The DNA Discovery Center and Pritzker Lab at the Field Museum

02/25/2022

The Pritzker Lab welcomes Dylan Maddox as its newest permanent employee. Dylan will be working with Lab Users, developing new protocols for next generation sequencing, and continuing his research on birds.

02/09/2022

Tonight our Lab Technician Izzy Distefano is giving a talk about our lab in collaboration with UWisconsin-Madison's Science Outreach program in celebration of Darwin Day.

Registration is free through Zoom and will start at 7pm.

Register Here: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUrce2vrDwtHNBMv0FxIcmw56npNOhu831_

Izzy's Bio & Talk Info Here: https://science.wisc.edu/event/wntldiscovering-the-dna-discovery-center-collections-based-research-in-evolutionary-biology-museum-science-communication-and-outreach/

WN@TL is a public science series offered every Wednesday night, 50 times a year, starting at 7:00 pm Central Time

10/25/2021

Undergraduates or professors of undergraduates might be interested in these events. Apply by Nov 1. The iDigTRIO conference is aimed at collegiate and pre-collegiate students associated with TRIO programs around the United States. The mission of the iDigTRIO Conference is to provide opportunities to explore careers and graduate programs in the biological sciences to first generation, limited income, and underrepresented students (Black, Latinx, Indigenous, other students of color, and students with disabilities).

The event will be a hybrid experience with in-person career shadowing and mentoring as well as an in-person resource fair and reception followed by a virtual 3-day conference.   

10/18/2021

Friends and alumni of the Pritzker Lab, we think you should follow Black in Natural History Museums on Twitter. This week you will learn about some great people and projects.

08/25/2021

Come to Field Museum's Facebook live feed at 1:30 pm Central Time to hear from Sara Ruane, Field Museum's new Curator of Herpetology. Sara is a welcome new member of the Pritzker Lab.

“Any guesses on what I might speak about ‘a Facebook live today? (2.30 eastern/3.30 central!)”

08/19/2021

Taylor Hains, University of Chicago, Committee on Evolutionary Biology and resident Field Museum PhD student will be featured in this podcast on Friday at 6 pm Central Time. Learn about the genomics and conservation of parrots.

07/23/2021

Jacob did his DNA research in the Pritzker lab.

Birds and the Pritzker Lab would like to congratulate Dr. Jacob Cooper on achieving his doctorate this afternoon. Jacob is the latest graduate of the University of Chicago's Committee on Evolutionary Biology. He'll be leaving soon for a postdoctoral researcher appointment at the University of Kansas and Haskell Indian Nations University.

06/21/2021

Camila did her genetic research in Field Museum's Pritzker Lab. Our lab has served as a training center for more than 300 people from 30 different countries in the last decade. We are honoured that so many terrific scientists come to work with us. Congratulations, Camila.

Context Amazonian white-sand ecosystems (campinas) are open vegetation patches which form a natural island-like system in a matrix of tropical rainforest. Due to a clear distinction from the surrounding matrix, the spatial characteristics of campina patches may affect the genetic diversity and compo...

06/15/2021

Field Museum is hiring a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer. If this description fits you, apply to come work with us!

The Field Museum is committed to attaining a more inclusive and diverse organizational culture for our staff, audiences, and constituents. The Chief Diversity a...

06/02/2021

Today the museum is closed to the public today which means no Talk to the Scientist Hour, but here's a chance to tune in remotely if you're missing interacting with our staff and seeing the lab space.

Join our Lab Technician Izzy Distefano this afternoon, 2:30pm Central as she is featured on the Field Museum's official page with the Meet a Museum Insider Broadcast!

03/17/2021

The Pritzker Lab has been the site of DNA sequencing for many a malarial parasite. This is the newest paper out from Field Museum's Emerging Pathogens Project and the result of collaborative collecting efforts across the museum world. Pritzker Lab and Birds student, Heather Skeen, is highlighted in this summary.

The site in the Andes where the researchers processed bird specimens and took the blood samples used in this study. Credit: John Bates, Field Museum Malaria is the deadliest pathogen in human history. Nearly half the people on Earth are at risk of contracting the disease from the parasites that caus...

02/12/2021

Here's a familiar face for all of you. It's hard for you to visit and say hi to Izzy and ask us questions, but take a look here for her interview with the Learning Center's Anna.

