Hello everyone! My name is Connor Carney and I am currently a senior at the University of Arizona, majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology and minoring in Biochemistry. I am an undergraduate researcher in the Nagy lab, a developmental biology lab studying the evolution of segmentation. Many species are segmented (including us), however the way different species segment can differ. Our lab studies the insects Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly), which segments nearly simultaneously and Tribolium castaneum (the red flour beetle), which segments sequentially. We want to understand the evolutionary relationship between these two species and how segmentation has evolved from sequential in the more ancestral red flour beetle to the nearly simultaneous fashion found in the fruit fly. Outside of the lab I am an avid runner and hiker, and I can be often be found at either Tumamoc Hill or Sabino Canyon. I am very excited to continue my research journey into my senior year and share my research with you all!
Transcript:
0:01: From KXCI Tucson, this is Research Matters.
0:04: My name is Bridgitte Thum, and I have the opportunity to chat with researchers about what they’re working on in the lab.
0:11: Today we are welcoming an undergraduate research assistant from the University of Arizona, Connor Carney.
0:17: Welcome to Research Matters, Connor.
0:19: Hello, I’m so happy to be here.
0:20: What’s it like being a research assistant?
0:22: We are studying the development of segmentation in bugs and all things alike. Segmentation is basically the repeated subunits that make up our adult body plan and how those form during early development.
0:36: My job is to try and look at this one specific gene called even skipped and basically see how that contributes to the whole big picture of these little bugs becoming their adult selves.
0:45: Tell us more about even skip.
0:47: Basically it’s called even skipped because when you get rid of it, every even segment is skipped, so you only end up with half of them.
0:53: It’s a very important gene, so we’re trying to understand it and compare it to all the other species that it’s involved in that we know about already.
1:00: Even skipped sounds like some kind of Balatro joker card.
1:05: Like how is this happening?
1:07: It’s affecting all the evens.
1:10: Is there some alternate version of it that is odd skipped.
1:15: Yes, so funny enough, it is called odd skipped.
1:16: There is an even skipped and an odd skipped, but they’re all responsible for making the whole embryo.
1:21: If you knock out one of them, you’re not going to get any embryo at all because you need the odds and the evenings to get the embryo.
1:27: Yes, you need a full deck, yeah.
1:30: There is a segmentation clock that happens in early development with 3 genes.
1:34: Two of those are even skipped and odd skipped, and even skipped is the first one in those genes.
1:39: So we’re trying to understand how it works because it affects everything down the line.
1:43: We are really trying to compare it to the fruit fly because the fruit fly does something different from the species that I’m studying.
1:49: They are the evolutionarily youngest species that we understand in terms of segmentation.
1:54: Its segmentation operates very differently from most other species on Earth.
1:58: They create all of their segments nearly simultaneously.
2:01: If you were to watch a live movie of it, there’s like little stripes that form from the even skipped turning on and you would see them all just come on at once.
2:08: Whereas in my species, there is this thing called the posterior growth zone, which is this little ball at the posterior of the developing embryo and it makes kind of like a wave front, so each segment is added on one at a time.
2:19: We’re trying to understand the difference.
2:21: In the function of the even skip gene between Drosophila, the fruit fly, and the red flower beetle, which is the species that I’m studying.
2:27: We want to know why segmentation evolved to be this way in the fruit fly.
2:31: The fruit fly is more, it’s like the updated version of the red flower beetle kind of.
2:36: It’s kind of, it’s kind of like it’s really distant twice removed cousin that doesn’t really have any of the same values, but it still is alive, so it’s technically the same.
2:44: And it somehow manages to do things like way more efficiently.
2:46: Yeah.
2:48: How did you find yourself in this situation?
2:50: What led up to this moment?
2:52: I came into UA wanting to study molecular and cellular biology.
2:55: I ended up getting into my lab by joining the Ubert program, and I was fortunate to join Dr.
3:01: Lisa Nagi’s lab.
3:03: She has been studying development her whole life and she’s a very devoted developmental biologist, so it’s been a really awesome experience getting to work under her and her trusting me enough to help take on this project and to have my own little piece in her lab.
3:16: You’ve been listening to Research Matters.
3:18: Our guest today has been Connor Carney, who has been researching developmental biology at the University of Arizona.
3:25: Thank you so much for joining us today, Connor.
3:28: Thank you for having me.
3:29: I’ve loved being here.
3:31: Research Matters is produced in Tucson, Arizona at KXCI Community Radio, which is a listener-supported radio station.
3:39: To hear more episodes, visit KXCI.org.
3:42: Thank you.
