A new discovery by a scientist from The University of Western Ontario provides conclusive evidence to support decades-old evolutionary beliefs about the existence of a so-called selfish gene.
Since renowned British biologist Richard Dawkins (”The God Delusion”) introduced the concept of the ‘selfish gene’ in 1976, scientists the world over have hailed the theory as a natural extension to the work of Charles Darwin.
In studying genomes, the word ‘selfish’ does not refer to self-centred behaviour but rather to the blind tendency of genes wanting to continue their existence into the next …

Here are some Phd and Post doc positions in IBDML , France which happens to be my institute as well.Ibdml in Marseille has more that 20 groups studying various aspects of Development using different model systems and is a great place to pursue your research of interest.
3 years postdoctoral position available starting Januray 2009:
Genetic dissection of the physiology of the immune response in Drosophila
Dr. Julien Royet e-mail :julien.royet@ibdml.univ-mrs.fr
A post-doc position supported by the EC FP7 program in the team of André Le Bivic for 3 years starting from …

As evo devo deals with understanding developmental processes among various living beings on this planet in order to determine ancestral relationship between them.This requires availability of various model systems (better if we have one for each 35 phyla known) so that we can validate all the conserved genes and pathways ,which can be known from the sequence analysis.By checking the expression patterns of evolutionary conserved ones we can reach to the origin of metazoans,because expression is very important in interpreting the function in lower organisms where tools to study loss …

Genome Research is publishing several papers related to analyses of the amphioxus (Branchiostoma floridae) genome sequence. The amphioxus, or lancelet, is a cephalochordate residing in shallow regions of tropical and temperate seas, bearing resemblance to a small fish, however lacking pairs of eyes, limbs, and ears. A member of the chordata phylum along with tunicates (sea squirts) and vertebrates, amphioxus lacks the backbone or spinal column characteristic of vertebrate animals, yet shares the same basic body plan. Amphioxus is therefore an excellent model for investigating how vertebrates evolved from an …

The chordates contain invertebrate groups (amphioxus and tunicates) and vertebrate groups (the jawless vertebrates, such as the lamprey,and the jawed vertebrates).Amphioxus holds on to the last branch of the tree of chordates,closest non chordate relatives being hemichordates and echinoderms.Lancelets, or amphioxus, are marine animals resemble a worm which spend most of their lives buried in the sea floor, feeds through jawless, ciliated mouths.One will be forgiven for not being heard of Amphioxus ,an organism lacking a distinct head and possess notochord(Alexander Kowalevsky recognized the chordate affinities of this organism) that …

This is an old news article which i came across describing a very important issue about the need for new but important model organisms in evo devo studies .Drs Ronald Jenner and Matthew Wills from the Department of Biology & Biochemistry at the University of Bath U.K discuss about the various factors to be considered before selecting an organism for evo devo studies.

Lancelet or amphioxus (Branchiostoma sp), total view
Originally uploaded by artour_a

Even though evo devo was off to a slow start but i think its gaining momentum now with arrival …

In the era of Genomics as new genes are always being discovered by virtue of complete genome sequences of various organisms,there is an ever increasing need for more tools for functional validation.In order to assign functions to the new genes discovered ,reverse genetics techniques are becoming increasingly attractive as they offer the opportunity to choose the gene of interest from database and in quick time one can assign a function to that gene.With the rise in demand for knocking down gene function in the field of developmental biology ,scientists were …