John Postlethwait

John Postlethwait investigates the developmental genetics, genomics, and evolution of development focusing mainly on fishes. Work in Antarctica involves an understanding of the mechanisms of sex genetics and sex determination, trying to learn how microRNAs evolved to function despite the very low temperatures of the Southern Ocean that stabilize the hydrogen bonds that must break and reform to facilitate microRNA function, the embryonic and molecular genetic response of fish embryos cultured in the lab to changing temperatures, the mechanisms of hematopoiesis in the white blooded icefish, and the expansion of emerging eukaryotic microbial parasites in Antarctic fish in a warming climate.