Dr. Iván Olaya gave the UC Davis Molecular and Cellular Biology seminar yesterday, Chromosome asynapsis and unrepaired DNA double-strand breaks fail to elicit a strong meiotic prophase checkpoint response in zebrafish. In presenting his dissertation research, he told a detailed story about his meticulous work to investigate the mechanisms that regulate repair of double-strand breaks in zebrafish DNA. 

When I was 14, I decided that I wanted to get a PhD in biology because I wanted to understand how meiosis works. Fifteen years later, I achieved that degree.

Iván conducted both his PREP@UCD and dissertation research under the mentorship of Sean Burgess through the Graduate Group in Integrative Genetics and Genomics. He's the first PREP@UC Davis scholar to receive a PhD -- but he won't be the last.

Next up: an IRACDA postdoc at UCLA. Congrats, Iván!