What’s new with the froggers?

  • Elina's new preprint

    Elina’s preprint is live on bioRxiv! Check it out here. Congrats to Elina!

    December 2024

  • James' new preprint

    James Schmidt has a new preprint live on bioRxiv. Read it here. Congrats to James and co-authors!

    November 2024

  • Elina wins best poster award...again!

    For the second year in a row, Elina won best poster award at the DSCB retreat. Way to go, Elina!

    October 2024

  • Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Retreat

    Helen, Elina, and Angeline attended the DSCB retreat in Pacific Grove. Angeline was one of the students who gave a talk and did an amazing job!

    October 2024

  • XRET 2024

    Helen co-organized the Xenopus Resources and Emerging Technologies Meeting at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, MA.

    October 2024

  • Fall rotation student

    BMS first-year graduate student, Michelle Seeler, started a rotation in the lab. Welcome!

    September 2024

  • Nia's preprint

    Nia Teerikorpi has a new BioRxiv preprint that you can check out here. Congrats, Nia!

    July 2024

  • STXBP1 Conference

    James and Elina traveled to Philadelphia to attend the STXBP1 Conference.

    July 2024

  • Helen's new paper!

    Helen’s new paper, Modelling human genetic disorders in Xenopus tropicalis, was published in Disease Models & Mechanisms. You can read it here.

    June 2024

  • Welcome, Delfina!

    Delfina González joined the lab as a postdoc! Delfina received her PhD from Yale in May and will be moving to the Bay Area in August.

    June 2024

  • Anna joins the lab

    Neuroscience graduate student, Anna Grigsby-Brown, has joined the lab! She rotated in the Willsey lab in Fall 2023 and officially became a frogger in June 2024.

  • Angeline joins the lab

    After a productive rotation, Angeline Chemel officially joined the lab as a grad student. Welcome!

    June 2024

  • Best wishes to Micaela!

    We toasted postdoc, Micaela Lasser, on her four years in lab and wish her well in her new position at CALM at UCSF.

    June 2024

  • FASEB Cilia Conference

    Congratulations to Elina, who traveled to St Paul, Minnesota to give a talk at the FASEB Cilia Conference.

    May 2024

  • James' poster at BACS

    James presented a poster at the biannual Bay Area Cytoskeleton Symposium at UC Berkeley.

    May 2024

  • New preprint from Kate

    Graduate student, Kate McCluskey, has a new BioRxiv preprint that you can check out here. Congrats, Kate!

    May 2024

  • Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Inter-lab Confab

    Elina gave a lightning talk at the Confab and James presented a poster.

    May 2024

  • Xenopus course at CSHL

    Kate, Christina and Helen all traveled to Cold Spring Harbor lab in New York to attend the Xenopus course. Kate was a TA and Helen was a faculty lecturer.

    April 2024

  • New lab members!

    Catherine Nguyen joined the lab as a research assistant and Christina Roca joined as a graduate student. Welcome!

    April 2024

  • Helen gave a talk at Molecular Psychiatry Conference

    Helen presented as a part of the Symposia: Cross-Species Analysis of the Autism Risk Gene, CHD8: Translating Insights From Diverse Animal Systems to Inform Human Studies.

    March 2024

  • Lab posters at Molecular Psychiatry Conference

    Elina, Kate and James presented posters at the MPA Conference in Kona, Hawaii.

    March 2024

  • Helen presents at annual BAAC symposium

    Helen gave a talk at the Bay Area Autism Consortium research symposium.

    March 2024

  • We're hiring!

    The Willsey lab is hiring a Staff Research Associate to join our team. You can read about the position and apply here.

    February 2024

  • 2023 SYNGAP1 conference

    Helen, Elina and James traveled to Orlando, FL to attend the SYNGAP1 conference where Helen gave a talk.

    December 2023

  • Two new BioRxiv preprints

    Two new preprints from the lab—one from first author Nawei Sun and a second from first author Belinda Wang. You can check them out here and here.

    December 2023

  • Elina wins best poster prize!

    Congratulations to Elina on her poster prize at the Developmental and Stem Cell Biology retreat!

    November 2023

  • James joins the lab!

    James Schmidt recently graduated from Pomona College with a BA in Neuroscience and joined the lab as a research assistant.

