Gene regulation, cell fate, and the evolution of neural diversity
We study how the dynamics of gene regulation decide what a cell becomes and how those decisions have been modified across species to build different brains.
The lab
Our work centers on the insect visual system. In Drosophila, every photoreceptor type is known, along with how its fate is specified during development and how it is wired into the brain. That reference lets us recognize the cell types other insects have added, repurposed, or rearranged over hundreds of millions of years, and find the genetic changes responsible.
Three questions organize the lab. How do the timing and continuity of transcription set the probability and reliability of a cell fate? How do new neuron types and circuits evolve? And how is a retina divided into regions, and what does that do for the animal? We answer these questions with Drosophila genetics, live imaging of transcription, single-cell genomics, CRISPR and transgenesis in house flies, mosquitoes, and butterflies, and, most recently, directed differentiation of human retinal cells.
The lab is part of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at UC San Diego, and we are always glad to hear from prospective students and postdocs.
Latest
Butterflies see more color than flies in part because they added a photoreceptor to every unit of the compound eye. Our paper in Science Advances (Gao et al., October 2026) finds the genetic change behind the extra cell, recreates it in a “butterfly-fly,” and shows that the brain was ready for it: neurons that would normally die are retained to wire in the new input.
Read the paper · UCSD Today story
In the news: Earth.com, Times of India
Cell fate ratios are encoded by transcriptional dynamics
Current Biology publishes Ainsworth and Zhao et al., showing that the dynamics of spineless transcription set the ratio of R7 photoreceptor subtypes in the Drosophila retina. Co-first authors Julia Ainsworth and Tim Zhao are PhD students in the lab. Read the paper.
The insect eye ground plan is deeply conserved
PNAS publishes Gao et al., "Deep conservation complemented by novelty and innovation in the insect eye ground plan." Read the paper.
NIH EDGE award begins
An NIH NHGRI award through the EDGE program (R01HG013634) begins, supporting the lab's comparative retina work.