Science Seminar: David R. Sherwood, PhD

The Caenorhabditis elegans model system and how it is revealing the inner workings of ourselves

David R. Sherwood, PhD
Professor of Biology
Duke University

The soil-dwelling nematode worm C. elegans is only 1 mm long, completely transparent, and composed of only ~1000 cells. Yet, C. elegans has many of the same tissues as humans, which have over 30 trillion cells. I will talk about how this simple worm is transforming our understanding of how our cells and tissues work (as well as a few worm oddities). I will also present some of the research my lab conducts on basement membranes, a network of proteins that surrounds and supports all our tissues and plays important roles in cancer and aging.

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