Event Date
"Evolution of the Destruction Complex in the Wnt/l3-catenin Signaling Pathway: Insights from Non-Bilaterian Metazoans"
Athula Wikramanayake is a Professor and the Chair of Biology at the University of Miami. He earned his doctorate from UC Davis and conducted his dissertation research at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory. Dr. Wikramanayake is an evolutionary cell and developmental biologist and his research utilizes marine invertebrate embryos to reconstruct pivotal events in animal evolution. His work established the ancient and conserved role of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in specifying and patterning the primary embryonic axis in metazoan embryos. Ongoing work in his lab is focused on understanding how developmental information that is differentially sequestered along the primary axis of an oocyte is used to regulate early development, and how changes in localization of key determinants within the oocyte may have led to major evolutionary changes in animal body plans. In more recent work, his lab has been using new AI tools and insights from early emerging metazoans to reconstruct the evolution of key regulatory modules of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway.
About the Series
The Anu and Hari Reddi Endowed Seminar in Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine was established in 2023 by Anu and Hari Reddi to create a basic science seminar series with a focus on developmental biology and regenerative medicine. Hari Reddi, a professor emeritus of orthopedics at the UC Davis School of Medicine, is known for his work with the BMP protein, which was a major breakthrough in the field of developmental biology.