The Dalton Lab
Our lab studies the genes essential for life (i.e. we need them to survive).
These genes:
Underlie many rare diseases, such as Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDGs) and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (ARS) deficiencies.
Represent rich, untapped biology due to interconnected pathways and challenges in modeling null mutations.
Are well-conserved and thereby great to study with model organisms - like fruit flies!
Some of the things our lab does:
Drug screens for therapeutics and biology
Making and phenotyping new models in flies and cells
Testing human cell lines to determine the impact of pathways and treatments
Analysis of essential gene duplications using evolutionary and cell-based methods
Unexplored-but-exciting ideas like aging analysis of essential genes
Please see research for more information!
News
April 2026New pre-print on ATF4 retrocopies released. Check it out!
March 2026Welcome Tymber Moody, graduate student number 2! Tymber’s project is on a drug repurposing screen in WARS2 deficiency.
March 2026Hans and Mandi presented at the 2026 Drosophila Meeting in Chicago. Mandi gave a great talk!
December 2025Our student Mandi Wild was accepted as part of the T32 Chemical Biology Training Grant! Congrats Mandi!
June 2025At 1:37:30pm, June 12th, 2025, Mandi and Maya did the first lab PCR!
May 2025A month of changes! We say goodbye to Tiffany Chan, and hello to Viet Le and KJ Pittman!
May 2025Congratulations to Maya Hull for receiving two undergraduate research awards this summer!
Mar 2025Welcome Mandi Wild, our first graduate student! Mandi will be studying glycosylation disorders and their relation to degradation pathways (ERAD) and more.
Mar 2025Hans presented at the 2025 Drosophila Meeting in San Diego.