Address
Department of Biology
Emory University
1510 Clifton Road NE
Atlanta, GA 30322
U.S.A.

 

Office and lab numbers
Office:   1017 Rollins Research Center
Phone:  404.727.0817
Lab:       1081 Rollins Research Center
Phone:  404.727.7019
Fax:       404.727.2880

 

Emails
Todd:   tschlen@emory.edu
Nate:   nmortim@learnlink.emory.edu
Neil:     nmilan@emory.edu
Erin:     ekeebau@emory.edu
Alice:   yzhan52@emory.edu

People

Todd Schlenke, PI
Todd received his B.A. in Integrative Biology from UC Berkeley
and his Ph.D. in Zoology from UT Austin.  He was a postdoc at
UC Davis and an NIH-NRSA postdoctoral fellow at Cornell
University.  He is now an assistant professor at Emory University. 
The Schlenke lab studies the evolutionary genetics of rapidly
evolving traits in Drosophila, such as immunity against pathogens
and resistance to insecticides.

Nate Mortimer, Postdoc
Nate received his B.S. in Biology and is about to receive his Ph.D.
in Genetics and Molecular Biology from Emory University.  He
will be joining the Schlenke lab in March 2009.  He plans to identify
and characterize parasitic wasp venom proteins.

Neil Milan, Graduate Student
Neil received his B.S. in Environmental Biology and Management
from UC Davis.  He is working on the horizontal transfer of
transposable elements between flies and their parasitic wasps,
and the role of plant secondary compounds on fly immune
competence.

Erin Keebaugh, Graduate Student
Erin received her B.S. in Genetics from UGA.  She is studying the
molecular biology and evolution of candidate genes in Drosophila’s
immune response against parasitic wasps.

Beth Kochin, Graduate Student
Beth double majored in Applied Mathematics and Biology at
Yale University.  She is a student in Rustom Antia's lab modeling
infectious disease dynamics.  She is collaborating with Todd to
characterize potential mechanisms of pathogen recognition
specificity in Drosophila.

Ben Parker, Graduate Student
Ben received his B.S. in Biology from the University of Chicago,
where he worked on gypsy moths and their nucleopolyhedrovirus
in Greg Dwyer's lab.  He is now rotating in the Schlenke lab, where
he is examining the consequences of wasp venom
immunosuppression on resistance to secondary infections in flies.

Amit Bery, Undergraduate Student
Amit is an undergraduate at Emory and is working to identify the
pathogens that naturally infect D. melanogaster populations in the
Atlanta area.

Balint Kacsoh, Undergraduate Student
Balint is an undergraduate at Emory and is creating fly strains
for mapping anti-wasp resistance genes.

Lab Alumni

• Mark Luskus was an undergraduate student who joined us for the Summer of 2008 from Kenyon College as part of the
  Emory SURE program.
• Laurie Seidel is an undergraduate at Emory who worked in the lab in 2008 as part of the INSPIRE program.
• Cuong Nguyen was an undergraduate student who joined us for the Summer of 2007 from Marta Wayne’s lab at the
  University of Florida.
• Stephanie Weldon was an undergraduate at Emory who worked in the lab from 2006-2007 as part of the SIRE program.
  

Joining the lab

Postdocs
Potential postdocs are encouraged to contact Todd.  We anticipate having funding for another postdoc, although
interested applicants should also be ready to apply for their own funding, such as the NIH NRSA and NSF fellowships.

Graduate students
Emory graduate students considering rotations and potential graduate students interested in coming to Emory
should contact Todd.  At Emory, professors live in departments while graduate students live in programs.  Todd is a
member of the Biology Department and is affiliated with the PBEE (population biology, ecology, and evolution) and
GMB (genetics and molecular biology) Programs, which are administered through the GDBBS (graduate division of
biological and biomedical sciences).  The application deadline for admission to Emory graduate programs occurs
around January 3rd of each year - the application page can be found here.

Undergraduate students
There are frequently positions available for undergraduate students to conduct research in the Schlenke lab. 
Potential undergraduate researchers should email Todd a description of their science background and interests
and should be able to contribute at least ten hours a week to the lab.

Resources
Emory has abundant resources and a great collaborative research environment.  The Schlenke lab takes advantage
of Emory’s DNA sequencing and proteomics core facilities, as well as the PBEE, GMB, and Biology Department
seminar series.  We are also part of  the Emory Fly Group (totaling about 10 labs, including our lab neighbor,
Yun Tao) and the Invertebrate Host-Parasite Interaction Club (which includes two other Emory professors working
on insect-parasite interactions, Nicole Gerardo and Jaap de Roode, as well as faculty from Georgia Tech).