Happy end of summer and beginning of the 2024-25 school year! The Wessel lab took advantage of the summer season to focus on research and publications as well as traveling both for work and relaxation. Our new aquarium system is up and running which has been a huge benefit to animals and researchers alike. Earlier in the spring El Hebert presented her thesis on secondary spines and graduated. Undergraduate Juliet Fang has joined the group exploring the connection of senescence and cancer through the p63 gene. She also spent part of her summer hiking the John Miur Trail. Gary Wessel traveled to Japan in July to participate in a lecture series and has plans to travel back alongside Nathalie Oulthen and Haruka Sazuki at the end of August, this time to participate in collaborative research on our sister species H. pulcherrimus. Cosmo Pipelow traveled to Atlanta to attend the Society of Developmental Biology conference and brought back a wealth of new research ideas and friendships with colleagues in the field. To celebrate this season’s birthdays we took lab trips to the bowling alley and kayaking.
