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My lab is interested in the way genes interact to control interesting processes in complex organisms, with particular emphasis on generation of complex behaviors and neural degeneration. We use the non-pathogenic fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model. Since a major fraction of critical genes, proteins, and developmental and neural mechanisms are conserved between flies and vertebrates, a substantial fraction of our findings are directly or indirectly informative about humans. Much or our current work focuses on the gene and neural networks controlling sexual behavior and orientation. Since males and females generate sex-specific behaviors, this is a powerful system in which to dissect development of mutually exclusive behaviors. Overview | Research | Grants/Awards | Teaching | Publications
I grew up and attended public schools in northern California before entering Stanford. While there I spent two years in the Phil Hanawalt's lab working on nucleoside metabolism in E. coli. As an NSF Predoctoral Fellow, I did my graduate work at the University of California, San Diego, studying the actin multigene family of Dictyostelium with Rick Firtel. I began my studies of Drosophila and sexual differentiation as a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow with Bruce Baker. From there I joined the faculty of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (founded by Jonas Salk), where I also served as an adjunct faculty member at UCSD. While at Salk, I was named a Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences. In 2000 I came to Brown as a Professor of Medical Science at Brown.
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![]() MICHAEL MCKEOWN, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 1981 http://research.brown.edu/myresearch/Michael_McKeown On The Web: Michael McKeown Fly mutation suggests link to human brain disease Are you Michael McKeown? Click here to edit your research profile. |