Lab News
Jul 22, 2026
Alex and Adolfo’s preprints are out on bioRxiv
An exciting coincidence for the lab! Alex and Adolfo submitted their papers to the preprint server on the same day. Alex's paper addresses a longstanding puzzle known as "centromere paradox", which is about the contradiction that centromere and pericentromere DNA diverges rapidly but the function of centromere remains conserved. Her paper is available here.
Adolfo's paper addresses another puzzle about repetitive DNA. He looked into how tandem arrays in heteromorphic sex chromosomes persists despite the lack of recombination. His paper is here
Apr 30, 2026
Mahul wins Teaching Excellence Award
Mahul received the Early Career Teaching Excellence Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M University for designing and implementing an innovative upper-level Genomics course. The course introduces students to introductory and advanced topics in genomics and allows them to conduct their own genomics experiment.
Apr 23, 2026
Alex’s paper is accepted in Genome Research
Alex's second paper and the lab's first Drosophila paper have been accepted for publication in the journal Genome Research. This project began in an undergraduate classroom and then expanded into a full-fledged research project under Alex's leadership. Except Alex and Mahul, all authors of this paper are undergraduate students who took BIOL 450 in spring 2024. Congratulations, Alex and the team!
Feb 10, 2026
Alex wins oral presentation prize at SPRC 2026
Alex has won the second prize at the SPRC 2026 for her talk on the molecular basis of visible phenotypes in Drosophila. Go Alex!
Aug 05, 2025
Our paper on variation in repetitive sequences is out in Genome Research
Studying the structure and variation of repetitive DNA sequences remains an unsolved problem. In a collaborative paper between our lab and the Emerson lab at UC Irvine, we assembled highly repetitive pericentromeric regions of Drosophila melanogaster using highly accurate (HiFi) long reads. We provided a new framework to study genetic variation in such repetitive regions. Our study offers new insights into the evolutionary and molecular mechanisms underlying the patterns of genetic variation in two such clusters: the Histone and Stellate gene clusters.
Jul 25, 2025
Mahul is selected as a finalist for the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award
Mahul has been selected as a finalist for the prestigious 2025 Director’s New Innovator Awards (DP2) from the National Institutes of Health! This distinction recognizes outstanding early-career scientists who are launching innovative research endeavors.
Jul 02, 2025
Lab’s first paper is published!
The lab's first paper, led by Ph.D. student Alex Samano, has now been published in Molecular Biology and Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf140
Mar 25, 2025
Alex & Trevor present talk at the the annual Drosophila conference
Alex and Trevor, the lab's two graduate students, present their research at the 66th Drosophila conference organized by the Genetics Society of America in San Diego, CA.
Jul 16, 2024
Trevor receives a NIH-funded fellowship!
Apr 10, 2024
Ali is selected as a TAMU Undergraduate Research Ambassador
Apr 04, 2024
Alex receives honorable mention by NSF GRFP
Aug 28, 2023
Mahul’s paper is featured in New York Times
NY Times published an article on Mahul's recent paper on the origin of sexually dimorphic UV color vision in Heliconius charithonia females.
Jun 21, 2023
The lab runs its first nanopore duplex sequencing!
Apr 17, 2023
Esha Maknojia joins the lab as lab’s first undergraduate student
Dec 13, 2022
Alex Samano joins the lab as the first Ph.D. student
