Welcome to the Pletcher lab! UROP students Xavier & Lulu; Volunteer student Reeya; Rotation student Ulrica.

Welcome new students, Elena Walters, and Logan Schneider!

 Kristy Weaver was awarded the OGPS/PIBS Research Award on June 22nd!

ANNOUNCING THE PHYLLIS M. WISE

2023 BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

GRADUATE STUDENT AWARDS RECIPIENTS

Funded through the Rackham Graduate School 

This year the OGPS Student Awards takes a new name honoring and recognizing Dr. Phyllis Wise for her outstanding accomplishments throughout her distinguished career and her remarkable act of generosity.  Her academic journey began at the University of Michigan, earning an AM and a Ph.D. in Zoology in 1972. She recognized the transformative power of graduate education and created the Phyllis M. Wise Endowed Graduate Student Award Fund at the Rackham Graduate School. This generous fund will allow us to increase future award amounts and assist doctoral students in biomedical science programs as they pursue their academic and research aspirations. Dr. Wise's philanthropy is a testament to her enduring commitment to the values of education, teaching, research, and academic excellence. We hope you will join us in extending our heartfelt appreciation to Dr. Phyllis M. Wise.  

Dr. Kristina Waiver (sic), the 2023 Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Research recipient, demonstrated exceptional scholarly work, having published five papers with two as first author and all in high-impact journals, such as Science and eLife. Her remarkable achievements include securing an NSF fellowship she wrote during her first year of rotations in PIBS. The recognition and support received through the NSF award allowed her to develop her research thesis further. Additionally, Kristina obtained the prestigious HHMI Gilliam Fellowship, the department's annual Davenport Award for Outstanding Research. She has been invited to present her work at renowned conferences. The significant attention her work in eLife received, with write-ups and highlights from multiple sources, underscores the profound impact her research findings will have on how hunger influences aging and behavior, nutrient sensing, neuronal function, epigenetic regulation, and lifespan control. Kristina is a 2023 graduate of the Ph.D. program in Molecular Integrated Physiology.

These Flies Age Faster After Witnessing Death 

A study offers clues to the link between what the brain of an organism perceives and physical reactions in its body.

See article, below; (The Research Paper entitled "Ring neurons in the Drosophila central complex act as a rheostat for sensory modulation of aging" can be viewed on our "Publications " page):

Also: Dr. Pletcher talks to NPR Michigan Radio State Side; Nat Geo- Spanish reviewed June 26, 2023.

Kristy J. Weaver et al, published a paper, entitled Effects of hunger on neuronal histone modifications slow aging in Drosophila, which can be viewed from our "Publications" page.

The Pletcher Lab would like to welcome two new undergrads to the lab: Jane Kruskop, and Tahrim Choudhery. You can find their intro, and contact information on our "Members" page. 

Jacob Johnson's paper has been published to Aging. The paper, entitled Light modulates Drosophila lifespan via perceptual systems independent of circadian rhythms, was accepted December 27, and published January 6, 2023, can be found here: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204472 

Scott Pletcher Ph.D., and the Pletcher Lab would like to invite you to our Dissertation Seminar for Allyson Munneke

"Serotonin Signaling Modulates Health and Lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster"

Friday, September 9th, 2022, 1:00 p.m.

Med Sci I Room M3330

Doctoral Commitee:

Professor Scott Pletcher, Chair; Assistant Professor Eleanor Josie Clowney; Assistant Professor Scott Leiser; Professor Audrey Seasholtz

The Pletcher Lab would like to welcome Anibal Tornes Blanco to the team, effective July 20th.

Tuhin Chakraborty Ph.D. gave a presentation at The Drosophila Research Conference, held in San Diego California from March 30 to April 10, 2022. 

