Andrew J. Roger

Wanda Danilchuk

Marlena Dlutek

Dayana Salas

Joran Martijn

Gregory Seaton

Dandan Zhao

Shelby Williams

Tengteng Zhang

Kelsey Williamson

Former Roger Lab Members

Susan Sharpe, M.Sc. Student


I grew up in Halifax, and did a BSc at Mount Allison University. My undergraduate research looked at the influence of cell and genome size on the growth rate of a diatom (Ditylum birghtwellii).

Research Interests:

Since joining the Roger lab in January of 2012 I've been looking at integrins and related proteins in protists. Integrins are involved in cell signalling and cell adhesion, two functions required for multicellularity. Recently integrins and related proteins were found in unicellular organisms outside of animals, including Thecamonas trahens and Pygsuia biforma. My work will try to elucidate the function of these proteins in unicellular organisms.

Publications:


  • Brown MW, Sharpe SC, Silberman JD, Heiss AA, Lang BF, Simpson AGB, Roger AJ (2013) Phylogenomics demonstrates that breviate flagellates are related to opisthokonts and apusomonads. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 1769: 20131755 doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.1755
  • Sharpe SC, Koester JA, Loebl M, Cockshutt AM, Campbell DA, Irwin AJ, Finkel ZV. Influence of Cell Size and DNA Content on Growth Rate and Photosystem II Function in Cryptic Species of Ditylum brightwellii. PLoS One 7(12): e52916. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052916

    • Book chapter:


  • Sharpe SC*, Eme L*, Brown MW, Roger AJ (2015) Timing the origins of multicellular eukaryotes through phylogenomics and relaxed molecular clock analyses . In Ruiz-Trillo I, Nedelcu AM (eds) Evolutionary transitions to multicellular life: Principles and mechanisms . Springer Science+Business Media, doi: 10.1007/978-94-017-9642-2_1 ISBN 978-94-017-9641-5.
  • Eme L, Sharpe SC, Brown MW, Roger AJ (2014) On the age of eukaryotes: evaluating evidence from fossils and molecular clocks . In Keeling PJ, Koonin EV (eds) Origin and evolution of eukaryotes . Cold Spring Harbour Perspectives Biology, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, USA, pp 165. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a016139 ISBN 978-1-621820-28-4

    Presentations:


  • Sharpe SC, Brown MW, Roger AJ. The breviate Pygsuia biforma expresses a near-complete integrin adhesome; implications for the origins of animal multicellularity. International Congress of Protistology, Vancouver, BC, Canada, July 28th – August 2nd 2013.
  • Sharpe SC, Koester JA, Loebl M, Cockshutt AM, Finkel ZV. Testing the rule of metabolic scaling within and across two populations of the diatom Ditylum brightwellii. American Society of Limnology and Oceanography Aquatic Sciences Meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, February 13-18 2011.

    You can reach Susan at:

    Work Phone: (+1) 902-494-2881
    Fax: (+1) 902-494-1355
    E-mail: susansharpe{at}dal{dot}ca

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