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Research – Ratcliff Lab @ Georgia Tech

ratclifflab.biosci.gatech.edu · 622 words · saved by 1 readers

For a list of Prof. Ratcliff’s publications, check the “Publications” section, or his Google Scholar profile. The evolution of multicellular organisms from unicellular ancestors was critical to the evolution of large, complex organisms. While multicellularity has evolved more than 25 times independently during the last 3.5 billion years on Earth, the first steps in this transition remain poorly understood. In our lab, we use experiments and theory to understand: Our main model system is “snowflake yeast”, which we originally obtained from a unicellular genotype of Baker’s yeast (strain Y55) simply by selecting for rapid sedimentation through liquid media. Snowflake yeast have an emergent multicellular life cycle, in which daughter cells fail to separate from their mothers, resulting in the growth of branched groups. These groups grow, until strain resulting from cell division severs a cell-cell connection, resulting in the release of a propagule. It turns out that novel multicellular

For a list of Prof. Ratcliff’s publications, check the “Publications” section, or his Google Scholar profile . Evolution of multicellularity The evolution of multicellular organisms from unicellular ancestors was critical to the evolution of large, complex organisms. While multicellularity has evolved more than 25 times independently during the last 3.5 billion years on Earth, the first steps in this transition remain poorly understood. In our lab, we use experiments and theory to understand: Under what conditions does multicellularity evolve? How do dumb clumps of cells evol

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