Holley Lynch, Associate Professor of Physics
Establishing Vanessa Cardui as a System for Embryo Research
Painted lady butterflies, Vanessa Cardui, are ideal for research with undergraduate students because butterflies are invertebrates with a relatively fast life cycle that lay eggs every day for several weeks at a time. Currently, Dr. Lynn Kee’s lab observations of the effect of genetic changes were all done at the caterpillar stage and beyond. Last year, we successfully collected the first images of embryo development in this species. This project will build on that success by making V. Cardui embryos a flexible system for student and faculty researchers by establishing temperature-based staging charts and developing a protocol to access tissues and cells in a living embryo. Achieving the first aim will allow researchers to schedule experiments to take advantage of peak egg-laying times regardless of the interest stage. Completing the second aim will allow the use of biophysical techniques from
imaging to mechanical manipulation on these embryos. This project has the potential to have a huge impact on the field by taking live images of cell movements at the embryo stage for any butterfly species.