Work in our laboratory focuses on the developing mammalian eye as a model
system for understanding organogenesis.
Across Metazoa, the Pax6 gene resides high in the genetic regulatory
hierachy controlling eye formation. Insights from Drosophila have
provided considerable insight into the nature of the eye forming genetic
hierachy, and it has been possible to extrapolate some of these findings to
mammals. We have used naturally
occuring mouse mutants and knockout mice that lack the function of Pax6,
Msx, Eya and other genes implicated in eye development to begin
to order the actions of these genes into a regulatory pathway. We have taken
a multidisciplinary approach to this problem, including the application of
experimental embryology, molecular biology and biochemistry, and human and
mouse genetics.
An exciting theme emerging from this work is that the genetic
regulatory pathways controlling eye development are not only evolutionary
conserved, but are also utilized in the genesis of different mammalian organs
besides the eye.
