Emily V.W. Setton
NSF Graduate research fellow
​Email: setton at wisc dot edu

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Aphonopelma hentzi. Comanche National Grasslands, La Junta, CO. June 2018.

Curriculum vitae (updated Nov 2020)

How do arachnids form different body parts during development? Two ontogenetic processes that I focus on are antero-posterior segmentation and appendage development in spiders. I use a combination of bioinformatic tools, sequencing approaches, and gene silencing experiments to investigate how conserved transcription factors establish regional identity, with the mainstay of my work in the model system Parasteatoda tepidariorum. To enhance the comparative aspect of spider developmental biology, I am generating developmental genetic resources for Aphonopelma hentzi, the large-bodied Texas brown tarantula. Other projects I work on incorporate investigation of appendage evolution in insects and sea spiders.

Research snapshots:

Antibody staining of embryonic crickets.

Sifting leaf litter in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Embryos on the cover of JoA!!

I use differential gene expression analyses to categorize system-wide effects of RNA interference (gene silencing) against segmentation genes.

Tarantulas got the top feature in our campus newsletter!