Collins Lab Blog

Duboule delight

Just came back from a most fantastic seminar from Dr Denis Duboule from the Dept of Genetics and Evolution and the University of Geneva – “Hox Genes Regulation During Development”.

For folks like me who are not developmental biology aficionados it could also have been entitled “Everything you want to know about Hox genes but were afraid to ask”. Truly a fantastic seminar that really delved into a state of the art knowledge for how these genes operate to create a meta-cis clock that patterns the body during development. Along the way he masterfully wove in topics ranging from scientific history, linguistics, evolution and high-throughput sequencing. One aspect I found particularly fascinating was his discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of the Hox system and how this creates a developmental bottleneck that must be traversed by all multicellular organisms that use this system before they can specialize, a “phylotypic hourglass”.

Aside from the Hox genes being the central players in the story there was also some drama in the lecture theatre. It started out normally at the podium,

but just before the end the fire alarm was activated and everybody had to leave the building.

Completely unfazed, Dr Dubule continued lecturing from his computer screen outside the building.

 

and then took questions from the enthusiastic crowd.

It was a lively Q&A. My favorite was when his host, Natasza Kurpios his host asked him if understanding the Hox gene principles at work in squamata could lead to genetic manipulations in  a mouse that would result in a snake morphology and received the answer “It depends on how you define a snake”.

Dr Kurpios produced an awesome cake in honor of the occasion, complete with limb bud decoration. So nerdy and delicious!

If you missed this superb lecture you can listen to a lecture recording made on the occasion of Dr Duboule becoming a FRS. Unfortunately this recording doesn’t show Dr Duboule’s fantastic slides so it is impossible to follow the data presented, but it is still a great introduction to the general area.

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