[INVITED LECTURE] Jason Pellettieri, PhD
"The biology of planarians – circling the globe to study worms that are flat"
One of the benefits of an academic career is the opportunity to travel, meeting new colleagues, expanding your knowledge, and developing novel lines of research. I just completed a sabbatical at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and look forward to talking more science at the Symposium before I return home. In my presentation, I will summarize published and unpublished results generated by students in my lab working on four different projects, all of which benefited greatly from travel and focus on flatworms called planarians. Specifically, I will discuss the regulation of stem cell division during regeneration of lost body parts, a role for programmed cell death in tissue remodeling, using planarians to study the biology of rare light-sensitivity disorders called porphyrias, and flatworm-eating parasites. Please join me for the ride!
Jason Pellettieri, PhD
Jason Pellettieri completed his PhD in molecular biology and genetics at the Johns Hopkins University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Utah, before going on to begin a faculty career at Keene State College in New Hampshire. He has mentored over a hundred undergraduate students conducting independent research in his lab with NIH and NSF funding. Their work explores the cellular and molecular biology of planarian flatworms, animals with the remarkable capacity to regenerate any lost body part in just over a week. Results generated by his students have been published in leading journals and featured by Science and mainstream media outlets from the US to Spain.