Latest News
2023
Welcome Brooke Weigel!
Mar. Congrats Rachel for successfully defending her Masters! Way to go!
Feb. Congrats Gio for successfully defending his Masters!! Woo!
2022
Dec. Congrats Hannah for successfully defending her PhD in Oceanography and Astrobiology!!!
May. Hannah Dawson is off to talk about her work on polar microbial metabolomics at the Polar Microbes workshop in Finland
May. Congrats Rachel Liu on being awarded the Hall Genetics Conservation Fund - let’s sequences some snow algae!
Apr. Meng Li presented his work at the Eastern Photosynthesis Conference (in person!!!!)
Apr. Congrats Meng Li and Jodi Young for co-authoring a paper in Cell Reports about ancient Rubisco
Apr. Congrats Rachel and Gio for being accepted into the BEPSII sea ice summer school
Mar Meng Li presented his work on polar CCMs at the Western Photosynthesis Conference
Mar. Welcome Finn Mander to the Young Lab.
2021
Nov Good bye Hanis and Hello baby Indra!
Oct Good bye Veronica! Have a wonderful time at grad school.
Sep. Welcome Rachel Liu, Kaitlin Harrison and Gio Kanaan to the Young Lab. First year graduate students!
Feb 14 Congrats Jodi on baby #2! Reid is doing great and already rocking a Palmer Station onesie
May 25 Congratulations Susan Rundell on an excellent Masters Defense!
Jan 3. Hannah is completing her Astrobiology Rotation at Rutgers University with Kim Thamakatroln on sea-ice viruses
2020
Dec 2020 - Congrats Hannah on her new publication in ICB “Large Diversity in Nitrogen- and Sulfur-Containing Compatible Solute Profiles in Polar and Temperate Diatoms”
Dec 17, 2020 - Jodi Young presented on compatible solutes in sea-ice algae as part of an invited talk for AGU Fall Session C069: Sea Ice Change and Variability: Implications for the Climate and Indigenous Communities of High-Latitude Systems. Abstract: 683065. Title: Metabolic Regulation of Sea-Ice Diatoms in Response to Temperature and Salinity Could be a Significant Contributor to Dissolved Organic Matter Cycling Within Sea-Ice.
Dec 14, 2020 - Congratulations Hannah for passing her General Exam!
Nov 16, 2020 - Welcome Hanis Zulumuthi and Veronica Mierzejewski to the lab! Hanis will be working on our ice tank project and Veronica will be working on sea ice metabolomics and Rubisco evolution.
Oct 29, 2020 - All hands meeting for our Gene Flow in Sub Zero Brines. It was great to see everyone and hear about all the amazing research! Keep your eye out for new publications!
Oct 5-8, 2020 - Amazing work Susan Rundell who collaborated with the OAST[link] team to measure photosynthesis in hypersaline brines at the South Bay Salt Works.
Jan 2020 - Jodi Young was an invited speaker at the special Antarctic Biology session at the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology Conference.
News catchup
April 24, 2019
Well, it’s been a while since our last post and a lot has been happening! Here’s a few highlights:
Jan 1, 2019 Welcome Dr. Katrin Schmidt who will be developing a Sea Ice Tank as part of her postdoctoral research.
Feb 15, 2019 Hannah and Susan visited Sammamish Highschool and discussed Antarctic research and Astrobiology.
Mar 2-3, 2019 Hannah and Susan participated in the Polar Science Weekend at the Pacific Science Center.
Apr 2, 2019 Jodi gave a public lecture at the Treehouse Cafe on Bainbridge Island as part of the Open Science Mic series https://openmicscience.weebly.com/.
Hannah and Susan are off to Antarctica!!!!
October 19, 2018
Hannah Dawson and Susan Rundell are about to set sail across Drake Passage to Palmer Station on the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Once there, they’ll spend 2 months studying sea-ice algae and phytoplankton to understand their importance for Antarctic coastal ecosystems. Good luck!
You can follow their adventures on Susan’s blog (http://antarcticalgae.home.blog), on twitter (@uw_young) and instagram (youngalgae)
Welcome Susan!
Jun 2018
Susan Rundell has started her dual PhD in Oceanography and Astrobiology at UW. She’ll be studying marine Rubiscos and is off to Antarctica with Hannah Dawson for some exciting fieldwork. Congratulations Susan on being awarded a very prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!
We’re off to study sea ice algae in Antarctica!
Jun 2018
We have been funded through the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs to study how sea ice algae deal with large changes in salinity and temperature during the spring melt. This research will help us understand the underlying mechanisms that control biological productivity in the Western Antarctica Peninsula and how it may change in the future.
Simons Foundation Early Career Award in Marine Microbes
April 2018
Jodi Young has received an Early Career Award from the Simons Foundation to study how marine Rubiscos play a key role in global carbon fixation and how this role may influence CO2 fixation rates by phytoplankton in the future.
UW Innovation Award!
April 2018
We are the recipients of a 2018 UW Innovation Award to build a laboratory scale system to grow sea ice and study the microbes that live within it!
Welcome Rebecca Schmidt
April 1, 2018
Rebecca is a Biology Major that is undertaking a second quarter of undergraduate research in our lab. Rebecca is investigating the salinity and nutrient tolerance of isolated Antarctic diatoms cultured in the lab.
Polar Science Weekend at the Pacific Science Center
March 2-4, 2018
Hannah Dawson was part of the "Polar Science Weekend 2018” at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. Together with Zac Cooper of the Deming Lab Group (UW), we demonstrated how life can evolve in extremely cold environments, such as sea-ice brines.
Welcome our newest member!
