User:Claire Shea

I am a master's student/research guest in the Montoya Laboratory at the University of Geneva, Switzerland (http://genev.unige.ch/en/users/Juan-Montoya/unit). I am performing a phylogenetic analysis of Hox gene regulatory regions, to study how digit development has evolved. Specifically, I am interested in how changes in Hox regulatory sequences could have led to changes in digit number (for example, why horses have one "finger" per limb, while chickens have three, and primates have five). By comparing these regulatory sequences, I hope to identify and characterize some of the genome regions which are responsible for specific digit development patterns in extant species.