2025

7/15: Teresa Easterbrooks takes over web maintenance. Jared had fun maintaining this 2020-2025, but is very happy to pass the baton. Thanks Teresa!

7/9-7/13/25 Tayo attends the International Zebrafish Society Conference, Madison WI, 

7/1/25 Congratulations to Troy Hupper on beginning his Masters program in the lab!

6/27/25 Congratulations to Maddison Coffin who successfully defended her Honors thesis "MYLPF Protein Levels Predict Muscle Structure in Zebrafish Models of Distal Arthrogryposis"!

6/18-6/22/25 Jared attends the International Conference on Developmental Biology, San Juan Puerto Rico

6/3/25 We turned in our first R01 proposal!

4/18/25 Congratulations to Mason Soares who successfully defended his Honors thesis "Mutagenesis of Essential Light Chain Genes in Zebrafish"!

4/17/25 We hosted Jim Du who gave a lovely talk "Loss of Smyd1 Leads to Sarcomere Disruption and Activates Hsf1-Driven Heat Shock Response in Fish Muscle"

4/11/25 The University of Maine Student Symposium hosts 6 Talbot Lab posters and 8 Talbot Lab students!

Angelina presents her HCR-ISH work

Skylar & Katie present their fin paralysis work

Daniel presents his work in Chemistry to Dr. Talbot

Mason presents his work on ELC genes

Troy presents his work on zebrafish behavior

Maddie presents her western blot work

3/10/25 Dr. Talbot has been granted tenure! Yay!!!!

2024

12/3/24 Jared wraps up participation in the Faculty Success Program boot camp. This program helped him to do both short-term and long-term strategic planning to best prioritize career and personal goals. Highly recommend. Thanks to the ELH college for sponsoring his participation in this program.

11/23-30/24 Assoc Prof April Delaurier (right) visits from the University of South Carolina Aiken to do a collaborative HCR project and deliver an excellent seminar. Angelina White (center) provided expertise in hands-on training to April and Amin.

11/12/24 We are delighted to learn that the Mylpf story has been invited for revision!

11/8/24 The Talbot celebrates all of our wonderful undergrads and their CUGR awards :)

11/1/24 This year, four Talbot lab undergrads applied for CUGR awards and all four won!

Many congratulations to Katie Tanner, Mason Soares, Angelina White, and Maddie Coffin on your first grant!!! See also this story about how COBRE-funded undergraduates are winning grants on campus.

10/25/24 Jared presents at the annual COBRE retreat and receives good grant feedback.

10/4/24 Jared presents at the Dartmouth College DartFISH seminar series

10/3/24 Jared heads to Dartmouth College for a collaboration with Lauren Walker

10/1/24 Jared submits his tenure packet :)

9/23/24 We submitted our story on how gene dosage of Mylpf (a myosin subunit) impacts myofibril growth. You can read it on BioRxiv.

9/13/24 The Talbot Lab hosts Stephen Devoto for an SBE seminar; he gives a thought-provoking talk and has engaging conversations with the whole crew. Picture is from the reception dinner at Jared's home, with the lab, Stephen, Sammy Talbot, Kathryn Talbot, and Clarissa Henry all gathered around a tasty meal.

8/16 and 8/30/24 - Jared sends the Mylpf-dosage paper to co-authors for review. August 2024 - The lab quiets down a little as one at a time undergrads step out for their very brief summer breaks. Mason and Troy left at the start of the month, Angelina took a break near the middle, and Maddie took just a few days off at the end. This Summer has been packed with exciting science and growth.

8/15-8/21/24 Jared bring's the lab's data to the International Zebrafish Conference in Kyoto Japan. The city is impressive, the science shared incredible, the trip is a win. Jared's favorite moment is a "myogenesis meetup" featuring around 15 researchers doing zebrafish muscle development. Friendships and collaborations were built and strengthened over that table.

8/7/24 Becca White wraps up her last day in the lab. This summer, she and Jordan Roamer worked together on a project that's been a long-term goal of the lab. Jordan digitized all of our notebooks and Becca made a searchable database so everyone can access everyone else's information. Between this, the cleaning, the cleaning, the team building, our lab is stronger and better organized than it ever has been. This kind of silent 'background' work needs to be shouted out more often, so i'll do that here.

