Mentor Areas
The Levine Lab investigates ancient evolutionary battles that play out between our non-coding “junk” DNA and our proteins. These proteins support vital, strictly conserved functions, like the preservation of genome integrity and faithful chromosome inheritance. Yet these proteins also evolve rapidly – even very closely related species encode very diverged proteins.
Description:
This project will focus on proteins that regulate the developmental moment right after sperm meets egg but before the completion of the very first embryonic division. This seemingly conserved developmental stage is actually supported by a surprising number of fast-evolving proteins, which we suspect are battling non-coding DNAs that hijack early embryonic processes for their own selfish gain. We will test this hypothesis by using CRISPR/Cas9 to swap into the model fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, versions of these proteins from closely related species. This transgenic fly, which effectively encodes the wrong species version of an essential early embryonic protein, will be assessed for fertility and viability. We will stain the tissues of this fly with antibodies that allow us to track subcellular perturbations to chromosome movement and genome integrity. This project offers the opportunity to learn classical Drosophila genetics, evolutionary genetics, cell biology (including confocal microscopy), and molecular biology, including cloning and PCR.
Preferred Qualifications
Students with a keen interest cell biology or evolution are encouraged to apply. The student may start at any time during the academic year or summer session. Note that we cannot mentor students remotely for this work.
Project Website
Learn more about the researcher and/or the project here. Levine Lab
Details:
Preferred Student Year
First-year, Second-Year
Academic Term
Fall, Spring, Summer
I prefer to have students start during the above term(s).Volunteer
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to volunteers.Paid
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to paying students they engage in their research, regardless of their work-study eligibility.Work Study
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to hiring work-study-eligible students.