Patrick Ferree

Professor of Biology

Email: pferree@kecksci.claremont.edu

Office: Keck Science room 16A

Website: https://faculty.jsd.claremont.edu/pferree/Welcome.html

Research Interests:

I am broadly interested in how selfish genetic elements including bacterial symbionts and B chromosomes disrupt reproductive processes for transmission enhancement. We explore mechanistic dynamics of these selfish agents in the jewel wasp, Nasonia vitripennis, the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, and other insect species. We also investigate certain aspects of haplo-diploid reproductive development in Nasonia. Our methodological approaches include fluorescence confocal microscopy, classical genetics, transgenesis, CRISPR, RNA interference, molecular biology, and genomics (basically anything needed to address a chosen experimental question).

STEM Courses Taught:

BIOL43L, Introductory Biology

BIOL143, Genetics

BIOL151L, Developmental Biology

BIOL173L, Molecular Biology Seminar

BIOL187F, Advanced Genetics

Representative Publications

Lee H, Seo P, Teklay S, Yuguchi E, Dalla Benetta E, Werren JH, Ferree PM (2023) Ability of a selfish B chromosome to evade genome elimination in the jewel wasp, Nasonia vitripennis. Heredity, 131(3): 230-237
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Ferree, PM. (2023) Selfish B chromosomes unleashed by a dysfunctional chromosome segregation system. Current Biology 33(11): R431-R434
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Dalla Benetta E, Akbari OS, Ferree PM. (2021) Mechanistically comparing reproductive manipulations caused by selfish chromosomes and bacterial symbionts. Heredity 126(5): 1-10
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Eastin KJ, Huang AP, Ferree PM (2020) A novel pattern of germ cell divisions in the production of hymenopteran insect eggs. Biology letters 16(5): 20200137
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Dalla Benetta E, Antoschechkin I, Yang T, Nguyen HQM, Ferree PM (2020) Genome elimination mediated by gene expression from a selfish chromosome. Science Advances 6(14) eaaz9808
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