Department                            Developmental Biology

Principal investigator            Willy Baarends

E-mail address                        w.baarends@erasmusmc.nl

Sex determination in Ellobius Lutescens

Supervisor: WM Baarends, w.baarends@erasmusmc.nl

We have generated new whole genome sequencing data to build a better version of the Ellobius genome. We use a special software program to find candidate sex determining genes. Possible candidates will be further verified through expression analyses and functional experiments in cell lines, or mouse models.

Techniques

• Bioinformatics
• Quantitatie (RT)-PCR
• Immunocytochemistry
• Cell culture
• Microscopy

(In vitro) meiosis and sex determination

Supervisor: WM Baarends, w.baarends@erasmusmc.nl

We are using mouse embryonic stem cell lines and human iPSC lines to try to setup a procedure to recapitulate male and female germ cell development in vitro. To this end we have to generate both somatic supporting cells and primordial germ cell-like cells and then perform cocultures to make ovary or testes “organoids”. We wish the use these models to recapitulate sex determination and gametogenesis (in particular meiosis) in vitro to answer basic questions related to the intricate molecular regulation of these processes. In addition we use mouse models to study the mechanism of homologous chromosome pairing during meiotic prophase, and to assess the quality of meiosis progression in our in vitro models by comparison. You would work on one of the sub-projects (somatic cell differentiation, or germ cell differentiation, in vitro models, or mouse model).

Techniques

• Cell culture
• Analyses of mRNA and protein expression
• Gene targeting
• (superresolution) microscopy
• Bioinformatic analyses