The animal kingdom exhibits a wide range of diversity in terms of developmental processes and organ morphology. Understanding the origins and evolution of this diversity stands as a pivotal question in the field of evolutionary-developmental biology. My research is primarily focused on the early embryonic development and endoderm-derived organ evolution. We employ sea squirts as model systems to investigate the regulatory mechanisms and evolutionary processes from zygotic genome activation, cell fate determination to embryonic morphogenesis, and organogenesis.
