PdumBase

Stephan Q. Schneider

Dr. Schneider received his Diploma in Biology from Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany in 1990 and his Ph.D. in Genetics from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, and the Eberhard Karls University, Tuebingen, Germany in 1996. He was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Organismal Biology at the University of Chicago from 1997 until 1999, at the Kewalo Marine Laboratory in Hawaii from 1999 until 2002, and the Institute for Molecular Biology at the University of Oregon, Eugene from 2002 until 2009. In 2009 he joined the Department of Genetics, Developmental and Cell Biology at Iowa State University as an Assistant Professor, and the faculty at the Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan in fall of 2018.

Research Description

Research in the Schneider laboratory aspires to define ancestral core molecular features of developmental and cell biological mechanisms in metazoans. Our unique research focus exploits a powerful emerging model system, the marine annelid, Platynereis dumerilii. Combining experimental embryology, molecular biology and bioinformatics, we target early embryonic development in Platynereis and utilize comparative genome-wide ‘systems’ approaches. Cells in a developing embryo integrate different molecular cues to activate or inhibit transcription in a cascade of events known as gene regulatory networks (GRNs). The long-term goal of the Schneider laboratory is to unravel embryonic GRNs in order to reconstruct the core conserved ‘molecular tool kit’ in animal evolution and to delineate mechanisms by which GRNs generate distinct cell fates and cell types. Unraveling the GRNs in Platynereis contributes to a broader scientific understanding of how gene networks drive cell specification, differentiation and morphological diversity, all fundamental questions in developmental biology and animal evolution, a major goal in evolutionary developmental biology.

Citing PdumBase

Chou, H.-C. , Acevedo-Luna, N. , Kuhlman, J.A., and Schneider, S.Q. (2018) PdumBase: A transcriptome database and research tool for Platynereis dumerilii and early development of other metazoans. BMC Genomics, 19(1):618. DOI: 10.1186/s12864-018-4987-0

Chou, H.-C., Pruitt, M.M., Bastin, B.R., and Schneider, S.Q. (2016) A transcriptional blueprint for a spiral-cleaving embryo. BMC Genomics, 17:552.1-25. DOI: 10.1186/s12864-016-2860-6

Contact Information

Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology 
Academia Sinica
No. 128, Sec. 2, Academia Road 
Nangang, Taipei 11529, Taiwan
+ 886 2- 2789-9512
sqschneider@gate.sinica.edu.tw
Laboratory webpage