John E Pool
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Ecology & Evolution
The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is one of biology's key model animals, valued for its compact genome and powerful genetic tools. This research uses flies to ask how genetic variation turns into evolutionary change.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Genetics
Biology
- Topics
Drosophila melanogaster
Drosophila simulans
fruit fly
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2029
What they work on
- Develop a genomic authentication pipeline that detects contamination in Drosophila lab stocks and characterizes their genomes, applying it to 200 widely studied stocks.
- Measure five biomedically relevant traits and sequence genomes across 100 lab sub-lines of three key fly stocks such as Canton-S, using phylogenetic methods to infer their history and identify validated lineages.
- Identify the genes and variants behind adaptive trait differences in D. melanogaster by building population genomic resources for genotype-phenotype association testing within known trait-linked regions.
- Compare chromatin, RNA and protein regulatory traits in brains of tropical and temperate flies to reveal which kinds of gene regulation most often change during adaptation.
- Map the genetic incompatibilities that reduce male fertility in hybrids of African and European D. melanogaster, and test candidate causative genes.
- Test whether ancient genetic structure or introgression (gene flow between species) explains unexpected population genetic patterns between D. melanogaster and D. simulans.
More about the research
One question is how populations adapt to new environments. Another is how populations start to become separate species that can no longer produce fertile offspring together, a process called reproductive isolation. A newer project turns the same genomic expertise toward a practical problem: making sure lab fly stocks are genetically what researchers think they are.
Why it matters
Mapping how fly populations adapt and become reproductively incompatible could clarify how disease-carrying insects are likely to evolve. It could also inform the genetics of human trait variation, miscarriage, couple infertility and inherited Neanderthal variants. Separately, validated fly stocks and an authentication pipeline could help labs worldwide get consistent, reproducible results.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Daniel Barbash
Cornell University, NY·Genetics
Identify the maternal factors in D. simulans that interact with a D. melanogaster-specific satellite DNA block, a large repetitive non-coding region, to cause chromosome instability and lethality in first-generation hybrids.
Lena Hileman
University of Kansas, KS·Ecology & Evolution
Confirm about twenty genomic regions that distinguish bee- from hummingbird-pollinated Penstemon species, using genome-wide association mapping to link them to floral syndrome traits.
Yuan Yuan Kang
University of Houston-Downtown, TX·Neuroscience
Map quantitative trait loci behind the difference in novel-arena exploration between generalist Drosophila simulans and specialist Drosophila sechellia, using a new population of recombinant inbred lines.
The school
University of Wisconsin-Madison: 91 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 854 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.