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Dr. Steven Irvine
Dr. Steven Irvine
Dr. Irvine is a professor and a principal investigator at the University of RI. His lab focuses on how the regulation of genes affects development and physiology.
The Irvine lab is currently researching how ocean water temperatures may be affecting the reproduction of the marine organism Ciona intestinalis. This is important because as ocean water temperatures rise from climate changes, it may cause changes in marine organisms that are yet to be understood in-depth. Thus the lab will focus on how rising sea temperatures may be affecting the development of Ciona intestinalis through studying the organisms' gene expression.
Gene expression is the process by which information of a gene from DNA is translated into the end product of a protein. Gene expression controls the majority of the work proteins perform in an organism's cells necessary for that organisms' health, survival, and reproduction.
There are on average 5 undergraduates in the lab at a time. Some important skills and instruments are cloning, making trans gene constructs, making some CRISPR/CAS constructs, protein inhibitors, fluorescent probes, infrequent in situ hybridization (mRNA is analyzed in detail).
The major lab interests are:
How the regulation of genes affects development and physiology.
How increases in ocean water temperature may be affecting reproduction through its effect on gene expression.
How developmental genes regulate embryogenesis (the formation of an embryo).
How gene regulation has evolved to generate new developmental patterns.
The main study organism is the sea squirt Ciona intestinalis, for which there is an abundance of resources for analyzing gene expression, development and physiology.
Best to contact through email: steven.irvine@uri.edu
Dr. Irvine's lab also has it's own lab website that goes more in-depth into the specifics of their research and findings: https://irvinelab.org/
Some advice from Dr. Irvine...
"Try to find out what floats your boat. What you are really interested in doing. Try to visualize yourself, not as a student, but as doing what you want to be doing once you’re done being a student. Eventually you're not going to be a student and you’ll be doing something else, so what would you want that to be. If you could figure that out, then you should go out and see what it’s really like.
If you are thinking about grad school, don’t feel like you need to go straight from undergrad to grad school, you can take time off. I didn’t become a biologist till i was in my 30’s so there is time to change your mind about things. The main thing is really figuring out what you want to do, because you will be doing it for a long time, you have to make sure it is something you like doing.
And work hard as a student because that’s setting you up for what you want to do. Grades are important but so is learning to be a smart person. Give yourself the most opportunities that you can, because you can. "
Unique Lab Tools
Unique Lab Tools
To the left is a gallery of some unique tools the Irvine lab uses and shares with other labs.
1.) The first is a Microtome. The Microtome is used to cut very thin slices of a specimen. Once these slices are made, they can be mounted on slides in a solution that preserves them and examined with a microscope. Different labs share utilization of this machine.
3.) The second is a fluorescent microscope. This microscope has some added capabilities. It has a camera mounted at the top to capture images of the specimen that can be saved to a computer. It also has fluorescence capabilities of examining a specimen and separating out certain molecules with fluorescence the researcher is looking for.
Dr. Steven Irvine
Ph. D. Evolutionary Biology, 1998, University of ChicagoM. Arch. (Architecture), 1983, Harvard UniversityB. S. Architectural Studies, 1979, University of IllinoisCourses
BIO 101: Principles of Biology I
BIO/GEO 272: Principles of Evolution
BIO 302: Animal Development
BIO/GEO 572: Advanced Evolutionary Biology
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