Jillian Cate

I received my B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from Auburn University. I started working in the Range Lab as an undergraduate, and was able to start my master's work early through Auburn's Accelerated Bachelor/Master's program.

 

I have been interested in evolutionary developmental biology since I read Sean B. Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful as a teenager. In the course of my undergraduate studies, I found the most fascinating question in biology to be how one single fertilized egg could possibly contain all the information needed to build a complex multicellular organism. In my master's work I hope to elucidate upon a small part of that grand process by studying how fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling and putative regulators of the pathway like FGFRL1 affect body axis formation in the sea urchin model system. I am currently using morpholino oligonucleotide knockdowns, mRNA injection upregulation, chemical inhibitors, qPCR, and in situ hybridization to assess how perturbations to FGF components affect early development. 

​

My interests outside of the lab include weird music, historic buildings and cemeteries, and classic literature (besides the scientific kind). I was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama.