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Tomancak Lab receives ERC Starting Investigator Grant

The European Research Council (ERC) announced the outcome of its third competition for Starting Investigator Grants. Out of 2873 submissions, the ERC will fund 427 proposals (by principal investigators from 39 nationalities) at host institutions in 26 different countries. Among them is Pavel Tomancak, MPI-CBG research group leader, with his project "Quantitative Analysis of the Hourglass Model of Evolution of Development”.

The goal of the research is to elucidate the nature of the constraints that have led to the remarkable morphological conservation in early development of animals within each major animal group (phylum). The so-called phylotypic period is preceded and followed by greater morphological diversity resulting in the characteristic ”hourglass” pattern of divergence. The existence of the phylotypic period fascinated biologists since the times of von Baer (the father of embryology), Haeckel and Darwin, and it remains one of the most visible manifestations of common descent. Yet relatively little is known about the mechanism that leads to the conservation of embryo morphology during mid-embryogenesis.

The Tomancak group has recently uncovered the signature of the developmental hourglass on the level of gene expression among set of Drosophila species separated by up to 40 million years of independent evolution. This opens up new horizons as these species are one of the best studied experimental model systems and the use of advanced reverse genetic manipulation, high-resolution imaging and quantitative image analysis promises better understanding of the properties of gene regulatory networks that underpin the developmental hourglass. “We hope to catch a glimpse of processes that shaped, in deep evolutionary time, the remarkable diversity of animal forms observed today” says Pavel Tomancak. His group will receive from the ERC approximately 1.5 million Euros over five years to study the subject.