Our Goals

The main aim of our research is understanding the evolutionary origins of vertebrates. This major evolutionary transition happened around 550 million years ago. It gave rise to a revolutionary new body plan by assembling a number of novel morphological features that probably helped the first vertebrates to conquer water, earth and air.

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The focus of our research is understanding the molecular and cellular basis of such morphological innovations. To this aim we use as a model system a modern representative of such transition: AMPHIOXUS.