Our research

The main focus of our lab is the development of multicellular organisms. In particular, we are interested in understanding how this process is robust in the sense that despite genetic, environmental and stochastic variation between individuals, development occurs reliably. We aim to understand development in two different ways:

• Studying how gene expression functions reliably in early embryogenesis of the nematode C. elegans
• Studying the role of non-coding RNAs in development in mammalian cell culture and tissue

Our primary tool is a in situ RNA detection method (FISH) that Arjun developed initially during his Ph.D. and applied to various developmental systems during his postdoc (read more here). This method relies on hybridizing many fluorescent molecules to the target RNA, thereby rendering it visible as a small spot in a fluorescence microscope. This method allows for extremely quantitative measurements of gene expression (i.e., "This cell has 57 pop-1 mRNA"). Moreover, it gives spatial information about where those RNAs are located. This is critical in development, since expression of various RNAs is generally spatially inhomogenous, with different cells expressing different genes at different times.

During his postdoc, Arjun showed that random variability in gene expression underlies the common genetic phenomenon of partial penetrance of mutant phenotypes, in which even genetically identical mutant organisms will display the mutant phenotype only some fraction of the time. You can read more about that work soon. Also, be sure to check out this slidecast to hear a short talk about this project.