SoS 222: Dr. Srivastava discusses the evolutionary processes behind regeneration

Dr Mansi Srivastava of Harvard University joins Chris and Courtney to talk about her research on regeneration throughout evolution. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Srivastava's research focuses on understanding the evolution of animal development and regeneration. Her group utilizes the three-banded panther worm, Hofstenia miamia, which Dr. Srivastava has developed as a new acoel model system. Acoels represent the sister-group to all animals with bilateral symmetry, which allows the study of genetic mechanisms that span 550 million years of animal evolution. Current projects in her lab range from identifying gene regulatory networks for regeneration to determining the embryonic origins of pluripotent stem cells to understanding the origins of bilaterian nervous systems. Her lab website can be found here: www.srivastavalab.org/ The following are citations for the articles mentioned on today’s show: Srivastava M. (2021). Beyond Casual Resemblance: Rigorous Frameworks for Comparing Regeneration Across Species. Annual review of cell and developmental biology, 37, 415–440. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-cellbio-120319-114716 Gehrke, A. R., Neverett, E., Luo, Y. J., Brandt, A., Ricci, L., Hulett, R. E., Gompers, A., Ruby, J. G., Rokhsar, D. S., Reddien, P. W., & Srivastava, M. (2019). Acoel genome reveals the regulatory landscape of whole-body regeneration. Science (New York, N.Y.), 363(6432), eaau6173. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau6173 Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Chris Lynn, Host Website: cdlynn.people.ua.edu/, E-mail: cdlynn@ua.edu, Twitter:@Chris_Ly Courtney Manthey, Guest-Co-Host, Website: holylaetoli.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Anahi Ruderman, SoS Co-Producer, HBA Junior Fellow E-mail: aniruderman@gmail.com