Hello,
My name is Kirsten Peramba. I am a Research Assistant I in the Edsinger Lab at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. I'm a local Cape Cod'er from Falmouth and went to Bridgewater State University, where I majored in Biology. I did a summer internship in the Edsinger Lab as an undergraduate in 2016 and then joined the lab in 2017 as an RAI after graduation.
Lab Research
My research is part of several different projects in the lab, including genome, epigenetic, and microbiome sequencing, developmental time lapse, Brain Soup (it's a method for determining the number of neurons in a brain). This last year I've taken courses in FIJI image processing and CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing. I also assisted in teaching the U Chicago Marine Biodiversity and Genomics course with Oscar Pineda-Catalan. And Eric and I designed and ran the Cephalopod genetic tools and live imaging workshop for the CIAC meeting (an international cephalopod meeting held in St. Petersberg FL just this week.)
General Interests
I am also interested in conservation biology and fisheries management. Based on this interest, I lead a lab project we call Squid Monday, which looks at the population genetics of the local MBL squid, Doryteuthis pealeii.
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Tell me
who toKEEPleave 10-50
I love the ocean and outside lab I am an avid boater. I am also discovering the awesomeness of motorcycles, including a little Honda TLR 200 named Toaster. I love the adventure of traveling abroad and meeting people of different cultures and backgrounds. I'm currently super excited to be going to Cuba, and just winging out outside an initial AirBnB after landing.
Images
research
My research is
awesome!
Culturing
We are developing larval culturing systems for pygmy squid hatchlings in order to close the lifecycle in lab and establish breeding colonies and genetic lines.
→Embryos
Octopus bimaculoides embryos culture well in lab and genome editing can be explored given the published genome, a project Eric was a part of as a postdoc.
→LPSO
Octopus LPSO is the sister species to the pygmy octopus Octopus chierchiae. It is unique in forming mate-pair bonds and the two offer a comparator system for understanding social behavior.
→Social
Octopus laqueus is socially tolerant in group culture and easy to care for. Animals kept in an open group tank mated and produced embryos that hatched out in our lab.
→Rotation
Embryos begin rotating after epiboly during morphogenesis. This poses a live imaging challenge we are workking to solve.
→Transparency
Pygmy squid embryos and hatchlings are as small and transparent as zebrfish embryos, making them ideal for live imaging.
→Shipping
We and our collaborators are able to easily collect, pack, and ship pygmy squid from around the world.
→
Future Plans
In the coming year I plan to submit papers on Squid Monday and other research projects I have been involved in. Beyond that I am considering graduate school in conservation biology or related areas. Not sure if I want to do a traditional academic track for my career, or maybe something more hands on in government or with NGOs directly invested in preservation and maintenance of biodiversity and Nature's intersection with society.
When I'm not busy IRLing - you can find me ONLINE.