• Question: why would you want to study chickens and fruit flies in particular? is there an aspect of them that is especially fascinating?

    Asked by sluglife to Cedric on 10 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by Martha.
    • Photo: Cedric Tan

      Cedric Tan answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      Good question. Its not that I love these animals, it about the benefits of using these two species. Alot is known about both species, and being well-studied, there are a great number of tools and genetic information to facilitate even more studies. Yes we have very fascinating discoveries, here’s some of them. Enjoy!

      Here’s a website of a short write-up of one of my papers:

      And two videos showing other discoveries

Comments

  • Photo: Cedric

    Cedric commented on :

    Hello sluglife!
    I hope you don’t mind me adding to my answer.

    Other than sexual behaviours of the fruit flies and chickens, these organisms are also used as model organisms for studying other systems like the immune system and genetic diseases. As such, we learn more about ourselves, as we share about 60% of our genes with fruit flies and more than half our genes with chickens.

    Here’s a great video done together with a colleague of mine on the immune system (a study on chickens):