What the heck is a "pharyngula"?
"Pharyngula" is a term coined by William Ballard to describe a particular stage in the development of the vertebrate embryo. You may have heard that embryos go through a blastula stage, then a gastrula stage, then a neurula…pharyngula is next in the series. At the pharyngula stage, the vertebrate embryo
- is at the phylotypic stage, an evolutionarily conserved period when vertebrate embryos of all species are most similar to one another.
- has assembled at least the rudiments of most of the major organ systems.
- is expressing the well-known series of Hox genes, regulatory genes responsible for patterning the embryo.
- has a repeated series of pharyngeal arches. These are characteristic chordate tissues that form a 'basket' of cartilage and associated tissues in the throat; they contribute to jaws and facial structures, ear bones, gill arches, etc.
It's an interesting and important period of embryonic development, and happens to be the period my students and I spend our time studying in the zebrafish.
About zebrafish...
My preferred experimental animal is the zebrafish, Danio rerio. The great thing about zebrafish for research in development is that they are prolific, producing many eggs every day, and that the embryos develop rapidly, reaching the pharyngula stage 24 hours after they are fertilized.
About UMM...
This is where I work, at the University of Minnesota, Morris, one of the four campuses of the University of Minnesota system. I'm a member of the biology discipline, within the Division of Science and Mathematics.
About me...
Paul Z. MyersI'm an associate professor of biology at UMM. I created these pages to describe some of my past and current research, and to support my teaching. I can be contacted at pzmyers@pharyngula.org.
Education
| 1985 | Ph.D. in Biology, Institute of Neuroscience,University of Oregon, Eugene, OR |
| 1979 | B.S. in Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA |
| 1975-1976 | attended DePauw University, Greencastle, IN |
| 2003- | Associate Professor, Division of Science and Math, University of Minnesota, Morris |
| 2000-2003 | Assistant Professor, Division of Science and Math, University of Minnesota, Morris |
| 1993-2000 | Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Temple University |
| 1991-1993 | Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, University of Utah |
| 1988-1991 | Post-doctoral research associate with Dr. Michael J. Bastiani in the Department of Biology, University of Utah |
| 1985-1988 | VAX system manager and programmer for the Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon |
| 1979-1985 | Graduate research with Dr. Charles B. Kimmel at the Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon |
About this site...
This page is built with Expression Engine, and is being run on a PowerMac G5 and Mac OS X in my lab at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
That's my system manager and mascot, Chuck. He may look familiar: you can tell from the fact that he's an old balding gnome with a heedless hairstyle that he's gotta be a Unix geek.
About those random quotes
There are random quotes from a rather large file that are displayed at the top of the main page. Some people find some of them offensive; so do I. I do not agree with every one of them, but just find them thought-provoking, or humorous, or unbelievable...so please don't complain to me. If you've got good ones to share, though, send 'em on.
The complete quote file can be read all at once by clicking here.
