2021 Boyd Lecture: Finding Your Inner Fish: From Expeditions to Enhancers

2021 George H. Boyd Distinguished Lecture

"Finding Your Inner Fish: From Expeditions to Enhancers"

Neil Shubin

Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Service Professor of Anatomy, University of Chicago

Register for Zoom webinar https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sJoEBAXkQoC1SmVhyYmP2A

Shubin leads fossil expeditions around the world while directing a molecular biology laboratory that studies the great transitions in the history of life. His team is known for the discovery of Tiktaalik roseae, an ancient fish that lived at the cusp of the transition to land 375 million years ago. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Studies of fossils, embryos and genes can tell us surprising new things about the great transformations in the history of life. This talk will show how Shubin’s team designed expeditions to search for fish with arms, legs, and wrists. Using those discoveries, we can make hypotheses about the relationship between limbs and fins. Analyses of fossils, embryos and genes reveal the deep antecedents of tetrapod novelties in fish.