| Affiliations: | DeBakey Executive Research Leadership Program |
| Project Leader: | Runshi Xie fushe001@tamu.edu Horticultural Sciences |
| Faculty Mentor: | Mengmeng Gu, Ph.D and Hongmin Qin, Ph.D |
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Meeting Times:
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TBD |
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Team Size:
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6
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| Open Spots: | 0 |
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Special Opportunities:
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(1) Potential opportunity to attend and present your works on academic conferences; (2) Ideally, you can earn co-authorship on conference and peer-reviewed publications provided good quality and publishable data is generated (consistent teamwork required); (3) Practical experience in working on research projects. All these opportunities are great for building your resume!
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Team Needs:
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Highly enthusiastic, determined and reliable candidates who are interested in working in areas including Biology, Entomology, Horticulture, and unrelated subjects. Some prior experience in insect rearing and bioinformatics will be preferred but not required. Candidates selected for this team will get well-trained. |
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Description:
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Crapemyrtle bark scale (CMBS) is an invasive sap-sucking pest that poses a unique risk to the green industry in the United States by attacking crapemyrtle and other economically important crops. This project will focus on the study of crapemyrtle bark scale, aiming to gain better understanding of this invasive insect in terms of its biology, ecology, and genomics, and assist the development of systemic insect-controlling strategies. Main objectives in this project include (1) To study the ecology, development patterns and population dynamics of CMBS by monitoring its life cycle and constructing life tables on different host species; (2) To study the chromosome system of CMBS by staining and examining its heterochromatins and euchromatins under microscope; (3) To study the development of CMBS by performing transcriptome analysis on different stages of the insects. |