10 Phd and 3 post doc positions are available in an EU-funded Initial Training Network (ITN) called “EVONET”. EVONET consists of 8 European groups working on different model organisms representing all major animal lineages. It aims to understand the evolution of Gene Regulatory Networks in a variety of animal model systems representing most major animal phyla: Cnidaria, sea urchins,
urochordates, vertebrates, polychaetes, basal arthropods and the fruit fly.

A recent phylogenomics study carried out by Cassey Dunn and colleagues placed Ctenophores ( comb jellies) at the base of metazoan tree , meaning a place much lower than phylas occupied by more morphologically simple animals like Porifera ( sponges ) and Placazoa (Trichoplax adhaerens).Before this study by Dunn et al, it was always believed that group’s evolutionary history is somewhat related to animals morphological complexity , which gradually increases from Placozoa,through Porifera to Cnidaria and finally Ctenophora, being more complex among the non bilaterian group of animals.But the …

Introduction: What is Gene regulation?
Since the discovery of first example of gene regulation by François Jacob and Jacques Monod in 1961 in the form of lac operon, continuous efforts are being put in by various scientists for better understanding the mechanism underlying, how genes are regulated within cells. Gene regulation includes events that will allow cells to convert the message coded in DNA (genes) into gene products (Proteins or RNA). Gene regulation, is quite a complex process involving cross-talk between different proteins that will allow cells to know- when, …

A postdoctoral position is available in our lab for conducting research in the developmental genetics of evolutionary novelties and convergent phenotypes. These last two years, we set-up breeding colonies of non-classical model organisms (within mammals and reptiles) necessary for these studies. The successful applicant will work on identifying the generative mechanisms underlying specific evolutionary novelties and convergences both at the genomic and phenotypic levels. This work is, by essence, highly multidisciplinary and integrative and will require techniques such as:
1. comparative transcriptomics (using ultra-fast 454 / Solexa …

Elaine C. Seaver’s lab(Kewalo Marine Laboratory) is interested in understanding the origins of body plan novelty during evolution and to answer some questions uses Capitella sp. I , a polychaete annelid, as a developmental model. One of the primary interest of Seaver’s lab is decipher the mechanism of evolution of the segmented body plan in the Metazoa. All the segmented animals both marine and terrestrial are contained in 3 major clades: chordates, arthropods, and annelids. It is likely that if 2 species share a common segmented ancestor the mechanisms by …

The brownsnout spookfish (Dolichopteryx longipes)is a deep sea dweller and hit the headlines across the scientific field for the way it sees the outer world. Deep oceans hold many secrets and spookfish with four eyes is out there competing with the very best for the top spot.Recent research has shown that it is the first vertebrate to use mirror instead of lens to see the world around in deep ocean. In fact these spook fishes does not have four eyes but has just two eyes, each eye has two parts, …

In one of the first of kinds, Japanese biologists successfully able to clone a bull using cells recovered from testicles that had been taken from a dead animal and frozen without cryoprotectant in a −80°C freezer for 10 years.This makes first report of the resurrection of a dead livestock specimen from a non-cryoprotected frozen organ by cloning raising the hopes of restoring extinct species, such as woolly mammoths, if we are able to retrieve some live cells from an organ or animal that has been frozen in a freezer or …