Billions of identical cells come together to shape the body of molecular and developmental geneticist Gad Shaulsky. That fascinates him. The question of how different cells compete and cooperate to form whole organisms drives Shaulsky's research at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, where he is an associate professor. "How come proliferation and survival, which are the most fundamental requirements of life on earth, are being restrained in multicellular organisms - and societies in general, for that matter?" he asks. Israeli-born Shaulsky received his PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Sciences in Rehovot in 1991 before coming to the US for a postdoc at UC San Diego. Shaulsky dissects the genetics of the social amoeba, "Dicty," to pick apart the social nature of multicellularity.
Amy Coombs is a freelance science writer and editor living in Santa Cruz, California. Coombs has freelanced as a writer and broadcaster while working as a ...
