Cassandra G. Extavour
Assistant Professor, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138

Work in my laboratory focuses on the molecular mechanisms of early embryonic development, particularly the mechanisms of cell type specification and morphogenesis. Our objective is to understand the ancestral mechanisms controlling these processes that may have operated in the embryos of bilaterian and metazoan last common ancestors. To answer these questions, we study five different arthropod “emerging” model organisms using molecular and developmental techniques based on classical experimental embryology, gene expression and functional genetic analysis, transgenesis, live imaging, and transcriptomics.

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