Eric Wieschaus, Nobel Laureate and professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, discussed the clinical applications of basic science research before a standing-room only crowd Friday afternoon.
The speech was the culmination of the seventh annual Graduate Student Symposium in the Biological Sciences, which also highlighted several graduate students' works.
Wieschaus and his colleagues have spent almost 20 years conducting tests on the development of fruit fly embryos. The endeavor earned the 1995 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for him and Eric Lewis, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, and Christiane Nusslein-Volhard, a professor at the Max-Planck-Institut für Virusforschung in Germany.
The speech recounted the team's prize-winning work only as a starting-point in discussing his lab's current research on the factors that control fruit fly development.
"The genes in flies [that control embryonic development] and the genes in humans are the same," he said in an interview with The Chronicle following his speech. Therefore, research on other organisms can improve understanding of human physiology, he added.
Wieschaus' most recent research focuses on the protein APC-a tumor suppressor gene in humans-and its role in blocking a protein known as "armadillo", which aids embryonic development.
A fruit fly embryo saturated with the protein becomes highly segmented and reminded Wieschaus of an armadillo.
In some cases armadillo and its equivalent in humans, beta-catenin, harm the development of certain body parts. Because APC protein may block armadillo, Wieschaus tested whether it could be used to promote correct development in these cases. Based on the results, "APC's role then might be to control cell shape changes," he said.
Wieschaus added that this question is his main research goal. "I think I would like to understand how cells move and change shape," he said.
The Nobel work established the mechanism through which the cells of developing embryos differentiate themselves into a variety of cell types and tissues.
Although cutting-edge at the time, these discoveries have already found their way into undergraduate cell biology classes.
Wieschaus said the instruction of his fruit fly research to undergraduates, "would've have surprised me at the time I was doing [the research].... Those were great experiments," he said.
The application of these experiments to clinical studies makes them particularly relevant to undergraduates, Wieschaus said. "These aren't just purely esoteric, they are powerful techniques," he said.
Wieschaus welcomed his opportunity to work with University graduate students. "Science is so hard, that you actually have to love doing the work," he said. "On the one hand, it is a very difficult and demanding profession, and on the other hand, the pleasures involved are so great."
Kristina Flores, a fourth-year graduate student in pathology, said the symposium is a valuable chance to share her research and methodology with fellow researchers.
The graduate poster session, a forum reminiscent of a science fair, was part of the day's events.
Fourth-year genetics graduate student Alison Meloni said that the event offered graduate students from the different biological sciences departments an opportunity to learn about research throughout the University. She praised Wieschaus, calling him "a very entertaining and animated speaker."
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