01/22/2021

The innovation of youth. Winnie and Gwen Blake and their mother Erryn have created a new Facebook site, The Mobile Museum: Where Wondering becomes Discovering. They've worked with Matt Von Konrat in Field Museum's Botany area for years, created a mobile museum outside their house in Indiana, and now online. Congratulations. Follow them!

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11/18/2020

Hey all. We miss you too. Stay well, please.

11/17/2020

Field Museum has amazing Research Associates. Learn a little more about Noé De La Sancha in this link. Noé is a professor at Chicago State University, and he and his students are regular fixtures in the Pritzker Lab.

In our series, "Scientist in the Spotlight" we’ll sit down with the ADBC (Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections) program's best and brightest to learn more about what makes them tick. This month, we had a chance to speak with Noé De La Sancha. He is a part of the oVert TCN.

11/05/2020

Field Museum Birds Research Associates, Jane Younger and Sushma Reddy, go about their day breaking our understanding of penguin diversity.

Counting the birds as four species will help conservation efforts, and threats from climate change.

10/15/2020

Birds and the Pritzker Lab say congratulations to Dr. Natalia Piland. Natalia is the newest graduate of the University of Chicago's Committee on Evolutionary Biology. Natalia's dissertation defense had 200 people from all over the world.

07/23/2020

The Museum is open to the public and to the scientists behind the scenes. Our days are limited and so is our capacity, but our love of telling stories about science is undiminished. So, come see us during weekdays when we are open for our Talk to a Scientist Hour, 11 am to noon. We've missed you!

07/23/2020

Another tribute to lives lost too soon to COVID-19. Lynika's legacy lives on. We will share more with you through time about what we are all doing to honour her legacy and how you can be involved too.

An ongoing tribute to family, friends, co-workers, community leaders and neighbors who lived a life undefeated.

06/09/2020

Help us honour Lynika's life and legacy if you can. The funds will go towards Lynika's family expenses but after that towards the legacy of scholarship, research, and education that she represented. Lynika's family is strongly supportive of developing a meaningful lasting memorial.

June 7, 2020, Lynika Strozier passed away due to complications from C… Clarissa Anderson needs your support for Lynika's Funeral Expenses and Scholarship Fund

06/08/2020

This was posted by Sushma Reddy. I am sorry to have to share this horrible news with you all.

To friends and family of Lynika Sharlice Strozier - it is with deep shock that I have to inform you that Lynika died today of covid-related complications. Our hearts are broken to lose this bright, beautiful, brave girl. She had so much hope and accomplished much in her short time but it is hard not to feel robbed of her spirit. My thoughts are with her family and her unwavering pillar of strength granny Sharon Strozier Wright. — with Sharon Strozier Wright.

06/02/2020

Join Nick Block, former Field Museum and University of Chicago graduate student and now Professor at Stonehill College, tonight for a discussion of evolution and COVID-19. Nick studied the evolution of birds in Madagascar during his dissertation. He also has a great love of dragonflies. https://tinyurl.com/yak7sgey

05/29/2020

Museums need your support. Contact your local, state, and federal legislators and let them know how you feel. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/shuttered-natural-history-museums-fight-survival-amid-covid-19-heartbreak?fbclid=IwAR2t-Dh736zwNzRDqRVPdHdleZaz7awISaf91G7RswZqpaDDfgMe0n5-ynA

But creative scientists vow recovery and move research, public programs online

05/12/2020

You can interact with Field Museum in this way again on May 26. Check out the Red Cross's website for more places and times to donate blood. After all, how many times do you get to lay down in Stanley Field Hall and look up at the beautiful windows on the ceiling?

05/08/2020

DNA has the instructions for building life. Here are instructions for how to build an Origami DNA molecule.

Step-by-step instructions and printable folding paper included in the downloadable document.

05/07/2020

Welcome to the Museum, Mayor Lightfoot.

05/01/2020

From our house to yours. Stay safe and well and thanks for all your support. We hope to see you in person soon!

We'd normally see you at our annual Members' Nights, but staff from all departments are still celebrating what members mean to us. Thank you for your…

05/01/2020

This is Anna Petrosky, a recent M.Sc. graduate of the University of Chicago's Committee on Evolutionary Biology. Anna is working with Curator of Mammals, Larry Heaney to explore the diets of small mammals (earthworm mice) using next generation sequencing technologies and DNA Metabarcoding. Do earthworm mice eat earthworms? Of what species? What else do they eat? Sequencing the DNA in the gut contents of Philippine Mice in our collections provides important clues. This is an extension of Larry's decades long work in the Philippines. Learn more here. https://www.fieldmuseum.org/synopsis-philippine-mammals

05/01/2020

The Pritzker Lab has had an internship for high school students since our opening in summer 2008. These students have gone on to become research scientists, doctors, IT professionals graduate students, and beyond. We are really proud of each of them.

05/01/2020

Field Museum's lichen research is rich with research approaches, fieldwork in far-flung places (Antarctic pictured here), research facilities, and people. Lichens are an amazing symbiosis between fungi and algae or cyanobacteria. Thorsten Lumbsch Todd Widhelm Izzy Distefano Felix Grewe and Matt Nelsen

04/30/2020

Welcome to the Pritzker Lab. The Pritzker Lab is the largest interdepartmental research facility inside Field Museum. Anybody who does DNA-based research does it here. In the last few years we’ve trained hundreds of people from more than 30 countries. Working here is truly an international experience. Our window to the world is through the DNA Discovery Center. If you come during our “Talk to a Scientist Hour” each weekday from 11 am to noon, you will see our amazing lab staff—Kevin Feldheim, our Lab manager, Erica Zahnle, our DNA Lab Educator and Researcher, and Isabel Distefano, our DNA Research Technician. We look forward to talking with you in person again!

04/29/2020

Field Museum isn't open for Members' Nights this year. We are a little sad too. Watch our page on Thursday and Friday. We'll give you a little flavour of the Museum's people, research, and collections programs.

04/28/2020

Look for Chicago Mayor Lightfoot to be at Field Museum soon! The details to watch the tour of the Shedd are in the link. http://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=31dff1e3-3204-4779-a6d6-1f9a814570e6&fbclid=IwAR3L-TszP8v4oYosJ2iT2C6IMea_rgzK514nC_xlxBvKc1RNaSZK4G3ac34

It takes clout — and a very compelling reason — to get through the locked doors of the city’s leading cultural institutions in these days of coronavirus-forced closure.

04/08/2020

Congratulations to Dr. Ben Blanchard, University of Chicago Committee on Evolutionary Biology. Ben successfully defended his dissertation yesterday. By Zoom ... (thanks coronavirus). Ben works on ants, their trees of life, and the evolution of behaviour and morphology. I'm sure you know that ants can sting, but did you also know ants have spines too?

03/31/2020

Jordan Greer, former Field Museum and CEB graduate student from the University of Chicago and current science comm intern, has written a popular piece on Supriya's ant/bird competition publication.

Blog written by Jordan Greer. Read the full article here The foothills of the Eastern Himalaya are a warm, lush ecosystem with trees that reach over 20 meters in height, and a network of branches w…

03/31/2020

Former CEB and Field Museum resident graduate student, Supriya has published part of her dissertation outlining the role of competition between ants and songbirds in the Eastern Himalaya. Supriya is now a postdoctoral research associate in the Biology Education Research lab at Arizona State University.

Competitive interactions between distantly related clades could cause complementary diversity patterns of these clades over large spatial scales. One such example might be ants and birds in the easte...

03/30/2020

Today's episode on social distancing features Ben Blanchard, who will be defending his dissertation next Tuesday, and Manuela Ramalho, formerly of Field Museum and currently a postdoc at Cornell University.

In response to the ongoing pandemic, we are producing a short, no-frills daily podcast series: “Social Insect Distancing”. For our 14th episode, we (remotely) sat down with guest Dr. Manuela Ramalh…

03/29/2020

No March Madness pools, no live sports, but we can still compete! Play along with us!

Do you have a field favorite? Vote now. Plus, learn about two of our favorites, the Tsavo Lions and the Tully Monster.

03/23/2020

We'll try to keep communicating with all of you about our collections, science, and people, but now we need to call on all of you to urge our congressional leaders to provide needed support to museums.

Congress is moving extremely quickly on consideration of economic relief and recovery packages in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact across many industries.

03/17/2020

This is what one of our University of Chicago Committee on Evolutionary Biology students has been up to. Thanks, Ben Blanchard! Check it out.

In response to the ongoing pandemic, we will be producing a short, mostly unscripted, no-frills daily podcast series: “Social Insect Distancing”. We hope that learning a little about an…