Interests

My main scientific interests are how environment shapes development and how the process of development evolves over time to generate new structures. In my previous work, I studied the environmental and genetic regulation of the mouth development in the nematode Pristionchus pacificus, which can become either a toothed predator able to kill other worms or a microbe-slurping non-predator, depending on the concentration of pheromones and other environmental conditions.

In Desplan lab, I am mainly working with the jumping ant Harpegnathos saltator. While all animals in the ant colony are genetically identical, queens and workers have drastically different morphologies, behavior and lifestyle. The unique feature of jumping ants is that the queen’s death induces transition of some of the workers in the colony to become her substitutes. This change in the social status induces a remarkable remodeling of physiology and behavior, and an approximately fivefold extension of lifespan. Even more strikingly, this transition can be reversed in the presence of an individual that has a “more queen-like” status.

I am investigating molecular changes in the brain that accompany and enable the worker-to-substitute-queen transition and how these changes may affect the reduced aging speed in the substitute queens. Additionally, I am comparing ants and flies to elucidate how the mushroom body, the major center of learning in insects, has evolved. Finally, I am studying the molecular makeup and the logic of odor coding in ant antennae in collaboration with Hua Yan (University of Florida).

Funding

• 2020-2023 Long-term fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program
• 2023 Emerging Research Organisms Grant from the Society for Developmental Biology