University of California, Berkeley
Dept. of Integrative Biology
3060 VLSB #3140
Berkeley, CA 94720-3140
Lab phone: 510/643-6227
Fax: 510/643-5022
Email: seonhi.jang@berkeley.edu
My work takes a closer look at the process of segmentation in the grasshopper, Schistocerca americana, an insect whose development is thought to be more representative than Drosophila of the ancestral mode of insect segmentation.
Much is known about segmentation in the long germ insect Drosophila melanogaster. In the syncytial embryo of Drosophila, segments are formed simultaneously before the onset of gastrulation through the well-studied hierarchy of maternal, gap, pair-rule, and segment polarity genes. However, in the short germ insect Schistocerca americana, most segments form sequentially in a cellular environment. In Schistocerca, unlike Drosophila, only the anterior (head) segments are patterned at the blastoderm stage. Additional segments (thorax and abdomen) are then formed sequentially in the more posterior region of the embryo as the embryo elongates via growth. Currently, relatively little is known about the molecular mechanism of this process. By using in situ hybridization to look at the expression of Schistocerca orthologs of various genes used in embryonic patterning, I would like to further understand how segments are generated in grasshoppers and how this process may have evolved during insect evolution.
In addition, I hope to functionally test the role of signaling pathways during grasshopper development. For example, by using DAPT (a Notch signaling inhibitor), I would like to examine the potential role of Notch signaling during grasshopper embryogenesis. Notch signaling has previously been shown to function during spider (Cupiennius) segmentation, possibly indicating an ancestral role for Notch signaling in arthropod segmentation. Since the insects studied thus far are evolutionarily derived and do not appear to utilize Notch signaling, I plan to look at the phylogenetically basal insect, Schistocerca, to test for a role of Notch signaling in segmentation that may have been lost in more derived insect lineages.
Education
April 2003 - present
Studies in Biochemistry at the Free University (FU) Berlin for Diplom-Degree (M.S.‚s equivalent)
March 2005 „
Vordiplom‰ Degree in Biochemistry at the FU Berlin (B.Sc.‚s equivalent) (examined in Physics, Organic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, Biology, and Biochemistry)
May-June 2005
Internship in the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, PhD A. Poustka
August 2005-May 2006
Wake Forest University (scholarship provided by AAA FU-Berlin)
Lab rotation/internship in the Department of Biochemistry, Prof. Suzy Torti, Prof. Larry Daniel, Prof. Linda McPhail
Lab rotation/internship in the Department of Cancer Biology, Prof. Frank Torti
July 2006-July 2007
Student assistant in the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetic in the Department Lehrach (Evolution and Development group, Georgia Panopoulou, Albert J. Poustka)
NIPAM H. PATEL