The Neuronal and Molecular Mechanisms by Which Death Perception Impacts Fly Behavior and Lifespan

Authors:

Tuhin Chakraborty; Christi Gendron; Cathryn Duran; Scott Pletcher

Certain perceptive experiences, such as the sudden death of a companion or repeated exposure to traumatic events, have significant behavioral and physiological effects that are well established across taxa. Recently, we demonstrated that when Drosophila melanogaster perceive dead conspecifics in their environment, they exhibit behavioral and physiological changes that influence energy metabolism, stress resistance, and lifespan. Sight and serotonin signaling through receptor 5-HT2A are required for these effects to manifest upon exposure to dead. New data using neural tracing and genetic analyses identified the ellipsoid body, a neuropil in the central complex that is known to be important for multifaceted sensory integration and motor coordination functions, as an important structure underlying the effects of death perception on lifespan. To better understand how this structure transduces perceptual experience into physiological changes, we dissected the contributions of individual ellipsoid body ring neurons and found that activity of the R4d and R4m neurons were required for the effect of death perception on lifespan. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms, we executed a targeted screen and discovered that RNAi-mediated knock down of 5HT2A in R4d neurons abrogated the lifespan effects caused by death perception. We also discovered that FOXO expression, a transcription factor associated with the insulin-signaling pathway and a known regulator of aging, was required in R4d neurons. Further evidence suggests a role for the insulin pathway in mediating the effects of death perception on lifespan; dilp3 and dIlp5, but not dIlp2, showed increased mRNA levels in dead-exposed wild type flies compared to the unexposed control animals. In addition, this mRNA increase was reflected at the protein level as dIlp3 immunostaining was higher in dIlp-expressing neurons of dead exposed compared to the unexposed controls. At present we are testing a model in which visual input to the ellipsoid body influences insulin production to modulate psychological state, physical health, and aging. 

Twitter comments followed:

"An inspiringly creative and eerie paper by

@TuhinSChakrabo1

 who presented at #Dros22. He found that #flies are depressed by the presence of other dead flies :( "

"Amazing talk by

@TuhinSChakrabo1

! You should read his paper showing that flies who see other dead flies have dramatic changes in their lifespan and behavior "

A Celebration ofGraduate Education

The Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies

presents the OGPS Ph.D. Student Awards

Presented January 13, 2022

The Pletcher Lab was well represented by Kristy Weaver, and Allyson Munneke!

Office of the Vice President for Research Campus News 

The Office of the Vice President for Research will honor four staff members with its annual recognition awards for their expertise and support of research and scholarship activity across the University of Michigan. April Pepperdine will receive the Exceptional Service Award and Becky O’Brien is the recipient of this year’s Research Administrator Recognition Award. David Paris and Caleb Smith each will receive the Research Technical Staff Recognition Award. All four employees are expected to be honored during a reception this fall.

“The rapidly changing COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the way in which our entire research enterprise operates, but thanks in large part to the tremendous efforts of research staff across our three campuses, laboratories and research spaces remain safe and are close to fully operational,” said Rebecca Cunningham, vice president for research and the William G. Barsan Collegiate Professor of Emergency Medicine.

The Research Technical Staff Recognition Award recognizes staff members who have, independently or along with faculty, advanced the research mission of their unit in a way that extends beyond the ordinary fulfillment of a position’s duties. 

David Paris joined the university in 2010 and now serves as a senior research laboratory technician in the Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology. Paris handles a variety of important roles in the Pletcher Laboratory, which include mentoring students and creating devices that aim to improve research productivity. As noted by a colleague who nominated Paris for the award, “He’s the key personnel that keeps our lab clean and organized, and he has his own workshop that continually generates innovations that greatly facilitate the experiments in the lab.” 

Aging and Diet: To choose or not to choose

Supriya Srinivasan 

Department of Neuroscience and Dorris Neuroscience Center, The Scripps Research Institute, United States

Now, in eLife, Scott Pletcher of the University of Michigan and colleagues – including Yang Lyu as first author and co-workers at Michigan and the University of Washington – report that both our diet and our food choices can influence metabolism and lifespan (Lyu et al., 2021). The researchers set out to address this topic in a widely used model system, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. 

