Genetics & Developmental Biology Stories
Genetics & Developmental Biology
Allan Spradling comments on developmental biology story in The Scientist
Allan Spradling offers input to The Scientist on a paper about female Japanese rice fish producing sperm....
Explore this Story
Genetics & Developmental Biology
The Genes That Built You
Dr. Matthew P. Scott President, Carnegie Institution for Science Carnegie Astronomy is also part of Carnegie Science and the study of all living species. From ancient single-celled organisms evolved...
Explore this Story
Genetics & Developmental Biology
Insights from Eggs
A Carnegie Evening Lecture Dr. Allan Spradling, Director Department of Embryology, Carnegie Institution for Science Eggs are uniquely important animal cells. Only eggs can support the development of...
Explore this Story
Genetics & Developmental Biology
Yixian Zheng written up in The Journal of Cell Biology
Mitotic proteins take on editorial duties in this writeup of new work from Yixian Zheng's lab in The Journal of Cell Biology....
Explore this Story
Genetics & Developmental Biology
Biochemistry detective work: algae at night
Cells often face low-oxygen conditions at night. When this happens, some organisms such as the single-cell alga Chlamydomonas are able to generate cellular energy from the breakdown of sugars...
Explore this Story
Genetics & Developmental Biology
Steroid links fat accumulation with egg development
Nutrition and metabolism are closely linked with reproductive health. Several reproductive disorders have been linked to malnutrition, diabetes, and obesity. Furthermore, fasting in numerous species...
Explore this Story
Genetics & Developmental Biology
Steroid links fat accumulation with egg development
Baltimore, MD— Nutrition and metabolism are closely linked with reproductive health. Several reproductive disorders including polycystic ovary syndrome, amenorrhea, and ovarian cancer have been...
Explore this Story
Genetics & Developmental Biology
Carnegie’s Zhao Zhang Receives 2015 Larry Sandler Memorial Award
Baltimore, MD—The newest member of the staff at the Carnegie Department of Embryology, Junior Investigator Zhao Zhang, received the prestigious Larry Sandler Memorial Award at the 56th Annual...
Explore this Story

Pages

Explore Carnegie Projects
Left and right side differences of the developing brain
The Marnie Halpern laboratory studies how left-right differences arise in the developing brain and discovers the genes that control this asymmetry. Using the tiny zebrafish, Danio rerio, they explores how regional specializations occur within the neural tube, the embryonic tissue that develops into...
Explore this Project
Visualizing Lipid Metabolism and Signaling
In mammals, most lipids, such as fatty acids and cholesterol, are absorbed into the body via the small intestine. The complexity of the cells and fluids that inhabit this organ make it very difficult to study in a laboratory setting. The goal of the Farber lab is to better understand the cell and...
Explore this Project
The role of organelles in the cell nucleus that synthesize and process RNA
The Gall laboratory studies all aspects of the cell nucleus, particularly the structure of chromosomes, the transcription and processing of RNA, and the role of bodies inside the cell nucleus, especially the Cajal body (CB) and the histone locus body (HLB). Much of the work makes use of the giant...
Explore this Project
Meet Carnegie Scientists
William Ludington
The Ludington lab investigates complex ecological dynamics from microbial community interactions using the fruit fly  Drosophila melanogaster. The fruit fly gut carries numerous microbial species, which can be cultured in the lab. The goal is to understand the gut ecology...
Meet this Scientist
Donald Brown - Emeritus
The Donald Brown laboratory uses  amphibian metamorphosis to study complex developmental programs such as the development of vertebrate organs. The thyroid gland secretes thyroxine (TH), a hormone essential for the growth and development of all vertebrates including humans. To understand TH,...
Meet this Scientist
Yixian Zheng - Director
Yixian Zheng is Director of the Department of Embryology. Her lab has a long-standing interest in cell division. In recent years, their findings have broadened their research using animal models, to include the study of stem cells, genome organization, and lineage specification—how stem cells...
Meet this Scientist
You May Also Like...
Inflammation-driven deterioration of structural proteins contributes to aging
Aging-related inflammation can drive the decline of a critical structural protein called lamin-B1, which contributes to diminished immune function in the thymus, according to research from Carnegie...
Explore this Story
Allan Spradling comments on developmental biology story in The Scientist
Allan Spradling offers input to The Scientist on a paper about female Japanese rice fish producing sperm. More
Explore this Story
How do jumping genes cause disease, drive evolution?
Almost half of our DNA sequences are made up of jumping genes. Jumping genes  jump around the genome in developing sperm and egg cells and are important to evolution, but can also cause disease...
Explore this Story

