Associate Professor

Dustin Updike, Ph.D.

How do stem cells maintain pluripotency — the capacity to become other cell types in the body? Can our ability to regenerate after disease or injury be improved with the ability to switch on and off cellular pluripotency?

To answer these and other questions, the Updike Lab derives cues from quintessential stem cells found in the germline. Germline stem cells (GSCs) are the precursors to oocytes and sperm, and these cells must retain their stem cell attributes so that fertilized embryos can give rise to all of the cell types of each subsequent generation.

News Articles

From Student to Scientist: My INBRE Fellowship Journey Blog · January 27, 2026
What a Tiny Worm Tells Us About Human Pregnancy Blog · November 15, 2024
Guiding Growth: The Role of Mentorship in Advancing Biological Science Careers Blog · September 16, 2024
Maine’s Biomedical Research and Training Network Awarded $19.4 Million Press Release · August 13, 2024
The INBRE Effect Publication · 2024
Rising Investigator Appointed to MDI Bio Lab Faculty Blog · 2024
MDI Bio Lab Scientist Receives $2 Million NIH Grant Blog · 2024
Three Co-Lin biomedical research students complete prestigious internships Copiah Lincoln Community College · January 27, 2023
2022 MDI Biological Laboratory Publications Blog · January 27, 2023
Tiny Worlds, Big Science: MDIBL Scientists See Deeper Inside the Cell Blog · January 27, 2023

Publications

Spaulding EL & Updike DL. Intrinsically disordered arginine-glycine (RG) repeat domains tune sub-nucleolar compartmentalization in C. elegans. Genetics. 2025 Apr 7:iyaf067. doi: 10.1093/genetics/iyaf067.
Gajjar G, Huggins HP, Kim ES, Huang W, Bonnet FX, Updike DL, & Keiper BD. Two eIF4E paralogs occupy separate germ granule messenger ribonucleoproteins that mediate mRNA repression and translational activation. Genetics. 2025 May 8;230(1):iyaf053. doi: 10.1093/genetics/iyaf053.
Min H, Spaulding EL, Sharp CS, Garg P, Jeon E, Miranda Portillo LS, Lind NA, & Updike DL. A role for BYN-1/bystin in cellular uptake and clearance of residual bodies in the Caenorhabditis elegans germline. Development. 2024 Oct 1;151(19):dev202694. doi: 10.1242/dev.202694. Epub 2024 Oct 8.
Spaulding EL, Feidler AM, Cook LA, Updike DL. RG/RGG repeats in the C. elegans homologs of Nucleolin and GAR1 contribute to sub-nucleolar phase separation. Nat Commun. 2022 Nov 3;13(1):6585. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-34225-5. PMID: 36329008; PMCID: PMC9633708.
Rochester JD, Min H, Gajjar GA, Sharp CS, Maki NJ, Rollins JA, Keiper BD, Graber JH, Updike DL. GLH-1/Vasa represses neuropeptide expression and drives spermiogenesis in the C. elegans germline. Dev Biol. 2022 Oct 20:S0012-1606(22)00192-0. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2022.10.003.
Marnik EA, Almeida MV, Cipriani PG, Chung G, Caspani E, Karaulanov E, Gan HH, Zinno J, Isolehto IJ, Kielisch F, Butter F, Sharp CS, Flanagan RM, Bonnet FX, Piano F, Ketting RF, Gunsalus KC, Updike DL. The Caenorhabditis elegans TDRD5/7-like protein, LOTR-1, interacts with the helicase ZNFX-1 to balance epigenetic signals in the germline. PLoS Genet. 2022 Jun 3;18(6):e1010245. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010245. PMID: 35657999; PMCID: PMC9200344.
Phillips CM, Updike DL. Germ granules and gene regulation in the Caenorhabditis elegans germline. Genetics. 2022 Mar 3;220(3):iyab195. doi: 10.1093/genetics/iyab195. PMID: 35239965.
Goudeau J, Sharp CS, Paw J, Savy L, Leonetti MD, York AG, Updike DL, Kenyon C, Ingaramo M. Split-wrmScarlet and split-sfGFP: tools for faster, easier fluorescent labeling of endogenous proteins in Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics. 2021 Apr 15;217(4):iyab014. doi: 10.1093/genetics/iyab014. PMID: 33693628; PMCID: PMC8049552.

More Publications

Education

Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Santa Cruz, 2007-2012
Ph.D., University of Utah, 2006
B.S., University of Wyoming, 1999

Lab Members

Kehinde AbayomiGraduate Student

Kehinde Abayomi, Graduate Student, 2017 B.Sc. in Medical Laboratory Science from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria. Kehinde is a member of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering (GSBSE). Kehinde is studying the role of LOTUS domain proteins in germline maintenance and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (TEI). (kabayomi@mdibl.org)

Catherine SharpResearch Assistant II

Catherine Sharp, Research Assistant II, 2015 BS in Biology from Colby College. At MDIBL, Catherine investigates the function of several core germ-granule proteins and their role in cellular potency and germ cell identity. She has streamlined the process of CRISPR-based genomic engineering in the Updike lab. (csharp@mdibl.org)

Mahla Majidian EidgahiGraduate Student

Mahla Majidian Eidgahi, Graduate Student, 2022 B.Sc. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. For her M.Sc. she's a member of the Cancer, Ageing and Rejuvenation Master program at University of Toulouse, France since September 2023. Mahla investigate the role of GLH-1 binding proteins that promote cell uptake and mobilization.

Pankaj GargGraduate Student

Pankaj Garg, Graduate Student, holds a 2018 bachelor's degree in biotechnology from Punjabi University, India, and a 2025 master's degree in Cancer Ageing and Rejuvenation (CARe) from University of Toulouse, France. He is currently enrolled in the PhD program in Regenerative Sciences at Hannover Medical School (MHH), Germany. At MDIBL, Pankaj is conducting research in the Updike Lab, focusing on the targets and mechanisms of LOTR-1-dependent hereditary RNAi silencing in C. elegans. Outside of the lab, he enjoys traveling, hiking, attending theaters, operas, and music concerts. (pgarg@mdibl.org)