Gad Shaulsky
Developmental genetics in DictyosteliumSocial organisms must deal with cheaters – individuals that reap the benefits of sociality without paying the costs. In Dictyostelium, some cells sacrifice themselves to benefit other cells that may be genetically different, providing a fertile ground for cheating. Dr Shaulsky is collaborating with Dr. Strassmann and Dr. Queller to investigate the genes that regulate social interaction. They are using genetics to find and characterize genes that determine social decisions, find whether they are involved in rapid-evolution arms races, and test how cooperators resist cheating (Foster et al., 2004).
Adam Kuspa
Signal transduction, cell differentiation, and genomics of Dictyostelium discoideum Dr. Kuspa is interested in those aspects of Dictyostelium biology that are common to all eukaryotic organisms, and that will be informative for defining both the function of individual genes and the organization of regulatory hierarchies that operate in development. The relative simplicity and genetic tractability of organisms such as Dictyostelium should prove to be advantageous for genomic analyses of multicellular development.
