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PATRICK DEGNANDoctoral Student I am broadly interested in the evolution and maintenance of bacterial symbionts within animal hosts. Currently, I am using genome sequencing and gene expression to understand a protective symbiosis that occurs between a bacteriophage, an intracellular bacterium and aphids. |
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Education
- B.S., Biology, 2001 Providence College, Providence, Rhode Island
Research and Professional Experience
- Research Assistant, Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 2001–2004
Honors and Awards
- Galileo Circle Scholar, College of Science, University of Arizona 2008
- CIS Graduate Research Award, Center for Insect Science, University of Arizona 2007–2008
- Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, National Science Foundation 2007–2009
- Hoshaw Memorial Scholarship, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona 2007
- R.F. Chapman Graduate Student Prize for Research in Insect Science (Univ. of Arizona) 2006–2007
- NSF IGERT Fellowship in Genomics (Univ. of Arizona) Sept. 2004–Present
- Rev. Charles V. Reichart, O.P. Award (Providence College) 2001
Publications
Degnan, P. H., T. E. Leonardo, B. N. Cass, B. Hurwitz, D. Stern, R. A. Gibbs, S. Richards, N. A. Moran. 2009. Dynamics of genome evolution in facultative symbionts of aphids. Environmental Microbiology 2009 Oct 16. [Epub ahead of print]
Oliver, K. M., P. H. Degnan, M. S. Hunter, and N. A. Moran. 2009. Bacteriophages encode factors required for protection in a symbiotic mutualism. Science 325, 992-994.
P.H. Degnan, Y. Yu, N. Sisneros, R.A. Wing, and N.A. Moran. Hamiltonella defensa, genome evolution of protective bacterial endosymbiont from pathogenic ancestors. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106, 9063-9068.
P.H. Degnan and N.A. Moran. 2008. Diverse phage-encoded toxins in a protective insect endosymbiont. Applied Environmental Microbiology 74(21), 6782-91.
P.H. Degnan and N.A. Moran. 2008. Evolutionary genetics of a defensive facultative symbiont of insects: Exchange of toxin-encoding bacteriophage. Molecular Ecology 17, 916–929.
P.H. Degnan, C. Michalowski, A. Babic, M. Cordes, and J. Little. 2007. Conservation and diversity in the immunity regions of wild phages with the immunity specificity of phage lambda. Molecular Microbiology 64, 232–244.
N.A. Moran and P.H. Degnan. 2006. Functional genomics of Buchnera and the ecology of aphid hosts. Molecular Ecology 15, 1251-1261.
N.A. Moran, P.H. Degnan, S.R. Santos, H.E. Dunbar and H. Ochman. 2005. The players in a mutualistic symbiosis: Insects, Bacteria, Viruses and Virulence Genes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 102, 16919-16926.
P.H. Degnan A.B. Lazarus and J.J. Wernegreen. 2005. Genome sequence of Blochmannia pennsylvanicus indicates parallel trends among bacterial mutualists of insects. Genome Research 15, 1023–1033.
J.T. Herbeck, P.H. Degnan and J.J. Wernegreen. 2005. Non-homogeneous models of sequence evolution indicate independent origins of primary endosymbionts within the Enterobacteriales (γ-Proteobacteria), Molecular Biology and Evolution 22(3), 520–532.
P.H. Degnan and E. Arévalo. 2004. Isolation of microsatellite loci in Sceloporus grammicus (Squamata, Phrynosomatidae). American Journal of Undergraduate Research 2(4), 1-11.
P.H. Degnan, A.B. Lazarus, C.D. Brock and J.J. Wernegreen. 2004. Evolutionary stability of an ant-bacterial association: Cospeciation of Camponotus spp. and their endosymbionts, Candidatus Blochmannia. Systematic Biology 53(1), 95-110.
J.T. Herbeck, D.J. Funk, P.H. Degnan and J.J. Wernegreen. 2003. A conservative test of genetic drift in the endosymbiotic bacterium Buchnera: Slightly deleterious mutations in the Chaperonin groEL. Genetics 165 (4), 1651-1660.
J.J. Wernegreen, P.H. Degnan, A.B. Lazarus, C. Palacios and S.R. Bordenstein. 2003. Genome evolution in an insect cell: Distinct features of an ant-bacterial partnership. Biological Bulletin 204, 221-231.
J.J. Wernegreen, A.B. Lazarus and P.H. Degnan. 2002. Small genome of Candidatus Blochmannia, the bacterial endosymbiont of Camponotus, implies irreversible specialization to an intracellular lifestyle. Microbiology 148, 2551-2556.