Pitt professor of biological sciences Mark Rebeiz searches for the moment when a gene mutates to produce evolutionary novelties, from an elephant’s trunk to the horn on a beetle
PITTSBURGH—How did the elephant first get its trunk or the turtle its shell? These are the types of questions University of Pittsburgh biologist Mark Rebeiz hopes to answer with his research. Rebeiz looks for that moment when a gene’s function and expression change to produce “novelties,” characteristics with no genetic precedent, such as the horn of a beetle or the eyespots on a butterfly’s wings.
