Imagine a zoo with nearly 27,000 unique animal varieties. Imagine that well over 7,000 research labs around the world study those animals, and that the collection has supported multiple Nobel Prize-winning breakthroughs. Now imagine stewarding the collection, caring for the animals, and coordinating with all the researchers. For Aric Daul (PhD, Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development ’08), curator of the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center (CGC) at the University of Minnesota, this doesn’t require imagination.
The center Daul oversees isn’t a zoo per se, but it houses the world’s largest and most genetically comprehensive collection of roundworms, primarily representing a single species known as Caenorhabditis elegans, or C. elegans for short. When viewed under a microscope, these 1-millimeter-long worms would seem to share little in common with humans. After all, they’re transparent and generally reproduce asexually, begetting genetically identical offspring. Yet researchers rely on them to study fundamental molecular and developmental processes with wide-ranging implications for humans.
“There are people using the worms to model Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, insulin signaling, or diabetes and lifespan analysis,” Daul says. “The generation time is two days, so you can look at thousands of animals in a short amount of time, while, with mice, a similar study would take years.”
Daul first worked with roundworms as a graduate student in the lab of Professor Ann Rougvie, who later became the director of the CGC. After Daul defended his dissertation in 2008—his research focused on genes that control the timing of developmental events in C. elegans—he returned to the center as the curator in 2009. In this role, he oversees the collection, preservation, and distribution of genetic roundworm strains that thousands of researchers rely on for their work.
Each morning, before Daul and his team arrive at the center, a custom-built database he helped develop will automatically print order forms for the day. The team then begins locating the desired strains. If another researcher has requested the same strain within the past two or three months, the CGC may already have Petri dishes prepared with the worms. However, each strain is also preserved at least five additional times at the center: three copies in liquid nitrogen and two in ultra-low freezers, maintained at -196°C and -80°C, respectively. If a researcher requests a strain that isn’t already cultured on a Petri dish, the team retrieves a frozen sample from the ultra-low freezer, thaws it, propagates the revived worms, and packs the dish for shipment.
Meanwhile, Daul facilitates the collection’s continual growth. When he became curator in 2009, the CGC held about half the nearly 27,000 strains it now maintains. Daul carefully vets new contributions from researchers, verifying documentation and ensuring each strain is correctly named before adding it to the collection.
“It’s fun doing what I do, because I get to communicate with everybody,” Daul says of the researchers he supports. The CGC is premised on collaboration and sharing, and Daul, as the curator of worms, plays a central role in connecting researchers worldwide. “I like the worm community,” Daul says. “It really does have a good sense of actual community.” –Jonathan Damery