Insight Feb 26, 2021

Cite as: eLife 2021;10:e66755 doi: 10.7554/eLife.66755 

A Review of eLife 2021;10:e59399 doi: 10.7554/eLife.59399  , 

Yang Lyu, Kristina J Weaver, Humza A Shaukat, Marta L Plumoff, Maria Tjilos, Daniel EL Promislow, Scott D Pletcher

Hi Scott,

 Today was the first day for regular decision MD program acceptances. This morning at work, I received a call from the dean of admissions at Sidney Kimmel Medical College/Thomas Jefferson University -- I've been accepted! I can see myself thriving at Jeff in every way, so there are only a couple programs I've applied to that could potentially pull me away at this point. 

 Thank you again for your letter and your support throughout two application cycles. I really think my time at the Pletcher lab was a springboard for other amazing opportunities, and I am so grateful that you chose me to be part of your lab in 2018. 

 Take care and thank you,

Hailee

Hailee presenting her Summer Research efforts...

Two new Rotation Students have joined the lab this September- Ben and Allison...

eLife published a paper by our lab that was headlined by Jenny Ro, with contributions from Yang Lyu and Dr. Pletcher, as well as collaborators Gloria Pak, Paige A Malec, David B Allison, and Robert T Kennedy from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

"We found that the serotonin pathway is important for interpreting the composition of the food, as well as the reward that drives consumption of the food."  -Scott D. Pletcher Ph.D.

Follow the link on out Publications page, and catch some Reviews of the publication in the following links:

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2016/09/08/Fruit-flies-help-explain-why-humans-yearn-for-protein/9311473346420/ 

http://www.futurity.org/protein-fruit-flies-lifespan-1243432-2/ 

http://phys.org/news/2016-09-pleasures-perils-protein-fruit-reveals.html 

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/51s7pp/the_pleasures_and_perils_of_protein_study_in/ 

https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2016/09/evidence-for-serotonin-signaling-to-be-important-in-calorie-restriction/ 

http://www.sciencecodex.com/the_pleasures_perils_of_protein_fruit_fly_study_reveals_new_clues_to_appetite_aging-189868 

Highly Efficient Fun was had by all who attended Pinball Pete's for an hour and a half of hoops, pinball, air-hockey, and the like. Scott treated the lab, and we all had a good time brushing up on some very important skills. Thank you Scott!

Following closely behind Pinball Pete's by barely two weeks was Putterz Golf in Ypsilanti.

It was a competitive atmosphere, with three teams of two, including: Brian & Zachary Harvanek; David & Yang; and Scott & Jacob.

Three categories of Champions were: Best Team 18-Hole Low Score, Best Individual 18-Hole Low Score, and Most Holes-In One, which were won by Scott & Jacob, Scott (20 putts), and David (3 Holes in one), respectively.

No image available, but Putters Golf is located at 2675 Washtenaw Avenue.

Congratulations to Tatyana for the publication of Cryptic Female Choice in Arthropods, a textbook that includes a chapter she wrote! The textbook can be found HERE and the full reference for the chapter (#16) is below:

Fedina TY, Lewis SM (2015) Evaluating cryptic female choice in highly promiscuous Tribolium beetles. pp. 431-454. In: Cryptic female choice in arthropods: patterns, mechanisms and prospects. Peretti AV & A. Aisenberg, eds. Springer International Publishing AG.

The Pletcher lab showed up in force at the Annual BioGerontology Research Symposium with six excellent posters. Also, Jenny Ro received the Best Presentation award for her talk entitled "Serotonin mediates protein evaluation in aging" at the CMB research retreat. Congratulations to Tsung Han Kuo, a former Ph.D. student in the lab (now a post-doc in Lisa Stower’s lab at Scripps), who landed his first faculty position at National TsingHua University in Taiwan. Lastly, our new Ph.D student Jacob Johnson joined the lab! Welcome Jacob!

Once again, many members of the Pletcher lab gave great talks and posters at the GSA's 2015 Annual Drosophila Research Conference! Christi and Zach gave great platform talks and Tatyana and Scott presented excellent posters! 

Also, Zach's son Bennett is born!! Congratulations to Zach and Amanda!!

Dr. Pletcher and Christi represented the Pletcher lab as speakers at the Interventions in Aging Conference in Cancun, Mexico. 