    September 2023

  • 2023 Xenopus Conference

    Helen, Elina and Kate traveled to Maryland to attend the 19th International Xenopus conference. Helen gave a keynote talk and Kate and Elina presented posters.

    August 2023

  • Summer celebrations!

    The lab celebrated Micaela’s first-author paper and cover image, and wished Sam well as he departs for Altos Labs.

    August 2023

  • Summer Neuroscience rotation

    Christina Roca, IMSD Fellow, completed her summer rotation in the Willsey lab.

    August 2023

  • 2023 Summer students

    Two summer students, Katie and Lily, volunteered in lab under Kate's mentorship.

    July 2023

  • New paper published in Development, with Micaela's image on the cover!

    Micaela Lasser, PhD is first author of new paper, Pleiotropy of autism-associated chromatin regulators, published in the July issue of Development. Her image was selected for the cover.

    July 2023

  • Elina joins the lab!

    DSCB graduate student, Elina Kostyanovskaya, officially joins the lab after a productive rotation. Welcome, Elina!

    April 2023

  • Froggers at the 2023 CSHL Xenopus course

    Rotation student Elina attended the Cell & Developmental Biology of Xenopus: Gene Discovery & Disease course where grad student Kate was a TA and Helen was a faculty lecturer.

    April 2023

  • The Willsey lab is hiring

    We are hiring a Staff Research Associate. Learn about the position and apply here.

    April 2023

  • 5 (!) Spring PhD Rotation Students

    Welcome Elina Kostyanovskaya (DSCB), Chris He (DSCB), Marci Iadarola (Neuroscience), Nilla Sivakumar (Neuroscience), and Andoni Asencor (Neuroscience)!!

    April 2023

  • Xenopus laevis have joined the lab!

    A warm welcome to the newest pseudotetraploid lab members

    March 2023

  • Helen attends Cilia conference in Pisa

    Helen gave a talk at the GRC Cilia, Mucus and Mucociliary Interactions conference in Italy.

    February 2023

  • Elina wins scholarship to CSHL

    Rotation student Elina won a competitive scholarship to attend the Xenopus course at Cold Spring Harbor Labs.

    February 2023

  • Lab moves into new Weill building

    The Joan and Sanford I. Weill Neurosciences Building establishes a welcoming new home for patients, researchers and clinicians at UCSF's Mission Bay campus. The six-floor, 282,500-square-foot building houses clinics and research centers, as well as laboratory, engineering and computational research space.

    January 2023

  • New BioRxiv preprint

    Pleiotropy of autism-associated chromatin regulators

    Read the preprint here

    December 2022

  • Helen profiled in Spectrum News

    Read Helen’s profile here.

    How Helen Willsey broke new ground, frogs in hand

    November 2022

  • Kate attends DYRK1A Conference

    Graduate Student Kate McCluskey traveled to Saint-Malo France to present her work at the DYRK1A Conference.

    November 2022

  • Welcome Erich to the lab!

    Erich Martinez (UC Berkeley Undergraduate) joins the lab!

    October 2022

  • New Article on Spectrum

    Spectrum published an article highlighting our work and the problem of pleiotropy in autism functional genetics.

    August 2022

  • Early Career Grant From CCC

    We were awarded an early-career investigator grant from Coalition to Cure CHD2 to support our work studying the role of CHD2 in brain development using Xenopus and human cells.

    August 2022

  • Maya Wins a Talk Award

    Summer SRTP student Maya Lines won a best talk award describing her research on the response of microglia to ASD risk gene perturbations in Xenopus.

    August 2022

  • 5 (!) Summer Students Join the Lab

    2 Undergraduates and 3 High School students join the lab for the summer.

    June 2022

  • Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator Award

    Helen was awarded a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator award to support our work using Xenopus to identify psychiatric disorder-specific mechanisms of risk and resilience.

    March 2022

  • Helen Wins John Gurdon Outstanding Speaker Prize

    Helen Willsey wins the John Gurdon Outstanding Speaker Prize at the 2021 International Xenopus meeting.

    August 2021

  • Kate Wins a Poster Prize

    Graduate Student Kate McCluskey wins a poster prize at the 2021 International Xenopus meeting for her work on the development of the ENS.

    August 2021