Sea Urchins Are Us

Science Blog features this post about the Sea Urchin Genome Sequencing Project Consortium, an international, multi-institutional collaboration to sequence the sea urchin genome. Sea urchins, close relatives of vertebrates, have been studied extensively for more than 150 years as a model system of embryonic development. Science has a special online sea urchin edition here.

One of the principal investigators on this project is Charles Ettensohn, a professor of biological sciences at Carnegie Mellon, whose role is detailed here. (Click here for a picture of a sea urchin embryo.) In case you are wondering why you should care about sea urchins, it turns out they are very useful in the study of developmental biology. Sea urchin embryos develop rapidly, which makes it easy for scientists to watch life advance in real time. They also are transparent, making it simple for scientists to witness developmental processes. This transparency also makes for some dramatic, wonderful images as well.

Not bad for a lowly echinoderm.

Erin Martin