8/2/24 We have a lab bonding day with pizza and a group writing project. Working as a team, the summer crew wrote a story (linked) about the joys of doing team science together. Jared gives a little speech: "It's been a while since we've published and a little while since new awards have come in. But you are all doing such amazing work. This summer our team did the kind of work that eventually they will give awards for. We'll look back and say 'oh yeah, that's when it happened.' You should be proud of this time, because it's the time when the great work got done."

7/26/24 The lab goes out to Acadia National Park for a day of fun at the sea. Not everyone can make it on the trip, so we come back to home base, and share dinner at Mason's brewery in Brewer. Shown: Amin, Troy, Jared, Teresa, Mason (left-to-right) Joining later: Tayo, Maddie

7/24/24 The lab organizes the freezer, which had recently been defrosted. Between these "cold-space cleanups" and Teresa+Jordan's constant work on public areas, the lab has never been cleaner. 7/14-7/17/24 Tayo brings his findings to the Society for Developmental Biology at the 83rd annual meeting in Atlanta Georgia.

7/11-7/12/24 Jared attends an NSF outreach conference, presents his work, and returns feeling very empowered in ways to find funding for basic science projects.

7/4/24 Teresa, Jared, and Troy go watch fireworks to celebrate the nation's birthday.

6/26/24 We have our long overdue fridge cleanup day, to make space for the new grad student's experiments. We spruce the occasion up with lobster rolls from Governor's.

6/16-6/19/24 Jared attends the NERIC in Washington DC - He have a platform presentation and our abstract earned a Merit Award.

May-June 2024 This year the summer students joined us in waves instead of all at once - Jordan and Angelina came mid-may, followed soon by Maddie. Then Troy and Mason were on site by June 3. Later, high school student Rebecca White joins the group, working with Teresa and Jordan.

5/21/24 Jared gives a lab tour to a local book group from Dirigo Pines

5/15/24 We welcome Amin Foroughi Nezhad as the newest PhD student in the Talbot Lab! Shown: Amin (Left), Tayo, Esther, Teresa (Right)

5/8/24 Jared co-chairs the ZDMS Muscle Rig meeting via zoom and presents on the Mylpf project

5/3/24 Teresa receives her Master's hood from Dean Rowland at Commencement '24. CONGRATULATIONS Teresa, you've worked so hard to reach that moment and you've definitely Mastered your area of biology :)

4/27/24 Troy Hupper presents his behavioral work at the BioME Student Showcase in Portland

4/26-28/24 Tayo and Jared were treated to many beautiful presentations at NESDB 2024. We were treated to double-feedback on the Mylpf project, with Tayo's popular poster and Jared's platform presentation.

4/10/24 Tayo Adekeye and Emma Perry worked together to make a beautiful image of zebrafish somites, presented here on the big screen at UMaine's inaugral "Imaging Your Research" gallery

4/12/24 Troy Hupper, Angelina White, and Mason Soares present their work at the UMaine Student Symposium.

4/8/24 Talbot Lab outing to see the eclipse @ Teresa's family home in Houlton Maine

3/27-28/24 Jared, Teresa, Tayo, and Esther attend Part 2 of the Maine Medicine symposium. Jared presents his work on Thursday - Tayo and Teresa had presented posters in the Fall :) 3/11/24 - We joyfully welcome Teresa back after a long hiatus.

3/2/24 The lab visited "Smoke & Steel" in bangor to celebrate Esther's arrival and Teresa's immanent return. It was an exciting night, including an axe throwing competition and so many BBQ-laden appetizers :)

2/15 Our newest PhD student, Esther Olabamire lands in Maine. Esther- you've got great things ahead of you!

2/15 Jared and Clarissa submit a COBRE grant supplement - fingers crossed

2/9 Angelina White completes a massive set of HCR in situ hybridization experiments - reminds Jared of the fun he would have doing in situs in Chuck Kimmel's lab. 2/7 Jared orders the lab a very fancy new Thunder microscope from Leica. We're gonna have fun with this one.

1/16 A new semester of Bio450 kicks into gear.

1/6-9 Jared gets to attend his first "PI meeting" (the Strategic Conference of Zebrafish Investigators) in Asilomar California

1/1/24 Jared opens the lab up for a writing day - soon, Angelina White and Tayo Adekeye join for our "winter term" crew

2023

2023 was a momentous year for the lab: We worked hard on our Mylpf R15, won the COBRE, our first two Master's students graduated, and Tayo passed his Comps!

