A Chance Encounter Leads Yasmine Ackall to Big Discoveries in Tiny Worms
Under the guidance of Professor Rob Dowen in the UNC School of Medicine, Ackall, a biochemistry major, explores one of biology’s most intriguing mysteries: how living organisms decide when to store energy as fat and when to burn it.
October 23, 2025 I By Dave DeFusco
Yasmine Ackall hadn’t planned to attend college in her hometown, but a lucky coincidence led her to the Dowen Lab in UNC’s School of Medicine, where tiny worms fuel big scientific discoveries.
“My parents were taking a Town of Chapel Hill citizenship class,” she said. “They met my future lab manager there, started talking and found out he worked in a genetics lab. They told him, ‘Our daughter loves genetics!’ and he connected me with Dr. Rob Dowen. I sent him a cold email with my resume, and that’s how it started.”
Under the guidance of Professor Dowen, the biochemistry major explores one of biology’s most intriguing mysteries: how living organisms decide when to store energy as fat and when to burn it.
“All organisms have to make choices about energy,” she said. “There’s always a trade-off. You can’t live forever and also put all your energy into growing or reproducing, so the body has to balance its fat use carefully. That’s what we call lipid homeostasis, keeping things in balance.”
That balance, she said, is essential for good health. When the genes that control fat regulation go awry, serious conditions can arise, like diabetes, obesity and heart disease. To better understand how those genes work, Ackall and her colleagues study a simple worm called Caenorhabditis elegans—or C. elegans, for short. This transparent, millimeter-long organism is one of biology’s most powerful tools.
“It’s genetically simple and easy to work with,” she said. “Many of its biological systems are also similar to ours, so what we learn from it can help us understand human health.”
Her research focuses on two genes in particular: flr-4 and sca-1. The first, flr-4, is part of a communication system inside cells called the MAPK signaling pathway, which helps regulate growth and metabolism. When the flr-4 protein isn’t working properly, the worms grow slowly, stay small and can’t store fat correctly.
To find out what other genes might help fix these problems, Ackall used a technique called a forward genetic screen. “Basically, we mutate the worm’s DNA at random and look for cases where the mutation reverses the problem,” she said. “If we see a worm that grows normally again, we know something interesting happened in its genes.”
Through that process, her team found a key mutation in a gene called sca-1, which produces a protein known as SERCA. This protein helps move calcium ions within cells—a vital process for many bodily functions. Surprisingly, Ackall discovered that when SCA-1 becomes hyperactive, it can rescue worms that have broken flr-4 genes.
“It was unexpected,” she said. “sca-1 and flr-4 don’t seem related. One handles calcium and the other controls metabolism, but somehow this calcium transporter fixes the developmental issues caused by the flr-4 defect.”
Her research showed that the sca-1 mutation does this not by changing fat storage directly, but by altering a rhythmic biological process known as the defecation motor program—essentially, how often the worms eliminate waste. “It’s weird but fascinating,” she said. “We found that calcium signaling through the sca-1 protein can restore normal rhythms and help the worms grow better.”
While the work might not translate directly to treating human disease, it builds the foundation for understanding metabolism at the genetic level. “It’s basic science,” she said. “We’re figuring out what genes are doing and how they interact. That knowledge could eventually help researchers develop ways to restore broken pathways in people.”
In the process, Ackall has learned that science rarely follows a straight path. “You can’t go into an experiment expecting a certain result,” she said. “You have to stay open to surprises. I’ve learned to be resilient—sometimes experiments fail and you just have to try again.”