Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard is a German developmental biologist whose genetic screens in fruit flies identified genes controlling early embryonic development. She shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Edward B. Lewis and Eric F. Wieschaus.

Drosophila melanogaster: The common fruit fly, a model organism used extensively in genetics and developmental biology. Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus used fruit flies to screen for mutations affecting embryonic patterning.
Segmentation gene: A gene whose activity helps divide an insect embryo into repeated body regions. Mutations in these genes produced characteristic disruptions in the embryo’s segment pattern.
Eric F. Wieschaus: An American developmental biologist who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize with Nüsslein-Volhard and Edward B. Lewis. He collaborated with Nüsslein-Volhard on the large-scale Drosophila mutant screens.
Mutagenesis: The induction or occurrence of changes in genetic material that can produce mutations. Chemical mutagenesis generated the fruit-fly variants that made her screens possible.
Zebrafish: A small freshwater fish widely used as a vertebrate model in genetics and developmental biology. Nüsslein-Volhard later helped establish zebrafish as a model for studying vertebrate development.
Gap gene: A segmentation gene whose mutation removes broad, contiguous regions of an insect embryo. Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus identified gap genes as early regulators of regional identity.
Edward B. Lewis: An American geneticist whose work on fruit-fly homeotic genes earned a share of the 1995 Nobel Prize. His discoveries on body-region identity complemented the embryonic patterning work recognized by their shared prize.
Ethyl methanesulfonate: A chemical mutagen that introduces point mutations in DNA. It was used to create mutations for systematic screens of fly embryonic development.
Forward genetics: An approach that identifies genes by first finding heritable phenotypes and then locating their genetic causes. Her fly screens began with altered embryos and traced their defects back to genes.
Pair-rule gene: A segmentation gene whose mutation disrupts alternating body segments in an insect embryo. Their screens revealed pair-rule genes acting downstream of broad regional cues.

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