Tauana J. Cunha

Thrilled to share that in spring 2025 I'll be joining the Dept. of Biology at Loyola University Chicago as an Assistant Professor! Invertebrate evolution, genomics, phylogenies, gastropods/mollusks, marine biogeography, and more… here we go! #newPI

What kind of childhood makes a top scientist? Is it enough to have all the right traits (brilliance, grit, etc) or do you need the right family too? And why should we care? A 🧵 on our paper on the Nobel Laureates. A teaser: the income distribution of the laureates' fathers.1/N

Wrote a dispatch about the first horsehair worm genomes out now in @CurrentBiology by @tauanajc et al. Lovely paper! Turns out their genomes are just as weird, or weirder, than their behaviour! authors.elsevier.com/a/1hdKg3QW8S2R…

🎶 what if I told you none of it was accidental? And the first night that you saw me, nothing (including a lack of genetic material common across basically all groups of animals) WAS GONNA STOP ME? 🎶 iflscience.com/host-manipulat…

Our work on nematomorphs featured in @natgeo Spain! @tauanajc @brunoasm @adlord_ nationalgeographic.com.es/mundo-animal/d… via @natgeoesp

The story of this successfully crazy quest has been recently published in Current Biology. The short note is free for everyone to download for 50 days, until September 12, 2023. Here is the link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1hTUb3QW8S2Q… doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.…

“Rampant loss of universal metazoan genes revealed by a chromosome- level genome assembly of the parasitic Nematomorpha” by Tauana Cunha et al. Current Biology cell.com/current-biolog… 2/2

Mind-controlling parasitic worms just got weirder. A new study found hairworms lacking about 30% of expected genes - those linked to cilia development. How this impacts their evolution and parasitic behavior is a mystery waiting to be solved. neurosciencenews.com/parasitic-worm… #Genetics…