Blonston G (1984) Science "To build a worm."

Blonston G

[Science, 1984]

In a dimly lit laboratory room in Gottingen, West Germany, Einhard Schierenberg bent his long, angular frame over his microscope, watching and counting, recording what he saw on charts and videotapes, hour upon hour, day after day, intermittently for six years. Five hundred miles away in a tiny, starkly equipped cubbyhole in Cambridge, England, John Sulston was doing the same thing, hunched over his microscope, earphones on his head to block any sound that might divert him from the image in his eyepiece. Sometimes he would sit watching all day long, diligently marking in a notebook with his colored pens. Schierenberg and Sulston were learning, cell by cell, how to build a worm.

Nowogrodzki J (2024) Nature "How to freeze a memory: putting worms on ice stops them forgetting."

Nowogrodzki J

[Nature, 2024]

Marx JL (1990) Science "The nematode as a guide to human brain disease."

Marx JL

[Science, 1990]

Can a lowly worm help neurobiologists untangle the pathology of Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Parkinson's, and other human brain diseases? That surprising question kept cropping up at a recent Dahlem conference on degenerative brain disorders. Although progress has been made toward understanding those disorders, conference participants had to conclude that they don't yet know nearly enough about how brain cells die. And that's where the lowly worm may

Grimson A (2010) Nat Methods "A targeted approach to miRNA target identification."

Grimson A

[Nat Methods, 2010]

Bewersdorf J et al. (2011) Nat Methods "A new way to look at fat."

Walther TC, Bewersdorf J, Farese RV

[Nat Methods, 2011]

Angier N (1992) New York Times "Production of sperm is found to cut life, in a worm, at least."

Angier N

[New York Times, 1992]

The simple act of making sperm substantially shortens a male worm's life span, a researcher has discovered in results that overturn accepted biological dogma about the relative cheapness of a male's ejaculation compared with the preciousness of a female's egg. The scientist studying simple but revealing worms called nematodes found that males live much shorter lives than their mates, and he has traced that discrepancy to sperm production.

Kress E et al. (2011) Nat Cell Biol "Aurora A in cell division: kinase activity not required."

Kress E, Gotta M

[Nat Cell Biol, 2011]

Aurora A kinase is a key regulator of cell division, whose functions were attributed to its ability to phosphorylate diverse substrates. Aurora A is now shown to have a kinase-independent role in the regulation of chromatin-mediated microtubule assembly.

Habeos I et al. (2001) Trends Endocrinol Metab "Type 2 diabetes mellitus and worm longevity: a transcriptional link to cure?"

Habeos I, Papavassiliou AG

[Trends Endocrinol Metab, 2001]

In Caenorhabditis elegans, an insulin-like signalling pathway culminates in a transcription factor (TF) that is homologous to a subfamily of Tps responsible for the regulation of a subset of insulin-responsive genes in humans. Under harsh conditions, C. elegans reduces signalling through this pathway and arrests developmentally in a manner that is similar to the metabolic syndrome of humans. We propose that an understanding of this pathway could lead to drugs with optimal potency and selectivity in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Mitchell A (1998) Nature "Behavioural genetics. Worming out social secrets."

Mitchell A

[Nature, 1998]

Some species of the nematode worm (Caenorhabditis elegans) are sociable diners, clumping together to share a meal, yet others are more solitary. Why? According to a report by de Bono and Bargmann, these differences can be explained by a change of just one amino acid in a putative neuropeptide receptor.

Marx J (2002) Science "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Tiny worm takes a star turn."

Marx J

[Science, 2002]

The nematode worm known as Caenorhabditis elegans is not much to look at. Just a millimeter long and transparent to boot, it is almost invisible to the naked eye. But in biological research the tiny worm looms large, providing a model system for studying everything from embryonic development to aging. Now, three researchers who pioneered the use of C. elegans as a model organism have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.