Yanli Wu

Research title: Characterizing the elusive male determining (M) factor of the housefly.


My current research aims at characterizing the elusive male determining (M) factor of the housefly, under the supervision of Prof. Leo W. Beukeboom from the Department of Evolutionary Genetics in Groningen and Prof. Ernst A. Wimmer from the Department of Developmental Biology in Göttingen. The topic of research is to understand how sex chromosomes evolve. The unique polymorphic sex determination system of the housefly (Musca domestica) makes it an ideal organism for studying the initial stages of sex chromosome evolution as male and female determining factors on different autosomes constitute a range of young neo-sex chromosomes. "The first aim of my project is to molecularly characterize the male determining (M) factor and to later experimentally test theories about sex chromosome differentiation and degeneration."