Current Staff
Name: William R. Jeffery, Professor of Biology; Principal Investigator
Education: Ph.D., University of Iowa, 1971.  Evolution of developmental
     mechanisms in chordates.
Research Interests: I am interested in the evolution of development. Several
     different animals are used in my research. The teleost Astyanax mexicanus is a
     single species with eyed surface dwelling and blind cave dwelling forms. I want to
     understand the developmental and evolutionary mechanisms responsible for
     phenotypic changes in Astyanax cavefish. I am also interested in the ancestry of
     the neural crest and regeneration in chordates. For this research I use sea squirts
     (ascidians), especially Ciona intestinalis, which has a completely sequenced
     genome.
Email: Jeffery@umd.edu
Sample Publications:  Jeffery, W. R. , Chiba, T., Krajka, F. R., Deyts, C., Satoh, N.,
     and Joly J. S. Trunk lateral cells are neural crest-like cells in the ascidian Ciona
     intestinalis. Dev. Biol. 2008 324: 152-160.
Name: Masato Yoshizawa, Senior Postdoctoral Researcher
Education: Ph.D., Kyoto University, 2005.  Involvement of a Rac activator, P-Rex1,
     in neurotrophin-derived signaling and neuronal migration.
Research Interests: How does an animal adapt to a new environment?
     Evolutionary changes in behavior are critical in adaptation during radical
     shifts in the environment. However, we know little about how these adaptive
     behaviors evolve and their genetic basis. I am studying evolutionary mechanisms
     of behavioral changes in Astyanax mexicanus, a single species with eyed surface
     and blind cave dwelling forms. A million years ago, the eyed Astyanax surface fish
     ancestor entered the food-scarce, light-less cave environment and radically
     changed a suite of behaviors to adapt to these conditions. By combining
     techniques from Quantitative Trait Locus (QTL)-mapping, behavioral assays, gene
     expression analyses, histology (including immunohistochemistry, in situ
     hybridization, and nerve tracing), and mathematical modeling, I am studying the
     behavioral changes that allowed Astyanax to adapt to a cave environment.
Email: yossy@umd.edu
Sample Publication:  Yoshizawa, M., Jeffery, W. R. (2008). Shadow response in the
     blind cavefish Astyanax reveals conservation of a functional pineal eye.
     J. Exp. Biol. 211: 292-299.
Name: Špela Gorički, Postdoctoral Researcher
Education: Ph.D., University of Ljubljana, 2006.  Phylogeographic and morphological
     analysis of European cave salamander (Proteus anguinus) populations.
Research Interests: I am interested in evolutionary and developmental biology. My
     post-doctoral studies are on regeneration of pigmented organs (ocelli) in the oral
     siphon of the tunicate Ciona intestinalis. I am studying the role of various genes,
     including those of the Notch signaling system, in siphon and pigment organ
     regeneration. These studies are designed to establish Ciona as a model for
     studying tissue and organ regeneration in non-vertebrate chordates. They may
     help us to understand why the adults of some chordates, such as tunicates, have
     powerful capacities for regeneration, whereas others, such as most vertebrates,
     lack the ability to replace injured tissues and organs.
Email: sgoricki@umd.edu
Sample Publications: Gorički, Š. and Trontelj, P. 2006. Structure and evolution of
     the mitochondrial control region and flanking sequences in the European cave
     salamander Proteus anguinus. Gene 378, 31-41.

Name: Li Ma, Postdoctoral Researcher
Education: Ph.D., Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
     2008. The molecular mechanisms of vertebrate neural induction and patterning.
Research Interests: Why have adult cavefish reduced or completely lost their
     eyes? Small eye primordia are formed in early during development of the
     cavefish Astyanax mexicanus, but they subsequently arrest, degenerate, and
     sink into the orbits. I am interested in the molecular and cellular mechanisms of
     eye degeneration in cavefish. It has been hypothesized that defects in the
     embryonic lens are responsible for cavefish eye degeneration, and accordingly the
     expression of alpha-A-crystallin, a chaperone controlling lens survival, is
     significantly decreased during cavefish lens development. My current research
     focuses on the function of the alpha-A-crystallin gene during cavefish eye
     development. The major questions are how and where alpha-A-crystallin
     functions in the pathway leading to normal lens development or death and the
     nature of the mutations in this gene that have led to its downregulation in
     cavefish.
Email:Lma555@umd.edu
Sample Publications: Ma L, Pan XF, Wei YH, Li ZY, Li CC, Yang JX, Mao BY (2008).
     Embryonic stages and eye specific gene expression of the local cyprinoid fish
     Anabarilius grahami in Fuxian Lake, China. J Fish Biol., 73:1946-1959.
Kelly O'Quin

Name: Kelly O'Quin, Postdoctoral Researcher
Education: Ph.D., University of Maryland, 2011.  Evolution, development, and genetics
     of opsin gene expression in African cichlid fishes.
Research Interests: My research interests include quantitative and evolutionary
     genetics.  Questions I am interested include: (1) How many loci generally
     contribute to the divergence of new species?  (2) How do changes in gene
     expression affect organismal phenotypes?  (3) How do different types molecular
     genetic mutations affect phenotypic evolution?  I address these questions via
     population genomics using fish since they include a large number of species, are
      phenotypically diverse, and have several sequenced genomes.  Finally, I am
     particularly interested in how these questions can be applied to fish eye
     development and evolution, as well as the study of human retinopathy.
Email:Koquin@umd.edu; http://life.umd.edu/labs/jeffery/Staff/kelly/index.html
Sample Publications: O’Quin KE, Smith D, Naseer Z, Schulte J, Engle SD, Loh Y-HE,
     Streelman JT, Boore JL, Carleton KL. Divergence in cis-regulatory sequences
     surrounding the opsin gene arrays of African cichlid fishes.  BMC Evo. Biol. 11:120
Name: Amy Parkhurst, Lab Technician & Manager
Education: B.S. in Molecular Biology, Grove City College, 2003.
Research Interests: There are several significant physiological differences between
     the cave and surface morphs of Astyanax mexicanus, some of which seem
     positive and others neutral to adaptation. My work mainly focuses on cataloging
     and correlating those differences in order to uncover the underlying changes in
     genetics which may of caused them. In particular I am interested in how slight
     changes in the expression of certain genes during early development can affect
     multiple pathways and traits at the same time, some in positive and others in
     negative ways. This interaction between pleiotropic genes and environmental
     pressures could explain why the cave form arose comparatively quickly from its
     surface ancestor and give us insight into the evolutionary process at large.
Email: aparkhur@umd.edu
   
   

Current Students
Name: Natalya Gallo
Education:B.S. Ecology and Evolution, 2011
Research Interests: I am interested in how fish determine the size of their
    environment and how environmental size impacts fish growth. I am focusing on
    Astyanax mexicanus cave and surface fish as my model organism to understand
    the evolution of feedback mechanisms that allow this species to regulate growth.
    My research has shown that Astyanax surface and cavefishshow different growth
    and compensatory growth behavior in response to space limitations. I am now
    exploring the chemical and genetic basis to this difference in hopes of
    understanding the cues used to regulate growth. The tools I am using include
    cortisol ELISA, dark trials, and QTL.
Email: natalya.gallo@gmail.com

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