Senior Aimee Wessel and her mother Ann Wessel, of Dallas, Texas, discuss the younger Ms. Wessel’s research poster at the Parents Weekend open house sponsored by the Biology Department on September 29. Titled “Rollin in the RIL world: Characterization of a spontaneous ‘roller’ phenotype generated via the shuffling of genetic variation in a library of recombinant inbred lines (RILs),” the poster exhibited the techniques Wessel used to identify genes that are responsible for a rare locomotion style among nematode worms. Studying 800 genetic lines created at Boston College in the lab of Assistant Professor Stephen Wicks (right), Wessel investigated gene combinations that account for a nematode that moves by rolling from its stomach to its back. The normal nematode locomotes in snakelike fashion. Some 30 posters were on display in the Higgins Atrium, showcasing student research in biology, physics, and geosciences. The open house was one of many Parents’ Weekend activities, including a conversation with President William P. Leahy, SJ, faculty presentations on student life and work, and the fourteenth annual Pops on the Heights Scholarship Gala, which raised $1.8 million.