In collaboration with the Stein Lab at ISU and the Lyko lab in Germany we are developing molecular tools to facilitate the adoption of the marbled crayfish (P. virginalis) as a behavioral, physiological, and genetically amenable system.
To this end, our team is generating protocols for crayfish transgenesis, as well as an annotated genome, and a library of plasmids constructed to effectively manipulate gene expression in these animals.
Casey Gahrs (front) is currently investigating the nature of serotonergic signaling in the marbled crayfish while Abigail Benson (right) is testing the role of gaop junctions in escape behavior for these animals.
In addition to these projects, PIs Vidal-Gadea (left) and Stein (right) are working to establish gene editing techniques (CRISPR) through a collaboration with our German counterparts and the Rasgon lab at Penn State.
