My lab had the pleasure this week of introducing high school students Khulan Escue and Grace Lodi to the exciting world of the Drosophila eye. We took some time to get lunch at Lennie's Brewpub and ice cream at Hartzell's. Hope to see both Grace and Khulan again on the IU campus in the future!

It was great to be back at CSHL. I had a fantastic time talking to the students of the Drosophila Neurobiology course about eye development. Many thanks to Jens Rister and Maria Fernandez for the invitation to be a guest lecturer this year! @rister.bsky.social @mariadelapax.bsky.social

If you are heading to the GSA Yeast Genetics meeting this week be sure to see Soni Lacefield @lacefieldlab.bsky.social give a fantastic lecture and receive the Ira Herskowitz Award for her outstanding contributions to yeast research!

Kumar lab lunch at the Social Cantina. We say goodbye to PhD student Jasmine Warren (front right) and undergraduate student Lindsay Fleitman (back left). It has been wonderful having Jasmine and Lindsay in the lab and we will really miss both of them. Best of luck!

Excited to share that Kumar lab alumna Haley Brown has received a Ruth L. Kirschtein F32 postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Melissa Harrison's lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Happy to share that my graduate student Jasmine Warren successfully defended her PhD thesis today! She has put together a beautiful story on the role played by the Extradenticle (Exd) transcription factor in patterning the Drosophila compound eye. Keep an eye open for her upcoming research paper!

I’m excited to share that our pic of meiotic midbodies in wildtype and mos mutant oocytes made the cover @jcellsci.bsky.social! Congrats to @muhammad-haseeb.bsky.social and @giselacairobaza.bsky.social!

So exciting to see this article in JCS! Thanks to the hard work from my lab members Gisela Cairo, MA Haseeb, Zach Boyce Joy, and great collaboration with Karen Schindler!

Journal of Cell Science@jcellsci.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Gisela Cairo @giselacairobaza.bsky.social, Muhammad Haseeb @muhammad-haseeb.bsky.social, Soni Lacefield @lacefieldlab.bsky.social & team find that the MOS-MAPK pathway regulates polar body fate in mouse oocytes. journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/... journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

The 2026 Visual System Development GRC and GRS are fast approaching. Jeremy Kay, Kristen Kwan, Robert Johnston, and I have built an exciting program that we hope you will enjoy. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the meeting this summer in beautiful Maine. Register and RT!

My friend Soni Lacefield @lacefieldlab.bsky.social is receiving the Ira Herskowitz Award at the Yeast Genetics Meeting this summer for her outstanding contributions to the field of yeast genetics. Be sure to be there and hear her give an awesome lecture!

I am very excited to share that Brittany Zaruszak is the newest PhD graduate student to join my research group. Brittany is studying how transcription factors coordinate with Polycomb Group epigenetic repressors to specify the fate of the Drosophila eye.

Starting 2026 by writing a new research paper on patterning of the Drosophila eye. And yes, I know that I have a great office...

Excited to announce that the newest paper from my lab on the Drosophila visual system is out today! Modulating the levels and activity of the retinal determination network is sufficient to induce the specification of distinct tissue fates in Drosophila url: journals.biologists.com/dev/article-...

Modulating the levels and activity of the retinal determination network is sufficient to induce the specification of distinct tissue fates in Drosophila

Summary: Modulation of members of the retinal determination gene regulatory network and their co-factors in Drosophila eyes reveals that differential expression of transcription factors is sufficient ...

journals.biologists.com

Check out my Perspective article “The Retina’s Rhythm” which accompanies an exciting paper by Claude Desplan in Science. I highlight his discovery that waves of calcium are required to finalize the honeycomb-like structure of the Drosophila retina. www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

The retina’s rhythm

Calcium waves facilitate the emergence of sight

science.org

Patience is a virtue! I have been a season ticket holder at my home institution, Indiana University, for 23 years. I have seen a lot of bad football games. My perseverance through the pain and suffering is finally paying off. We are ranked #3 in the country. Upwards and onwards!

The Lacefield Lab won second place in the great pumpkin derby! @dartmouthbcb.bsky.social @mcbdartmouth.bsky.social

Very proud of former Kumar lab PhD student, Alison Ordway, for receiving a K99 award from the National Eye Institute on her work describing photoreceptor patterning in Drosophila and mosquito compound eyes. Keep your eyes out for Alison when she goes out on the job market.

Check out our new manuscript on biorxiv on the role of MOS in mammalian oocyte meiosis: www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... With @schindlerlab.bsky.social @giselacairobaza.bsky.social @muhammad-haseeb.bsky.social

A persistent intracellular bridge and cell cycle misregulation enable polar body cell divisions and tumor formation in Mos-deficient eggs

Mammalian female meiosis is uniquely regulated to produce a developmentally competent egg capable of supporting embryogenesis. During meiosis I, homologous chromosomes segregate, with half extruded in...

biorxiv.org

Great department with fantastic colleagues!

Soni Lacefield@lacefieldlab.bsky.social · 11mo ago

My department at Dartmouth Medical School is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor. We are looking broadly for a biochemist or cell biologist. Please share this add! apply.interfolio.com/171438 @dartmouthbcb.bsky.social @futurepislack.bsky.social

The lab kicked off the start of the fall semester at Indiana University by having lunch at Lennie's Brewpub.

As my laboratory begins its 24th year at Indiana University I am grateful to all of the past and present PhD students, research associates, and postdoctoral fellows that have joined me in my quest to discover how the compound eye of Drosophila develops.

Just finished teaching another year of CSHL Yeast Genetics and Genomics with a fantastic group of students as usual! @cshlcourses.bsky.social

My lab's newest research paper on the Drosophila eye is published in Development today. Thanks to the editorial staff for writing a research highlight and interviewing us about our work. journals.biologists.com/dev/article-...

Differential regulation of eye specification in Drosophila by Polycomb Group epigenetic repressors

Highlighted Article: Distinct gene sets are differentially expressed in response to the knockdown of Polycomb Group (PcG) members, suggesting that multiple avenues may exist for the eye to be transfor...

journals.biologists.com

To all of my university faculty friends, as tenure and promotion season is just around the corner I thought I would share a little academic humor with you. Enjoy! www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNih...

Associate Professor means "less than"

YouTube video by Marty Jencius

youtube.com

Happy to have had high school students Robyn Pate and Joy Sweeny (front row) spend the week with us learning about my lab and Drosophila eye development. Thanks to graduate students Ren Wilson and Mie Kusupholnand for serving as their research mentors.

Happy 4th of July from the Kumar lab!

A portion of my lab took a break from their experiments and joined me at our local Strawberry Shortcake Festival in Bloomington, Indiana.

Super excited to post our new publication on the role of MOS/MAPK signaling in maintaining the egg transcriptome. Great collaboration with Britt Goods lab! rep.bioscientifica.com/view/journal...

Very late in posting...many thanks to my friend and host Markus Friedrich for an awesome visit to the Departments of Biological Sciences and Ophthalmology at Wayne State University. Great catching up with an old friend, talking science, and presenting our newest story on Drosophila eye development.

Super excited that my superstar friend Soni Lacefield @lacefieldlab.bsky.social is a AAAS fellow! See how her creative research is making an impact on our understanding of meiosis and infertility. geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/news/2025/so...

Soni Lacefield Named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Soni Lacefield, PhD, a professor of biochemistry and cell biology at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, has been named a 2025 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (…

geiselmed.dartmouth.edu