In the Spotlight-Early Career Researcher.

Abstract

Johanna is a Guest Coeditor of this special issue on Cavefish. With whom and where did you study? I completed my BA in Biology at Brown University, where I worked in Dr. David Rand's laboratory. After 2 years working as a laboratory technician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia with Dr. Michael Sebert, I joined Dr. Cliff Tabin's laboratory at Harvard University, where I began working with cavefish to investigate the genetic basis of behavioral evolution. Following the completion of my PhD in Cliff's lab, I moved to Iowa State University, where I was a postdoc in Dr. Jeff Essner's lab. Jeff's lab was using transcription activator-like effector nucleases and CRISPR/Cas9 in zebrafish, and he was kind enough to invite me to bring the cavefish with me to Iowa State, where we implemented these technologies in cavefish to functionally interrogate the genes implicated in the evolution of cave traits. What got you interested in Biology? When did you know EvoDevo was for you? I became interested in Biology primarily because of the fantastic biology teachers I had at my public high school in Newark, Delaware. However, I didn't really know that I wanted to pursue a PhD until I spent time as a lab tech after college. Being in the lab full time made me realize that I wanted to have the opportunity to conceive of and drive research projects, and motivated me to apply to graduate school. I was attracted to EvoDevo when applying to graduate schools because I was really interested in how the diversity in the animal kingdom came to be, and the EvoDevo field seemed to be a place where one could examine that question from a molecular perspective. What is your experience with setting up and running an EvoDevo lab? Overall the experience has been really positive. I was lucky enough to start a laboratory at a really exciting time for those of us working on nontraditional model species. The genomic resources and genetic tools—technologies such as CRISPR/Cas9—are providing unprecedented genetic access to these organisms. Using these resources, my laboratory can now pursue questions in cavefish that were not feasible during my time in graduate school, and really understand how genetic variants we find in nature influence complex traits such as behavior through altering developmental processes. This has made it really fun to be starting a lab at a time when we have these types of resources available. Why cavefish? I have been working with cavefish since graduate school. I think a major strength of the system is that you have so many phenotypic changes that have evolved in cavefish, yet you still have a closely related ancestral-like population that you can compare these fish to, and even cross them to in order to investigate the genetic basis of these traits. Another huge bonus to working with cavefish is the community of researchers that work on these fish, including three groups here at FAU! The community is very collaborative and supportive, and many of us work together, combining different areas of expertise, which I think ultimately allows us to do research that would be impossible in any individual lab.