Justin Waletich

Co-mentored Postdoc

Justin Waletich was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He pursued a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology with a minor in Chemistry at Oregon State University (OSU). During his time at OSU, he conducted three years of undergraduate research in Dr. Brett Tyler’s lab, focusing on plant pathology with Phytophthora sojae. In his final year, he was awarded an NSF-REU to study coral reef ecology under Dr. Gretchen Goodbody-Gringley at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), examining the morphological plasticity of Montastraea cavernosa on mesophotic reefs in Bermuda. After graduating from OSU, Justin gained additional research experience in Dr. Yuanchao Wang’s lab at Nanjing Agricultural University, China, where he continued his work on plant pathology with Phytophthora pathogens. During this time, he applied to the Zoology PhD program at the University of Florida in Dr. Christine Schnitzler’s lab, where he was accepted to begin his PhD studies in the fall of 2018. From Fall 2018 to 2024, Justin worked under Dr. Schnitzler’s supervision at the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience in St. Augustine, Florida. His PhD research focuses on the stem cells and regeneration of the colonial marine hydroid Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus within the field of evolutionary and developmental biology. He is now a postdoctoral scholar in the labs of Matthew Harris at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School and Stephen Treaster at Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute studying aging, longevity, and biomineralization in various clam species using comparative genomics and genetic tools.

Education

2017 – BSc Microbiology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
2024 – PhD Zoology, University of Florida, Advisor: Christine Schnitzler

Research Interests

Some clam species have extraordinarily long lifespans, with certain species living for centuries. Justin’s current research uses single-nucleus RNA sequencing, comparative genomics, and genetic tools to study how different clam species build their shells, maintain their tissues, and age. A major focus of this work is the clam mantle, a specialized organ responsible for shell formation and biomineralization. Justin aims to identify the major cell types, cell states, and molecular pathways involved in shell production and their intersection with clam longevity. A comparative approach allows him to ask how different clam species use shared or species-specific cellular strategies to construct and maintain their shells and survive in different environments. In particular, he is interested in how biomineralizing epithelial cells contribute to shell-layer formation, including the molecular toolkits that may distinguish different shell layers. More broadly, his work seeks to connect genome evolution, cellular diversity, and gene regulation to biological questions in longevity and biomineralization.

Research Profile Links

Harris Lab

LinkedIn

Google Scholar

Selected Publications

*for full list, see Google Scholar

Song J, de Jong D, Waletich J, Baxevanis AD, Schnitzler CE. An updated and spatially validated somatic single-cell atlas of Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus. BMC Genomics. doi: 10.1186/s12864-025-12201-9.

Waletich, J., de Jong, D., Schnitzler, C.E. (2024). Characterization of eight new Hydractinia i-cell markers reveals underlying heterogeneity in the adult pluripotent stem cell population. bioRxiv. doi:10.1101/2024.07.07.602406.

Schnitzler, C.E., Chang, E.S., Waletich, J, Quiroga-Artigas, G, Wong, W.Y., Nguyen, A.D., et al. (2024). The genome of the colonial hydroid Hydractinia reveals that their stem cells use a toolkit of evolutionarily shared genes with all animals. Genome Research. doi:10.1101/gr.278382.123.