Our team studies how animals develop and regenerate their body during their lifetime, from the early embryo to the ageing adult. We explore these questions in species that have not been well studied before, to discover new biological mechanisms and to understand how animals evolve.

Regeneration

Some animals can regenerate their body after a severe injury. How they achieve this is still poorly understood.  We study leg regeneration in the crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis  to address the following questions:

1)  Which progenitor cells are recruited to make the diverse cell types that make up a leg?   We use genetic markers, live imaging and cell tracking to address this question.

2)  To what extent does regeneration mirror development?  Are the same genetic instructions used to develop a leg in the embryo and to regenerate it in the adult?

3)  How is the leg injury sensed, and what triggers regeneration?

4)  How does regeneration evolve?  Do different animals use similar mechanisms to regenerate their organs?
Crustacean leg (blue) regenerating within the exoskeleton (green). Photo by F. Alwes.

New tools and emerging systems

Model organisms such as flies and mice provide powerful genetic tools for studying development, but they allow us to probe only a fraction of the biological diversity found in nature. To extend the reach of developmental genetics research, we develop new tools in emerging model organisms – notably in the crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis and the beetle Tribolium castaneum.

Our work focuses on:
  • Establishing transgenesis in new species
  • Establishing widely applicable genetic tools, such as CRISPR-mediated gene editing, clonal analysis and lineage recording
  • Establishing genomics and transcriptomics resources for Parhyale
  • Establishing methods for live imaging and cell tracking
The crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis (top) and developing embryos of the beetle Tribolium castaneum (bottom). Photos by V. Moncorgé and A. Peel.

Past projects

In the past, our team has also worked on the following topics:
  • Body axis formation and segmentation
  • Hox genes and body plan evolution
  • Origin of evolutionary novelties
  • Molecular evolution, including trans-splicing



Tools
Translate to