International Postdoctoral Fellows Program: Development and Evolution of Crustacean Limbs

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9407753 Williams This award is under the International Junior Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellows Program, which enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twelve months of research abroad at research centers of proven excellence. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twelve-month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. Terri A. Williams to work with Dr. Gerd B. Muller at the University of Vienna on the development and evolution of crustacean limbs. The relationship between the development and evolution of limb morphology has been explored mostly by comparing cellular mechanisms responsible for generating vertebrate limbs and by dissecting the role of patterning molecules in early Drosophila embryology. Dr. Williams proposes to bridge these two approaches by examining crustacean limb development. Little is known about the cellular mechanisms that form limbs in arthropods. Much of the patterning found in Drosophila may be unique to an animal that undergoes radical change in form and during metamorphosis develops adult limbs from small pockets of epithelial cells. She will look for underlying themes of limb development by directly comparing the cellular mechanisms involved in the formation and proliferation of different crustacean limb morphologies. ***