Konstantin Khalturin

Jellyfish and other cnidarians as model systems

Mechanisms of animal development and evolution cannot be fully understood without studying the early brunching non-bilaterian groups - Cnidaria, Porifera, Ctenophora, and Placozoa.
Cnidarians are the most ancient animals with complex life cycles, nervous system and huge variety of body plans. Their evolutionary success depends on combining lineage-specific solutions, such as specialized stinging cells, with features deeply shared with bilaterians. What is the origin and ancestral mechanisms of life cycle regulation?  How can different body plans be generated from a single genome? Why do corals not have a jellyfish stage? In our lab, we study jellyfish and other cnidarians to answer these questions and to uncover fundamental principles of how animals develop and evolve.

Bio: I joined the Marine Genomics Unit of Professor Satoh in 2013 with the goal to develop genomic resources for my favorite model organism - moon jellyfish. Within several years the initial project expanded to the genomes and transcriptomes of other cnidarians including the giant sea anemones and corals from Okinawa. Since 2022 I lead a laboratory in Academia Sinica in Taipei, continue my jellyfish research, and collaborate extensively with former colleagues from OIST.