A day in the life…
Developmental biology is characterised by the diversity of organisms we put under the microscope. Each one comes with its own strengths and challenges, quirks and even personalities, and researchers often develop a close affinity with their particular model. Our ‘A day in the life’ series gives insights into what it is like to work with a given organism, day in, day out, as well as showcasing the particular questions the organism is most suited to address.
Recent posts
A day in the life of a Platynereis dumerilii lab
Posted by Maggie Pruitt, on 25 June 2014
Hello! I am Maggie Pruitt, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Genetics, Development, and Cell Biology at Iowa State University (Ames, Iowa, USA – think middle America or fields …A day in the life of a C. elegans lab
Posted by S Serena Ding, on 3 March 2014
I am Serena Ding, a third year PhD student, and I work at the University of Oxford’s Biochemistry Department in the United Kingdom. I am interested in the control of …A day in the life of a butterfly lab
Posted by Leila T Shirai, on 21 February 2014
Hello! I’m Leila, a finishing PhD student in Patrícia Beldade’s lab at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Portugal. We work on different topics within Evolutionary Developmental Biology, Evo-Devo, with the …A Day in the Life of a Sea Urchin Lab
Posted by Tanvi Shashikant, on 17 February 2014
Hi! I’m Tanvi, a third year PhD student in the Ettensohn Lab at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The big question our lab is concerned with is how …A day in the life of an Ascidian Lab
Posted by Alicia Madgwick and Marion Gueroult-Bellone, on 10 February 2014
Dear The Node readers, We are Alicia (1st year PhD student) and Marion (3rd year PhD student) and we work in an ascidian lab at CNRS, Montpellier in France. Alicia’s …A day in the life of an Arabidopsis lab
Posted by Narender Kumar, on 6 February 2014
I, Narender Kumar, am a graduate student in Prof John C. Larkin’s lab. Our lab is located in the Life Sciences Building on the main campus of Louisiana State University …A day in the life of a Parhyale Lab
Posted by Erin Jarvis Alberstat, on 27 January 2014
A typical day spent in our lab’s aquarium room will find me soaked, top-to-bottom, in seawater. The other members of my lab seem not to have this issue, but I’ve …A day in the life of… a chick lab
Posted by Stephen Freeman, on 21 November 2013
Hi I’m Steve and I work in the Sensory Development lab at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan. We study the development of the chick inner ear. …Featured movie: going underwater with Parhyale, from Erin Jarvis’ post
A day in the life of one lab starts at 6.30 AM at the Point View Marina in Rhode Island – read Cat Munro’s piece to find out which hard-to-catch animals they are after
Is your model missing? Let us know – we’d love you to write a ‘day in the life’ for us
Browse the zoo!
- Arabidopsis
- Ascidian
- Axolotl
- Bat
- Butterfly
- C. elegans
- Capitella
- Chick
- Cnidarian
- Colonial tunicate
- Coral
- Cricket
- Ctenophore
- Drosophila
- Embryonic stem cells
- Gar
- Honeybee
- Hydractinia
- Lamprey
- Larval-microbe
- Lizard
- Marchantia
- Maize
- Mayfly
- Moss
- Mouse
- Oikopleura
- Onychophoran
- Parhyale
- Planarian
- Platynereis
- Rhinoceros beetle
- Sea urchin
- Shark
- Siphonophore
- Skate
- Spider
- Sponge
- Termite
- Turtle
- Xenopus
- Zebrafish
We’ve collated various model organism databases and useful links over on our Resources page