The Davis Lab studies the molecular biology of parasitic worms (primarily schistosomes and parasitic nematodes) with a focus on atypical molecular processes including spliced leader RNA trans-splicing and programmed DNA elimination. Our previous studies on trans-splicing used cell-free in vitro systems, biolistic RNA transfection, enzymatic, and structural biology approaches to examine the cellular and biochemical adaptations of mRNA translation and decay to trans-splicing. Current studies are focused on programmed DNA elimination in parasitic nematodes, a phenomenon where chromosomes break and regions of chromosomes are reproducibly lost during early development. We use a variety of approaches to study DNA elimination including genomics and transcriptomics, biochemistry, analysis of small RNAs and Argonautes, chromatin and chromosome analyses, and analysis of chromosome segregation.