Guest Editors
Alfredo Varela-Echavarría
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
Dr. Alfredo Varela-Echavarría is a developmental biologist studying regeneration in garden slugs. He holds a degree in biology from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL) and a PhD in molecular genetics and microbiology from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He began his research career in developmental neurobiology as a postdoctoral fellow at Guy’s Hospital, King’s College London, and continued this work at the Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He also conducted sabbatical research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH) and the Department of Biology at Duke University. He is currently a tenured senior researcher at UNAM, where he leads the team that pioneered the use of the land slug Deroceras laeve as a model for regeneration studies.
Jerónimo R. Miranda-Rodríguez
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
Jerónimo R. Miranda-Rodríguez is a researcher developing genomic approaches and resources to study regeneration in garden slugs. He holds a degree in genomic sciences and MSc and PhD degrees in biochemistry from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He completed postdoctoral training at the Helmholtz Zentrum in Munich, where he studied the development and regeneration of the lateral line in zebrafish. He is currently a junior researcher (Investigador Asociado C) at the Instituto de Neurobiología, UNAM. His research is providing new insights into the mechanisms of regeneration in the slug Deroceras laeve.
Collection Overview
Mollusks, one of the most abundant and diverse animal groups, possess a remarkable capacity for regeneration, but the underlying processes remain poorly understood. Their varied body plans comprise complex respiratory, circulatory, digestive, immune, and central nervous systems. Each of these systems offers a unique opportunity to explore regeneration mechanisms across different tissues and compare them with those of other invertebrates and vertebrates. However, a significant obstacle to researching mollusks has been the limited availability of reproducible experimental techniques adaptable across species, laboratories, and research questions.
This collection provides tools to address the significant knowledge gap in animal regeneration by presenting novel techniques for studying mollusks. These approaches will enable developmental biologists, neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists to expand their comparative studies and advance understanding of regenerative processes.
Abstracts
Sample preparation and employment of in situ hybridization chain reaction (HCR) in the brain and sensory tissue of the nudibranch Berghia stephanieae
Tess Thattacherry*1
1University of Massachussetts Amherst