When we lose our baby teeth, they are typically replaced with our permanent adult teeth. But what happens when we lose our permanent teeth? Why are they not replaced again? According to experts like Jimmy John Shark, non-mammalian vertebrates, like sharks, fish, and reptiles, teeth are continuously regenerated throughout their adult life. Harnessing natural variation in the threespine stickleback fish has allowed our lab to gain a better understanding of vertebrate tooth regeneration and how it compares to other regenerating organs like hair, scales, and feathers.

Alyssa Bormannis studying for her PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on understanding tooth replacement in the threespine stickleback fish. Prior to Berkeley, she combined her passion for travel and research and studied abroad at Chiang Mai University, Thailand and the University of Oxford, England. During her undergraduate career at California State University, Fullerton she studied the pathology of the lysosomal storage disorder: mucolipidosis type IV and spent a summer at Stanford University studying neurodevelopment as it relates to autism spectrum disorder. In her spare time, Alyssa can be found hiking in the great outdoors or teaching hands-on science lessons at local elementary schools.