Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
I am passionate about teaching and science education, and my position in the Department of Biological Sciences focuses on delivering high quality courses in a range of areas, including introductory biology, biostatistics, genetics, and molecular biology. I also supervise library thesis students in the Biomedical Sciences program.
My expertise is in genetics and molecular biology, with a particular focus in the areas of epigenetics, gene expression, and noncoding RNA. I am especially interested in unique epigenetic phenomena such as paramutation and genomic imprinting, as well as the genetic basis of human diseases and cancer. Past projects have investigated the ability of an epigenetic control sequence from maize to function as a silencer in transgenic Drosophila, and the role of antisense transcription in regulating the expression of the human growth factor FGF2. Current research interests include cell signaling and epigenetic control of cell differentiation.
I am always developing new content for the courses I teach, and current teaching interests include scientific misinformation, the RNA world, forensic genetics, and genetic privacy.
BSc (Hons), Biology, 2003. Acadia University, Wolfville, NS.
PhD, Genetics, 2010. Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS.
(also as L. A. McEachern)
Hicks, N.J., Crozier, R.W.E., Den Hartogh, D.J., MacNeil, L.A., and A.J. MacNeil. 2020. Modulated MAPK signaling during mast cell differentiation promotes an impaired inflammatory phenotype. The Journal of Immunology 204: 147.16.
Hicks, N.J., Crozier, R.W.E., Den Hartogh, D.J., MacNeil, L.A., and A.J. MacNeil. 2020. Inhibition of JNK signaling during mast cell differentiation promotes altered cytokine secretion and degranulation profiles. The FASEB journal 34 (S1): 1.
Gillis, J., Gebremeskel, S., Phipps, K.D., MacNeil, L.A., Sinal, C.J., Johnson, B., Hong, P., and M. Bezuhly. 2015. Effect of N-Acetylcysteine on Adipose-derived Stem Cell and Autologous Fat Graft Survival in a Mouse Model. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 136(2): 179e-188e.
McEachern, L.A., Bartlett, N.J. and V.K. Lloyd. 2014. Endogenously imprinted genes in Drosophila melanogaster. Molecular Genetics & Genomics 289(4): 653-673.
McEachern, L.A. and P.R. Murphy. 2014. Chromatin-remodeling factors mediate the balance of sense-antisense transcription at the FGF2 locus. Molecular Endocrinology 28(4): 477-489.
MacNeil, A.J., Jiao, S-C., McEachern, L.A., Yang, Y.J., Dennis A, Yu, H., Xu, Z., Marshall J.S. and T.J. Lin. 2014. MAPK kinase 3 is a tumour suppressor with reduced copy number in breast cancer. Cancer Research 74(1): 162-172.
Lloyd, V., Brisson, J., Fitzpatrick, K., McEachern, L.A. and E. Verhulst. 2012. The Epigenetics of Emerging and Nonmodel Organisms. Genetics Research International 2012: 491204.
McEachern, L.A. and V.K. Lloyd. 2012. The maize b1 paramutation control region causes epigenetic silencing in Drosophila melanogaster. Molecular Genetics & Genomics 287: 591-606.
McEachern, L.A. 2012. Transgenic epigenetics: using transgenic organisms to examine epigenetic phenomena. Genetics Research International 2012: 689819.
McEachern, L.A. and V.K. Lloyd. 2010. The epigenetics of genomic imprinting: Core epigenetic processes are conserved in mammals, insects and plants. In: Epigenetics: Linking Genotype and Phenotype in Development and Evolution. B. Hallgrímsson and B.K. Hall (eds.). University of California Press, Berkeley.
MacNeil, A.J., McEachern, L.A. and B. Pohajdak. 2008. Gene duplication in early vertebrates results in tissue-specific subfunctionalized adaptor proteins: CASP and GRASP. Journal of Molecular Evolution 67(2): 168-178.
Syrzycka, M., McEachern, L.A.*, Kinneard, J., Prabhu, K., Fitzpatrick, K., Schulze, S., Rawls, J.M., Lloyd, V.K., Sinclair, D.A. and B.M. Honda. 2007. The pink gene encodes the Drosophila orthologue of the human Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome 5 (HPS5) gene. Genome 50: 548-556. *Equal first author.
Mockford, S.W., McEachern, L.A., Herman, T.B., Snyder, M. and J.M. Wright. 2005. Population genetic structure of a disjunct population of Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) in Nova Scotia, Canada. Biological Conservation 123(3): 373-380.
