The oocyte is an organism's link to the next generation. This WWW site will highlight the research on oocytes in the Kunkel Lab and relate it to the numerous unanswered questions about oocyte physiology and development.
Calmodulin
in oocyte development Cod fish maturation,
a CMER funded project Winter
flounder yolk utilization a CMER
funded project Stereo
view of ionic currents about cockroach ovarian follicle
Oocytes are a unifying principle in all metazoans. Since they are an obligate stage and bottleneck in metazoan development, the solutions developed eons ago have been conserved in the surviving life forms. Among these conserved processes, the Kunkel Lab has focused on three key phenomena: (1) Vitellogenesis. (2) Calcium metabolism. (3) Follicle polarity and ion movement.
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at joe@bio.umass.edu