12/19 onwards: Some quiet time for writing, reading, research, and even relaxation.

12/18/23 Clarissa hosts the COBRE crew for an end 'o year brunch

12/15/23 All grades turned in and a semester wraps on Bio336/Bio597. Wipes sweat from brow. Phew- what a semester!

11/30/23 Jared is treated to a tour of the local salmon facility by Halli Bair

11/16/23 Tayo Adekeye successfully defends his PhD proposal. Congratulations Tayo, you're now "All But Dissertation"!

10/25/23 We have the first day of the Maine Medicine Symposium - only the first day because on Day two, there was a mass shooting in Lewiston Maine, which threw us all into a state of alert and shutdown.

10/12-14/23 Jared attends the first annual COBRE retreat at MDIBL. Thanks so much to Mary Baylies and the other mentors and advisors for coming out participate! Upon our return, the team was honored at UMaine's homecoming game.

10/1-5/23 Jared Talbot attends the Zebrafish Disease Models Society meeting in Durham NC. Many good takeways from the conference :)

8/21/23 Tayo Adekeye succeeds at his candidacy exam *while* feeling under the weather! Great job Tayo!!! You've worked so hard for this.To celebrate, Tayo, Jared, and Teresa went to a nice seafood place on 8/23... *after* Tayo was healthy again :)

8/16-18/23 Jared Talbot attends the Northeast Regional Idea Conference (NERIC) at Wilmington Delaware.

8/4/23 Carla Rodriguez-Medio presents a well-received talk on her summer INBRE project at the MIDBL retreat

7/28/23 Emily Tomak defended her Master's thesis just a day after 7/27/23 when Teresa Easterbrooks defended her Master's thesis!!! So proud of these two students, who gave excellent oral presentations, carefully crafted written reports, and showed that they knew their stuff. Wishing them both the very very best as the move forward. Kudos to Lauren to setting up a lively celebration for Teresa, to Teresa for setting up an exuberant reception for Emily, and to the whole lab for coming out for a wonderful dinner together once everything was all wrapped up.

6/7/23 Hey cool, our pectoral fin muscle image is prominently displayed on UMaine's new COBRE website :)

6/5/23 We welcome back Troy Hupper and Lauren Dumont for an exciting summer of research :)

5/31/23 We welcome our new INBRE summer student, Carla Rodriguez-Medio!

5/11/23 I walked in this morning to find that the lab set up a shiny birthday door :) Thanks Teresa/Tayo/Anaïs! This is a great start to a new trip around the sun.

5/10/23 I call a wrap on grades for another semester of Bio450. *wipes sweat from brow* Phew- another 20 capstone projects in the bag.

5/6/23 Four years ago I started my lab, and within a month Sadie Waterman joined our team. Today, she is graduating. Congratulations to Sadie on her very successful graduation. And thank you for your outstanding work in the lab, from receiving and inventorying supplies in 2019 all the way through a phenomenal honors-scale capstone project that merged independent research on Mylpf with histology in the Bio450 course for a beautiful and unique final product.

4/27/23 The lab rings in the end of the semester with a gathering at the Orono Brewing Company. An absolute blast to cap off an excellent term.

4/16/23 We bid adieu to Ryn Harrington and wish her the best in the next phase of her career.

4/14/23 Sadie Waterman presents an excellent poster on her capstone work at the 2023 UMSS

4/1/23 Dr. Talbot is invited to become an early career investigator leader on the Zebrafish Disease Models Society's muscle research interest group. Looking forward to interacting with ZDMS in the coming years :)

3/29/23 OH MY GOSH WE WON THE COBRE!!!!! Big changes to come- we can fund the lab AND four other labs at a high level AND get a new scope AND build a new fish facility. This is enormous! UMaine press release here. 3/20/23 The Nr5a2 craniofacial paper is published in Developmental Cell! Find it here. This was an excellent PhD project by Olivia Chen in Gage Crump's lab and I'm proud to have played a little role in their work.

2/2/23 The Talbot Lab sent out a recruitment flyer for new undergrads in their sophomore year- leading to several new students joining the team: Angelina White, Lauren Dumont, and Troy Hupper. Good to have you on board :)

1/3/23 Ryn Harrington begins work as our official labtech. Already, the lab's whiteboard is filling up with her checklists and plans for the upcoming year :)