Beck Lab
Our lab uses tadpoles of the clawed frog Xenopus laevis to study development and regeneration of appendages and to understand how mutations in over 100 genes lead to developmental and epilieptic encephalopathy (DEE) in humans.
Highlights
Our Research
Our lab is based in the Zoology Department at the University of Otago in Dunedin, on Te Waipounamu, the south island of New Zealand.
Our Projects
We use molecular genetic, bioinformatic and neuroscience techniques to ask interesting questions about how animals develop from a single cell to a complex adult organism. Our current research is mainly focussed on two projects:
- Determining the role of the holobiont in tadpole tail regeneration, and how the microbiome is acquired, shaped and maintained.
- Developing pre-clinical models of genetic epilepsy (DEE) using CRISPR/Cas9 editing using Xenopus tadpoles, with the aim of finding new targets for future therapies.
Our Team
Principal Investigator Associate Professor Caroline Beck directs a small team of researchers and students.