Research as a tool for teaching
My research program not only acquaints students with theoretical aspects and practical lab techniques in genetics, cell biology and evolutionary biology, but also gives them an understanding, as citizens, of why investing tax money in studies of strange organisms such as fruit flies can provide, in a cost-effective fashion, crucial insights into issues of human concern, such as cancer development, due to the basic similarities in tissue organization throughout the evolution of organisms.
Role of student in my research project:
I found that the analysis of time lapse movies is an excellent tool for undergraduate research, as it is easy to impart to students and can be done in the lab or at home, on their own laptops. In addition, I found that students can be very creative and find novel ways to quantify and interpret the information available. As a result, four of my previous students published their work in the Journal of Undergraduate Life Science and four others were co-authors included in my PNAS publication.
In addition, further experiments to complement our work can be done during the summer research season, requiring only a few dissecting stereoscopes and basic techniques, such as dissecting and mounting fly legs with different genetic perturbations that disrupt normal leg development.