Though he never used the silkworm himself, and his lab primarily studies the fruit fly, Hawley suggested it to Research Specialist Youbin Xiang, PhD, whom Hawley considers “a courageous scientist, a meticulous experimentalist and a terrific cytologist.” Xiang studies the process of meiosis-more specifically, the synaptonemal complex, a protein structure that forms during meiosis and is thought to mediate synapsis and recombination. Hawley remembers first reading about research in silkworms as a graduate student, and the images never left his mind. This is egg biology on a silver platter.” Hawley appreciates all of these but also loves the “beautiful eggs, hundreds of them, arranged in those four ovarioles like pearls in a necklace. The worm has a high reproductive rate as well-the female moth can lay around 500 eggs in several hours after mating. Researchers also value benefits such as the silkworm’s large size, ease of rearing in the laboratory, short generation time, and clear boundaries between different developmental stages. The growing collection of world genetic stocks includes approximately 3000 genotypes, making the silkworm second only to the fruit fly for genetic research in insects. Its rich genetic resources include 400 visible mutations, affecting many fundamental aspects of the insect’s life cycle, which have been mapped to 28 pairs of chromosomes, far more than the four pairs in the fruit fly. In May of 2020, Investigator and American Cancer Society Research Professor Scott Hawley, PhD, and his research team introduced the silkworm, or Bombyx mori, to Stowers. Newer additions include the starlet sea anemone, apple snail, and killifish. When it comes to foundational research such as that done at Stowers, there are commonly known model organisms that have been used consistently for decades-fruit fly, mouse, yeast, and zebrafish, for instance. Now, the silkworm is one of the most well-studied lepidopteran model systems worldwide, and a recent arrival at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.
Although it has been the long-standing basis of the sericulture or silk farming industry, the silkworm wasn’t often the subject of biological research until the early 1900s. KANSAS CITY, MO -The silkworm, prized for the extremely long single thread of silk that makes up its cocoon, has been domesticated for over 5000 years.
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