About the Lab - pursuing the best research of aphid development (追求卓越的蚜蟲發育學研究)

(Photograph: Shipher Wu; Pea Aphids: Gee-way Lin and Chun-che Chang)

• The Laboratory for Genetics and Development at the National Taiwan University (LGD@NTU) was established in April 2004 in the Department of Entomology NTU. It is the first laboratory studying embryonic development in the Department and perhaps the first lab focusing on developmental diversity in Taiwan. The LGD@NTU is led by Dr. Chun-che Chang, a scientist who was initiated his interest on developmental biology by Professor Michael Akam at the University of Cambridge.

• We aim to establish the pea aphid as a model organism for genomic and developmental studies. In the past few years we have developed molecular tools for studying aphid oogenesis and embryogenesis. We found how germ cells are specified and how they are migrating during embryogenesis in the parthenogenetic pea aphid. Recently we extended our studies to the axis determination, segmentation, and organogenesis. Current projects include egg polarity, development of germline stem cells, germline specification, and developmental signaling in both asexual and sexual pea aphids.