Big welcome to Connor Williams, born Feb 23rd. Future Oceanographer! (notice he’s already sporting an awesome Palmer Station, Antarctica onesie)
Poster Presentations at Ocean Science Meeting
February 11- 16, 2018
Both Hannah Dawson and Anders Torstensson did a great job presented their research at the Ocean Science Meeting, 11-16 Feb, in Portland, Oregon.
MM34A-1489 Characterization of compatible solute use in a cultured sea-ice alga, Nitzschia lecointei, and in the environmental algal community of Utqiagvik [Barrow], AK using a metabolomics approach: H M Dawson, A K Boysen, K R Heal, L T Carlson, A E Ingalls, J N Young
MM34A-1490 Use of exogenous choline and glycine betaine as compatible solutes in Antarctic sea-ice diatoms: A Torstensson, J N Young, J W Deming
Congratulations Hannah Dawson for being a 2018 Science Communications Fellow at the Pacific Science Center!
Jan 11th, 2018
For more information on the fellowship see here
Congratulations Dr Anders Torstensson for being awarded an International Postdoc Grant from the Swedish Research Council!
Nov 29th, 2017
Congratulations Hannah Dawson for a fantastic 2nd year presentation!
Nov 3rd, 2017
Hannah presented her research at the School of Oceanography's 2nd Year Graduate Symposium. Her presentation was titled "Metabolic response of sea-ice algae to shifting temperature and salinity". Well done!
Jodi Young gave an invited seminar "How to be fast when you are cold: algal adaptations to polar environments"
Sep 29th, 2017
at Scripps Institution of Oceanography as part of their Marine Biology Seminar Series and had a great time meeting everyone! Big thanks to Patrick Bunsen and Andy Allen for organizing the visit.
Jodi Young is an Invited Speaker at the Molecular Life of Diatoms Conference IV in Kobe, Japan
July 9th - 13th, 2017
Jodi Young presented her research on “Widespread diversity in diatom RuBisCO and CCMs hints at co-adaptation to different environments” at the fourth Molecular Life of Diatoms conference held at the Ikuta Shrine Hall in Kobe, Japan.
Young and Hopkinson (2017)
New review paper out! Exploring the co-evolution of Rubisco and the CCM in diatoms
June 22nd, 2017
Jodi Young and Brian Hopkinson (University of Georgia) have just published a review paper exploring the possible co-evolution of Rubisco and the CCM in diatoms giving rise to remarkable diversity in modern day species.
Heureux et al. (2017)
New paper out! Rubisco kinetics and pyrenoids in Haptophytes
June 3rd, 2017
Check out our new paper from our collaborators at Oxford University and the Australian National University (Young co-author) looking at how Rubisco kinetics and pyrenoid morphology influences carbon concentrating mechanisms and carbon fixation by Haptophyte microalgae.
Congratulations Viviana Castillo on your graduation!
June 9th, 2017
Congratulations Viviana for a fantastic senior project in our lab, investigating "Productivity of Antarctic Diatom Nitzschia lecointei with the addition of Glycine betaine under different salinity concentrations". Great presentation and report. Well done and Good Luck in your future endeavors!!!
Photo credit: A. Torstensson
Fieldwork in Barrow, Alaska: Studying sea-ice algae
May 4th - 11th, 2017
The Young Lab group joined with the Deming Lab group (UW) to collect biological samples from sea ice near Barrow, Alaska as part of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation funded project "Understanding infection dynamics among marine viruses and microbial hosts in extreme polar environments". We had a great time riding snow mobiles, coring ice and learning about the local Barrow community. For more details on the work we were doing, check out our research page. We can't wait to go back!
Protocols paper out! Measuring Rubisco kinetics in diatoms
March 20th, 2017
Check out our methods paper that is a companion to our 2016 Rubisco kinetics in diatoms paper. Here, we go into greater detail on how Rubisco is extracted from diatoms and how kinetics measurements are taken.
Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii
February 26th - March 3rd, 2017
Jodi Young presented how temperature has a strong effect on Rubisco kinetics, which has a large impact on the speed and effort required by diatoms to fix CO2 in different parts of the ocean.
NASA Astrobiology Seminar on Rubisco
November 8th, 2016
Dr. Young presented her research on Biological CO2 Fixation and Rubisco: Evolution, Adaptation and Climate as part of the NASA Astrobiology Colloquium Series at the University of Washington. A recording of her seminar (along with other amazing Astrobiology seminars) can be found here.
Welcome Viviana
September, 2016
Welcome to Viviana Castillo! Viviana is conducting research for her Senior Thesis to understand how compatible solutes influence growth rates of sea ice algae under varying salinities.
Welcome to Anders and Hannah
October 9th, 2016
A big welcome to two new members of the Young Lab:
Dr. Anders Torstensson is a Future of Ice postdoctoral researcher working with UW Oceanography Professors Jodi Young and Jody Deming investigating how microalgae survive large salinity shifts in formation and melt of sea ice.
Hannah Dawson is a new graduate student in the dual PhD program for Oceanography and Astrobiology. Her supervisor is Dr. Jodi Young and she will be researching metabolic strategies of microalgae to polar environments.
Check out their bios and contact information in the People page.
New paper out – Rubisco kinetics in diatoms
May 23rd, 2016
Diatoms are important primary producers in the ocean. This recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Botany shows that the enzyme used to fix CO2 during photosynthesis, Rubisco, has a much wider kinetic variation in diatoms than previously thought, which influences the requirement for carbon concentrating mechanisms. The lack of a relationship between Rubisco catalytic speed and CO2 affinity in diatoms contradicts our current understanding of Rubisco catalysis and highlights the need to study a wider range of photosynthetic organisms. Check it out here!
Also check out the commentary on our new paper!