophyte nucleomorph genome evolution with a emphasis on the phylogenomic position of the secondary endosymbiont. Congratulations Goro Tanifuji (Tsukuba University) on an excellent manuscript!

April 22, 2014: The laboratory was awarded a Henry Family Research Fund in the College of Arts & Sciences initiation grant for our work on amoebozoan phylogenomics.