Rebecca Butcher
University of Florida, FL·Biochemistry
Roundworms, or nematodes, talk to each other with chemicals. They release small molecules that tell other worms when to grow, when to enter a tough survival stage, and whether to gather together or move apart.
- Fields
Biochemistry
Chemistry
Biology
- Topics
Caenorhabditis elegans
C. elegans
nematodes
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Measure what carboxylesterase (CEST) enzymes, which add chemical modifications to ascaroside pheromones, act on, by producing and purifying the enzymes and testing them against candidate molecules.
- Find which ascarosides CEST enzymes modify in living worms by feeding C. elegans stable isotope-labeled ascarosides, and solve CEST crystal structures by X-ray crystallography to explain their preferences.
- Map how nemamides, hybrid polyketide-peptide hormones that aid starvation survival, are made and act, using CRISPR-Cas9 worm mutants, comparative metabolomics, enzyme assays and chemical synthesis.
- Find the roles of the canal-associated neurons where nemamides are made, and test how worms coordinate nemamide, ascaroside and nacq#1 production in response to their environment.
More about the research
Parasitic nematodes infect about a third of people worldwide and cause billions of dollars in crop and livestock losses. Learning how worms make and use these signals could suggest ways to disrupt parasite life cycles. The lab studies the chemistry of these signals in the model worm Caenorhabditis elegans. It focuses on the structures of the molecules, the enzymes that build them, and how the signals control worm biology.
Why it matters
Parasitic roundworms infect about one-third of people worldwide and harm livestock and crops, causing billions of dollars in losses. Knowing the enzymes and pathways nematodes use to make their developmental signals could provide chemical tools and new strategies to disrupt parasite life cycles and reduce their survival. Enzyme-based synthesis could also supply pheromone variants aimed at parasitic species.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jessica Sowa
West Chester University of Pennsylvania, PA·Microbiology & Immunology
Screen wild free-living nematodes, collected by students in the Nematode Hunters program, for infections that spread to C. elegans strains carrying fluorescent infection reporters.
Jagan Srinivasan
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA·Neuroscience
Define how NLP-3 neuropeptides drive hermaphrodite avoidance of the pheromone ascaroside-8 in C. elegans, using CRISPR mutants, rescue with synthetic peptides, and quantitative behavioral assays.
Eric Haag
University of Maryland, MD·Genetics
Reconstruct how FOG-2, a protein found only in C. elegans, evolved from a large family of F-box proteins to become an essential regulator that lets hermaphrodite worms make sperm.
The school
University of Florida: 65 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 795 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.