This image is a simplified representation of the classic landscape of fitness. If a mutation occurs, the organism will normally fall from the top of the peak into the ditch, losing fitness and likely not surviving or reproducing.

  Dr. Garth Ilsley, in Prof Nicholas Luscombe’s Genomics and Regulatory Systems Unit at OIST and Assistant Professor Angela DePace at Harvard Medical School succeeded in modelling early regulation of development in the fruit fly Drosophila using a statistical approach that accurately predicts gene expression in the whole embryo. This study was published in the open access journal, eLIFE, on August 6th. This figure is comparison of calculated results from the model (upper half) with image data from an actual embryo (lower half). It can be seen that the mutations in stripes 3 and 7 due to the misexpression of kni (A) and hb (B) are consistent. (A) Misexpression of kni is seen as a thinner stripe 3, and stripe 3 is also cut when there are 2 copies of the transgene. (B) Misexpression of hb results in bulging, bending and cutting of stripe 3. Stripe 7 bulges when there are 2 copies of the transgene. Stripe 2 remains unaffected in both cases. 

OIST President Jonathan Dorfan at the Groundbreaking Ceremony

Lab 3 construction site

A model of IBM2 function. Top: IBM2 facilitates mRNA (red boxes) transcription over the intragenic heterochromatin (black box and lollipops). Blue boxes represent exons. Bottom: The ibm2 mutant, which cannot produce functional IBM2 protein. mRNA transcription terminates prematurely without a functional IBM2 protein.