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The essence of the developmental biology is to understand how the blueprint
in the genome is implemented to build a complex multicellular
organism. "Ming-boggling" questions such as regarding the formation of a
vast and complex neuronal structure of human brain can be approached by
first trying to understand the formation of the nervous system in fruitfly
Drosophila -- a relative simple experimental organism amenable to
sophisticated genetic and molecular analysis.
The stereotyped three dimensional structure of the Drosophila central
nervous system is derived from a two dimensional neuroectodermal cell
layer. The neuronal precursor cells called neuroblasts divide
asymmetrically in a stem-cell-like mode for 5 to 10 times, producing a
neuroblast and a ganglion mother cell in each step. A ganglion mother cell
gives rise to two postmitotic neurons or glial cells, forming about 350
neurons and 30 glial cells per hemisegment. We will use genetic method to
identify and use molecular biology to clone genes controlling these
processes. We will study how these gene products function by using a
combination of transgenic, genetic, molecular biological and biochemical
methods. In addition, the entire Drosophila genome will be sequenced by
the end of 1999, novel approaches, such as the gain-of-function
genetics, RNA-interference and bioinformatics, will be explored for
assigning functions to sequences in the exciting post-genome era.
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