Eric Haag
University of Maryland, MD·Genetics
How do brand-new traits arise from ancestors that lacked them? Caenorhabditis nematodes, tiny roundworms, offer a clear case.
- Fields
Genetics
Ecology & Evolution
Biology
- Topics
evolutionary developmental biology
evo-devo
Caenorhabditis elegans
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Reconstruct how FOG-2, a protein found only in C. elegans, evolved from a large family of F-box proteins to become an essential regulator that lets hermaphrodite worms make sperm.
- Determine how a newly recognized interaction between FOG-2 and newly made TRA-2 protein, a female-promoting factor, lets FOG-2 act only on sex determination despite partnering with the broad RNA regulator GLD-1.
- Trace the steps by which SHE-1, an F-box protein in C. briggsae that binds neither GLD-1 nor TRA-2, independently evolved to control hermaphrodite sperm production.
More about the research
In several lineages, self-fertile hermaphrodites evolved from females by gaining the ability to make a limited number of sperm. The change is a simple switch in one tissue, the germ line (the cells that become eggs or sperm), from egg to sperm fate. Because germ cells exist across animals, and because self-fertility reshapes population genetics and sexual selection, this switch is a useful model for how new features evolve.
Why it matters
This is basic science on how new developmental features evolve. Showing how self-fertility arose twice by different molecular routes adds understanding of how germ cells decide between egg and sperm, a process shared across animals, and of how flexible the genetics of sexual adaptation can be.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Leslie Pick
University of Maryland, MD·Genetics
Determine how the milkweed bug Oncopeltus achieves pair-rule segment patterning without the canonical pair-rule genes used by Drosophila, using expression analysis, RNA interference and CRISPR/Cas9.
Timothy Linksvayer
Arizona State University Campus Immersion, AZ·Ecology & Evolution
Identify the gene regulatory networks that control the development of obligate sterility in ant workers, which completely lack reproductive organs.
Wen Tang
Ohio State University, OH·Genetics
Determine how transcription of piRNA genes is regulated in C. elegans, using laboratory experiments combined with computational analysis.
The school
University of Maryland: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 602 research doctorates a year.
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