Welcome to the lab Yang, a new Post-doctoral fellow in the lab!

A big welcome to Tuhin, a new Post-doctoral fellow in our lab!

Welcome Lindy, a new Lab Tech joining our lab!

Our recent graduate Mike Waterson has left us and we already miss him. He will be starting a new lab at Yale! We had a great goodbye and good luck picnic at the Gallup Park, and Scott had an interview at the Michigan Radio with Stateside with Cynthia Canty about his work which was a special parting gift. Listen to the interview here.

This morning, on May 15th 2014, Mike Waterson, our first through and through Michigan Graduate Student, has defended his thesis successfully! We were proud to see him defend his work, and very very happy to call him Dr. Waterson!

His research article on water sensing and longevity has been published online ahead of print and has been buzzing in the media as well! Read it at the Huffington Post, Science Daily or UofM website!

We also congratulate our graduate student Zach Harvanek, for being awarded an NRSA F30 grant from the NIH! This award will fund his research for the next two years starting in July, after he finishes his time on the Systems and Integrative Biology Training Grant!

As the month draws to an end, we also welcome two summer research students Josh and Sean to our lab!

Pletcher Lab was well represented in the GSA's 2014 Annual Drosophila Research Conference! Ceyda and Jung-Eun gave awesome Platform Talks on Friday and Saturday afternoon, respectively; and Jenny gave a workshop on Saturday evening. Several other members of the lab were there with posters too. Another very successful Fly Meeting!

Congratulations to Christi and the other authors for another great publication! Her paper on sexual perception and reward as they relate to lifespan and physiology is published online, ahead of print, on November 29th, in Science! The media has been once again crazy on the subject, and the paper has been featured in Science Now, BBC News, National Geographic, LA Times, Science Daily, and even Forbes! Click away for the news articles!

In other news, Nancy was once again the face of our lab at the Midwest Fly Meeting, giving a talk on “Gustatory Perception of Nutrient Stress”.

Dr. Pletcher, Nancy and Mike were at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories (CSHL) Neurobiology Meeting this month.  Mike went with the Rackham Travel Grant once again and presented a poster in the CSHL Neurobiology Meeting. Nancy's poster was on “Gustatory Perception and Starvation Response”.

We also welcome another UROP project in the lab: Nancy received UM UROP research support for undergraduate training for a project called “Mapping genes that regulate sleep behavior in Drosophila.” Nancy is also the instructor for the UROP Training Seminar Series at the time.

Nancy represented our lab at the Midwest Rhythms Conference at MSU and gave a talk on “Sleep and Circadian Rhythms in Drosophila.”

Mike and Jenny presented their work at the CMB Student Syposium. Jenny won 2nd place for the Best Poster Presentation and Mike got an Honorable Mention. Another good month for Pletcher Lab!

Also, kudos to Mike for finishing on the Biology of Aging Training Grant!

Zach Most Aesthetic Presentation – MSTP Annual Retreat, University of Michigan, August 2013

Zach Rackham Precandidate Research Grant – University of Michigan, June 2013

May is the month of Mike! He gave a great talk on his project at the CMB Retreat and won the CMB Presentation Award! He also gave a second talk on his work at the Geriatrics Center Syposium. To top it all, he received the CMB Student Service Award!

Congratulations as well to Zach Glenn/AFAR Scholarship for Research in the Biology of Aging – Glenn/AFAR, May 2013

Congratulations to Nancy, Ceyda, Jenny and Scott for publishing "Measurement of lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster" at the Journal of Visualized Experiments!

In other news, Christi gave a great Platform Talk at the 54rd Annual Drosophila Genetics Conference, 2013. She was accompanied by Scott as well as poster presenters Ceyda, Tatyana, Nancy, and Mike as well as participants Jenny and Zach. We also congratulate Mike and Jenny, for being awarded the Rackham Graduate School Travel Grant and the Aging Training Grant, respectively, for this meeting!

Nancy was a guest lecturer for PHYS 600: Pathophysiology this month. She lectured on “How and Why We Age -Historical Perspective and Landmark Experiments”.