Laura is a 1st year PhD student in Dr. Bruno Hudry’s lab. Her research focuses on the role of cellular sex in sexual dimorphism, and understanding how cellular sex influences sex differences at the behavioural level, using the Drosophila model.

For her first PhD club presentation, she discussed sexual dimorphism in food intake. Female flies eat five times more than male flies – one hypothesis is that this difference happens because female cells have two X chromosomes, whereas male cells have only one. She discussed how, in her project, she aims to identify where cellular sex plays a key role in controlling food intake, by using genetic tools to feminize different parts of the male body and apply the blue food assay to quantify food intake.  She showed her initial results on feminization of different parts of the male body, some of which are involved in food intake and others that are not.

To know more about her work and the techniques she applies, check out her presentation in the IBV common server.

(By Laura Lavocat)