Robert Bastidas

Hello,
I am Robert J. Bastidas from Popayan, Colombia, South America, and I am a former BANANA SLUG. The Banana Slug is the mascot of the University of California, Santa Cruz, where I received a B.S in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. At UC Santa Cruz I was part of the NIH sponsored Minority Biomedical Research Support Program (MBRS). As an MBRS fellow I worked in Dr. Jack Okamuro’s lab studying flower development in Arabidopsis thaliana.

After I graduated I moved to Malibu, California where I worked at a startup plant genomics company called Ceres-Inc. At Ceres, I used plant genetics and functional genomics as tools for studying seed development in Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza Sativa (rice).

At Duke, I joined the lab of Dr. Joseph Heitman where I am currently working on signal transduction cascades that couple nutrient sensing and filamentous growth in the human fungal pathogens Cryptococcus neoformans and Candida albicans.

When I am not in lab I am usually playing soccer with the Pharmacology intramural team, or with the Rovers, a Durham City league team or pick up games with the Kickers, who are just a group of local guys. The weather is so nice out here that we play outdoor soccer for most the year. During winter it gets a bit cold so we just move our games indoors.

So if you like a great school with a great Genetics department, really nice people, good weather and excellent soccer, then this is the place for you.

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