My doctoral thesis is focused on the development events that produce the embryonic shell field and post-embryonic mantle tissue of the pulmonate snail Lymnaea stagnalis. These tissues are responsible for building the molluscan shell and are therefore intimately related to the evolution of molluscan morphological diversity.

In particular, I am interested in the functional conservation of ancient signaling pathways (for example Dpp) and transcription factors (engrailed, Hox1) during shell development. I hope to develop knockdown procedures to further investigate the function of these gene products and their interactions using morpholinos, RNAi or pharmaceutical perturbation.