Drosophila is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species to linger around overripe or rotting fruit. They should not be confused with the Tephritidae, a related family, which are also called fruit flies ; tephritids feed primarily on unripe or ripe fruit, with many species being regarded as destructive agricultural pests, especially the Mediterranean fruit fly.
Thomas Hunt Morgan was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, embryologist, and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries elucidating the role that the chromosome plays in heredity.
Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück was a German–American biophysicist who participated in launching the molecular biology research program in the late 1930s. He stimulated physical scientists' interest into biology, especially as to basic research to physically explain genes, mysterious at the time. Formed in 1945 and led by Delbrück along with Salvador Luria and Alfred Hershey, the Phage Group made substantial headway unraveling important aspects of genetics. The three shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses". He was the first physicist to predict what is now called Delbrück scattering.
Drosophila melanogaster is a species of fly in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the "vinegar fly" or "pomace fly". Starting with Charles W. Woodworth's proposal of the use of this species as a model organism, D. melanogaster continues to be widely used for biological research in genetics, physiology, microbial pathogenesis, and life history evolution. As of 2017, five Nobel Prizes have been awarded to drosophilists for their work using the animal.
Seymour Benzer was an American physicist, molecular biologist and behavioral geneticist. His career began during the molecular biology revolution of the 1950s, and he eventually rose to prominence in the fields of molecular and behavioral genetics. He led a productive genetics research lab both at Purdue University and as the James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience, Emeritus, at the California Institute of Technology.
Eric Francis Wieschaus is an American evolutionary developmental biologist and 1995 Nobel Prize-winner.
The fruitless gene (fru) is a Drosophila melanogaster gene that encodes several variants of a putative transcription factor protein. Normal fruitless function is required for proper development of several anatomical structures necessary for courtship, including motor neurons which innervate muscles needed for fly sexual behaviors. The gene does not have an obvious mammalian homolog, but appears to function in sex determination in species as distant as the mosquito Anopheles gambiae.
The phage group was an informal network of biologists centered on Max Delbrück that contributed heavily to bacterial genetics and the origins of molecular biology in the mid-20th century. The phage group takes its name from bacteriophages, the bacteria-infecting viruses that the group used as experimental model organisms. In addition to Delbrück, important scientists associated with the phage group include: Salvador Luria, Alfred Hershey, Seymour Benzer, Charles Steinberg, Gunther Stent, James D. Watson, Frank Stahl, and Renato Dulbecco.
The T4 rII system is an experimental system developed in the 1950s by Seymour Benzer for studying the substructure of the gene. The experimental system is based on genetic crosses of different mutant strains of bacteriophage T4, a virus that infects the bacteria E. coli.
Ronald J. Konopka (1947-2015) was an American geneticist who studied chronobiology. He made his most notable contribution to the field while working with Drosophila in the lab of Seymour Benzer at the California Institute of Technology. During this work, Konopka discovered the period (per) gene, which controls the period of circadian rhythms.
Jean-Jacques Weigle was a Swiss molecular biologist at Caltech and formerly a physicist at the University of Geneva from 1931 to 1948. He is known for his major contributions on field of bacteriophage λ research, focused on the interactions between those viruses and their E. coli hosts.
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom is a 2005 book by the molecular biologist Sean B. Carroll. It presents a summary of the emerging field of evolutionary developmental biology and the role of toolkit genes. It has won numerous awards for science communication.
A behaviour mutation is a genetic mutation that alters genes that control the way in which an organism behaves, causing their behavioural patterns to change.
Jeffrey Connor Hall is an American geneticist and chronobiologist. Hall is Professor Emeritus of Biology at Brandeis University and currently resides in Cambridge, Maine.
Michael Warren Young is an American biologist and geneticist. He has dedicated over three decades to research studying genetically controlled patterns of sleep and wakefulness within Drosophila melanogaster.
Amita Sehgal is a molecular biologist and chronobiologist in the Department of Neuroscience at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Sehgal was involved in the discovery of Drosophila TIM and many other important components of the Drosophila clock mechanism. Sehgal also played a pivotal role in the development of Drosophila as a model for the study of sleep. Her research continues to be focused on understanding the genetic basis of sleep and also how circadian systems relate to other aspects of physiology.
Yuh Nung Jan is a Chinese-American neuroscientist. He is the Jack and DeLoris Lange Professor of Molecular Physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, where he works together with his wife Lily Jan as co-PIs of the Jan Lab.
Lily Yeh Jan is a Chinese-American neuroscientist. She is the Jack and DeLoris Lange Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, where she collaborates with her husband Yuh Nung Jan as co-PIs of the Jan Lab.
Drosophila circadian rhythm is a daily 24-hour cycle of rest and activity in the fruit flies of the genus Drosophila. The biological process was discovered and is best understood in the species Drosophila melanogaster. Other than normal sleep-wake activity, D. melanogaster has two unique daily behaviours, namely regular vibration during the process of hatching from the pupa, and during mating. Locomotor activity is maximum at dawn and dusk, while eclosion is at dawn.
Ravi Allada is an Indian-American chronobiologist studying the circadian and homeostatic regulation of sleep primarily in the fruit fly Drosophila. He is the Edward C. Stuntz Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and Chair of the Department of Neurobiology at Northwestern University. Working with Michael Rosbash, he positionally cloned the Drosophila Clock gene. In his laboratory at Northwestern, he discovered a conserved mechanism for circadian control of sleep-wake cycle, as well as circuit mechanisms that manage levels of sleep.
