Paul W. Sternberg

Sternberg's lab seeks to understand how the properties of an organism – its development, physiology and behavior – are encoded in its genome. They primarily use molecular genetics of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans but also apply proteomics, computational biology, biochemistry, cell biology, imaging, behavioral analysis, optogenetics, synthetic biology to not only C. elegans but also parasitic nematodes, budding yeast, mice, jellyfish, fungi, and human cells as needed.

Specific areas of current interest are:

• How does the 302-neuron worm brain assess the future environment based on computation of sensory and physiological inputs?
• Does the male worm have a neural representation of its mating partner?
• How can we best predict gene expression from DNA sequence?
• What are the functional consequences of de novo genetic variants found in individual with autism spectrum disorder?
• What changes in the nervous system occur during sleep?
• How do cells migrate accurately during development?