Caeno-WHAT???
That's
Caenorhabditis elegans
(pronounced "see-no-rab-DITE-iss Eh-leh-GANZ")...
(Greek. kaino RECENT; rhabdos ROD; Latin elegans elegant)
This is the scientific name for the worm you see at left (if you have Flash Player installed, tickle it to learn what its parts are). Don't let the picture scare you--the real worm is only about 1 millimeter long! Our lab and many other labs around the world study this fascinating little worm. C. elegans is probably the most completely understood organism. Scientists have chronicled every one of the cell divisions that produce the mature 959-cell adult worm from a single fertilized egg. In a heroic scientific feat performed by hundreds of scientist on two continents, the entire 97 million basepairs of the C. elegans genome have been sequenced--this is the only multicellular organism whose entire collection of genes has literally been read! By studying C. elegans, scientists have already learned crucial lessons about cancer, Alzheimers disease, muscular dystrophies, aging, and many other important aspects of human biology. And we're learning more every day.
Want to find more information about C. elegans than you ever imagined existed?
Check out the C. elegans WWW Server at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
http://www.mcb.arizona.edu/wardlab/Caenowhat.html
All Contents Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.
Last Modified: January 18, 1999
Paul Muhlrad pmuhlrad@u.arizona.edu