Explore Carnegie Science

Kamena Kostova, courtesy Navid Marvi, Carnegie Institution for Science
Carnegie’s Kamena Kostova recognized by NIH for early career excellence
October 1, 2019

Baltimore, MD— Carnegie biologist Kamena Kostova has been selected for the Director’s Early Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health, which is designed to provide “exceptional junior scientists” with the opportunity to “skip traditional post-doctoral training and move immediately into independent research positions.”

Kostova is one of 13 recipients of the 2019 Early Independence Award. The recognition is part of a suite of four that comprise the NIH Director’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program, which honors “highly innovative biomedical or behavioral research proposed by extraordinarily creative scientists.

Read Full Story
GDNF repairs aged muscle stem cells courtesy of Liangji Li.
Possible therapeutic target for slow healing of aged muscles discovered
September 30, 2019

Washington, DC— An age-related decline in recovery from muscle injury can be traced to a protein that suppresses the special ability of muscle stem cells to build new muscles, according to work from a team of current and former Carnegie biologists led by Chen-Ming Fan and published in Nature Metabolism.

Skeletal muscles have a tremendous capacity to make new muscles from special muscle stem cells. These “blank” cells are not only good at making muscles but also at generating more of themselves, a process called self-renewal. But their amazing abilities diminish with age, resulting in poorer muscle regeneration from muscle trauma.

The research team—

Read Full Story
This image captures the bright blue light (chemiluminesc ence) emitted by the NanoLuc protein in LipoGlo zebrafish. It is is provided courtesy of James Thierer.
Glowing cholesterol helps scientists fight heart disease
July 31, 2019

Baltimore, MD—A newly developed technique that shows artery clogging fat-and-protein complexes in live fish gave investigators from Carnegie, Johns Hopkins University, and the Mayo Clinic a glimpse of how to study heart disease in action. Their research, which is currently being used to find new drugs to fight cardiovascular disease, is now published in Nature Communications.

Fat molecules, also called lipids, such as cholesterol and triglycerides are shuttled around the circulatory system by a protein called Apolipoprotein-B, or ApoB for short. These complexes of lipid and protein are called lipoproteins but may be more commonly known as “bad cholesterol.”
Read Full Story
One analogy for understanding the mathematical structure of the team's work is to think of it as foam being simplified into a single bubble by progressively merging adjacent bubbles.
Can mathematics help us understand the complexity of our microbiome?
July 2, 2019

Baltimore, MD—How do the communities of microbes living in our gastrointestinal systems affect our health? Carnegie’s Will Ludington was part of a team that helped answer this question.

For nearly a century, evolutionary biologists have probed how genes encode an individual’s chances for success—or fitness—in a specific environment.

In order to reveal a potential evolutionary trajectory biologists measure the interactions between genes to see which combinations are most fit.  An organism that is evolving should take the most fit path. This concept is called a fitness landscape, and various mathematical techniques have been developed to

Read Full Story

More Press ReleasesMore Carnegie News

No content in this section.

Mechanisms of cell division, homeostasis, aging, and cell fate

The Zheng lab studies cell division including the study of stem cells, genome organization, and lineage specification. They study the mechanism of genome organization in development, homeostasis—metabolic balance-- and aging; and the influence of cell morphogenesis, or cell shape and steructure,  on cell fate decisions. They use a wide range of tools and systems, including genetics in model organisms, cell culture, biochemistry, proteomics, and genomics.

 
Read Full Story
The role of organelles in the cell nucleus that synthesize and process RNA

The Gall laboratory studies all aspects of the cell nucleus, particularly the structure of chromosomes, the transcription and processing of RNA, and the role of bodies inside the cell nucleus, especially the Cajal body (CB) and the histone locus body (HLB).

Much of the work makes use of the giant oocyte of amphibians and the equally giant nucleus or germinal vesicle (GV) found in it. He is particularly  interested in how the structure of the nucleus is related to the synthesis and processing of RNA—specifically, what changes occur in the chromosomes and other nuclear components when RNA is synthesized, processed, and transported to the cytoplasm.
Read Full Story
Visualizing Lipid Metabolism and Signaling

In mammals, most lipids, such as fatty acids and cholesterol, are absorbed into the body via the small intestine. The complexity of the cells and fluids that inhabit this organ make it very difficult to study in a laboratory setting. The goal of the Farber lab is to better understand the cell and molecular biology of lipids within digestive organs by exploiting the many unique attributes of the clear zebrafish larva  to visualize lipid uptake and processing in real time.  Given their utmost necessity for proper cellular function, it is not surprising that defects in lipid metabolism underlie a number of human diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and atherosclerosis.

Read Full Story
Left and right side differences of the developing brain

The Marnie Halpern laboratory studies how left-right differences arise in the developing brain and discovers the genes that control this asymmetry. Using the tiny zebrafish, Danio rerio, they explores how regional specializations occur within the neural tube, the embryonic tissue that develops into the brain and spinal cord.

The zebrafish is ideal for these studies because its basic body plan is set within 24 hours of fertilization. By day five, young larvae are able to feed and swim, and within three months they are ready to reproduce. They are also prolific breeders. Most importantly the embryos are transparent, allowing scientists to watch the nervous system develop and to

Read Full Story

More Projects

Marnie Halpern

There is a lot of folklore about left-brain, right-brain differences—the right side of the brain is supposed to be the creative side, while the left is the logical half. But it’s much more complicated than that. Marnie Halpern studies how left-right differences arise in the developing brain and discovers the genes that control this asymmetry.

Using the tiny zebrafish, Danio rerio, Halpern explores how regional specializations occur within the neural tube, the embryonic tissue that develops into the brain and spinal cord. The zebrafish is ideal for these studies because its basic body plan is set within 24 hours of fertilization. By day five, young larvae are able to

Meet this Scientist
Joseph Gall

The first step in gene expression is the formation of an RNA copy of its DNA. This step, called transcription, takes place in the cell nucleus. Transcription requires an enzyme called RNA polymerase to catalyze the synthesis of the RNA from the DNA template. This, in addition to other processing factors, is needed before messenger RNA (mRNA) can be exported to the cytoplasm, the area surrounding the nucleus.

Although the biochemical details of transcription and RNA processing are known, relatively little is understood about their cellular organization. Joseph G. Gall has been an intellectual leader and has made seminal breakthroughs in our understanding of chromosomes, nuclei and

Meet this Scientist
William Ludington

The Ludington lab investigates complex ecological dynamics from microbial community interactions using the fruit fly  Drosophila melanogaster. The fruit fly gut carries numerous microbial species, which can be cultured in the lab. The goal is to understand the gut ecology and how it relates to host health, among other questions, by taking advantage of the fast time-scale and ease of studying the fruit fly in controlled experiments. 
Meet this Scientist
Alex Bortvin

Integrity of hereditary material—the genome —is critical for species survival. Genomes need protection from agents that can cause mutations affecting DNA coding, regulatory functions, and duplication during cell division. DNA sequences called transposons, or jumping genes (discovered by Carnegie’s Barbara McClintock,) can multiply and randomly jump around the genome and cause mutations. About half of the sequence of the human and mouse genomes is derived from these mobile elements.  RNA interference (RNAi, codiscovered by Carnegie’s Andy Fire) and related processes are central to transposon control, particularly in egg and sperm precursor cells.  

Meet this Scientist

More Scientists