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<<News Release>>
Seven Hox transcript patterns in an embryo
How does variation in genes generate the beautiful diversity of animal body shapes that fill the world? A series of bizarre mutations in fruit flies led to the discovery that all animals, whether fish, fowl, or fly, share similar architectural control genes called Homeobox genes. These genes instruct early embryos to develop eyes in the head, appendages in the middle, and excretory and sexual organs in the rear. They provide a pattern that evolution can build on to construct organisms of incredible diversity, beauty and complexity. The discovery and study of Homeobox genes has opened a new and beautifully complex window into the development of new life and has led to an understanding of how subtle changes in Homeobox genes can lead to changes in animal form during evolution. Most satisfying, they have revealed a deep and profound kinship between all species, no matter how different they appear on the outside, that was invisible until biologists began to study the genes that control embryonic development.
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After higher education at San Jose State University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Basel, Switzerland, Dr. Bill McGinnis became a professor at Yale University, where he taught and conducted research from 1984 to 1995. At that point, he moved to the University of California, San Diego where he now holds the Herbert Stern Endowed Chair in Biological Sciences. For the past 25 years, Dr. McGinnis has been fascinated by the genetic systems that control morphological development in animal embryos. He has won numerous awards for the research that he and his students have done, including the Searle Scholar Award, the Presidential Young Investigator Award, and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher/Scholar Award.
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