Katherine Owens

TL;DR: The genus Leishmania offers an accessible system for testing hypothesis about forces that may select for the loss of RNAi during evolution, such as invasion by viruses, changes in genome plasticity mediated by transposable elements and gene amplification, and/or alterations in parasite virulence.

TL;DR: Overall, GLF/Galf synthesis in eukaryotes appears to occur with a disjunct distribution and often in pathogenic species, similar to what is seen in prokaryotes.

TL;DR: Comparisons of the timing of hybrid formation with the presence of developmental stages suggest nectomonads as the most likely sexually competent stage, with hybrids emerging well before the first appearance of metacyclic promastigotes.

TL;DR: A novel protein-based system that allows controlled degradation of a key LPG biosynthetic enzyme, UDP-galactopyranose mutase (UGM), and data suggest that the dd approach has great promise in the study of LPG and other pathways relevant to parasite survival and virulence.

TL;DR: Analysis of hybrids generated within and between different strains of L. tropica revealed genome wide patterns of recombination, demonstrating that classical crossing over occurs at meiosis, and allowed us to construct the first physical and genetic maps in Leishmania.