Former Lab Members

Former Lab Members.

Peter von Dassow

Peter von Dassow

Karie Holtermann

 
Karie is currently working at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle.
 
 

I am the curator of the Armbrust lab culture collection. I am also in charge of growing different species of phytoplankton in large scale physiological experiments for EST work. I am currently researching sexual reproduction in Pseudo-nitzschia field populations. I am also the creator and curator of the Armbrust phytoplankton gallery.

Thomas Mock

 

Thomas is currently a faculty member at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich.

 

Before I came to the University of Washington, I obtained my Dr. rerum naturalis from the University of Bremen (Germany) at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in 2003 after graduating (Diploma) from the Kiel University (Germany) with a degree in Biological Oceanography in 1998. I have subsequently done postdoctoral work for 2 years at the AWI. My research topics are acclimation and adaptation of marine and particularly polar sea ice diatoms to their extreme environmental conditions (link). My postdoctoral work here at the Department of Oceanography in the group of Ginger Armbrust is related to genome wide expression analysis with the marine diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana. We are intent to construct the first Microarrays for this diatom in order to identify transcription units, which are related to important environmental conditions such as excess light intensity, carbon dioxide limitation or iron limitation. Publications

  • Mock T, Hoch N (in press) Long-term temperature acclimation of photosynthesis in steady-state cultures of the polar diatom Fragilariopsis cylindrus. Photosyn. Res.
  • Mock T, Thomas DN (2005) Recent advances in sea-ice microbiology. Environ. Microbiol. 7(5) 605-619.
  • Thomas DN, Mock T (2005) Life in frozen veins - coping with the cold. The Biochemist 27(1) 12-16.
  • John U, Mock T, Valentin K, Cembella AD, Medlin LK (2005) The dinoflagellates come from outerspace but haptophytes and diatoms do not. Harmful Algae 2002. Proceedings of the X. International conference on harmful algae. Steidinger KA, Landsberg JH, Tomas CR & Vargo GA (Eds.) Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Comission and Intergovermental Oceanographic Comission of UNESCO.
  • Mock T, Valentin K (2004) Photosynthesis and cold acclimation - molecular evidence from a polar diatom. J Phycol. 40 732-741.
  • Mock T, Kruse M, Dieckmann GS (2003) A new microcosm to investigate oxygen dynamics at the sea-ice water interface. Aquat. Microb. Ecol. 30 197-205.
  • Biele J, Ulamec S, Garry J, Sheridan S, Morse AD, Barber S, Wright I, Tueg H, Mock T (2002) Melting probes at Lake Vostok and Europa. ESA Proceedings SP-518 115-118.
  • Mock T, Dieckmann GS, Haas C, Krell A, Tison JL, Belem Al, Papadimitriou S, Thomas DN (2002) Micro-optodes in sea ice: a new approach to investigate oxygen dynamics during sea ice formation. Aquat. Microb. Ecol. 29 297-306.
  • Mock T, Kroon BMA (2002) Photosynthetic energy conversion under extreme conditions: I Important role of lipids as structural modulators and energy sink under N-limited growth in Antarctic sea ice diatoms. Phytochem. 61 41-51.
  • Mock T, Kroon BMA (2002) Photosynthetic energy conversion under extreme conditions: II The significance of lipids at low temperature and low irradiance in Antarctic sea ice diatoms. Phytochem. 61 53-60.
  • Mock T (2002) In situ primary production in young Antarctic sea ice. Hydrobiol. 470 127-132
  • Dieckmann GS, Thomas DN, Mock T (2002) Life in sea ice. Scientific American (German edition), Dossier: Life in Space, p 13-15.
  • Krembs C, Mock T, Gradinger R (2001) A mesocosm study of physical-biological interactions in artificial sea ice: effects of brine channel surface evolution and brine movement on algal biomass. Polar Biol. 24 356-364.
  • Mock T, Gradinger R (2000) Changes in photosynthetic carbon allocation in algal assemblages of Arctic sea ice with decreasing nutrient concentrations and irradiance. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 202 1-11.
  • Mock T, Gradinger R (1999) Determination of Arctic ice algal production with a new in situ incubation technique. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 177 15-26.
  • Mock T, Meiners KM, Giesenhagen HC (1997) Bacteria in sea ice and underlying brackish water at 54 26'55''N (Baltic Sea, Kiel Bight) Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 158 23-40.

Patents

  • Mock T, Valentin K (2004) Delta12-desaturase sequence from Fragilariopsis cylindrus. PCT/DE03/03180
  • Mock T, Valentin K (2004) Calpain7-protease sequence from Fragilariopsis cylindrus. PCT/DE03/02401

 

Ann Riddle

Ann Riddle

Tatiana Rynearson

Tatiana Rynearson

Ellen O. Lin

I am a technician in the lab of Dr. Ginger Armbrust. My research revolves around the many various projects Dr. Armbrust and the post-docs in the lab are currently working on. I also deal with many of the collaborative projects that come through including our current collaborations with the Joint Genome Institute to sequence the genomes of Pseudonitzschia multiseries and Fragilariopsis under the direction of Dr. Micaela Parker and Dr. Thomas Mock respectively. I am also involved with the development of several EST libraries with the Joint Genome Institute at the level of RNA extraction. I have in the past been involved with generating several subtraction libraries for the organism Pseudonitzschia australis to analyze what genes are turned on when it starts to produce the chemical domoic acid, a marine toxin. Domoic acid is a dangerous toxin that can contaminate the shellfish population and eventually work it's way up the food chain where it can cause permanent short term memory loss in humans, and in the worst cases it can be fatal. It is our hope that we can better understand on a molecular level some of the chemical pathways and triggers for why these diatoms go toxic. I also participate with Dr. Micaela Parker and Dr. Adrian Marchetti in the study of iron and the genes used to regulate it. My studies revolve around trying to pull the gene ferritin, a gene discovered in the previously mentioned subtraction libraries, out of different types of phytoplankton using specially designed code-hop primers. I am also currently the Megabace technician for our facility. I am involved in running and maintaining our Megabace 1000 sequence analyzer whom we have affectionately named “Sofia”. The sequencing facility supports the sequencing efforts of faculty, students, and researchers from various labs in the larger University of Washington's scientific community as well as our own smaller marine molecular community.

Mikelle L. Nuwer

I hold both a B.S and M.S. in Biological Oceanography from the University of Washington.  I am currently pursing a PhD. in Biological Oceanography.  The topic of my dissertation research is the spatial and temporal patterns of molecular genetic variation in a group of planktonic calanoid copepods.  I employ DNA sequence variation in mitochondrial genes to determine phylogenetic relationships, examine geographic variation, and make inferences about the population structure of species in the Calanus helgolandicus clade.  This work is a necessary first step for understanding speciation, ecology and community dynamics of the crustacean zooplankton.