Drosophila Models of Human Disease
1University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
2Centro de Biologia Molecular “Severo Ochoa”, Madrid, Spain
3Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia
Drosophila Models of Human Disease
Description
The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has proven to be a golden model for basic biological research. Across the years, its potential as a tool for deciphering the molecular networks at the basis of human disease has become more and more acknowledged. Uninterrupted efforts of the Drosophila research community have been dedicated to develop new genetic systems aimed at investigating organ, tissue, and cellular processes at an increasing level of precision. As a result, the fruit fly now serves as a model not only for basic genetic research, but also for an extraordinarily diverse series of human diseases, from cancer to neurodegeneration and from developmental disorders to drug discovery. As cellular and molecular mechanisms governing organogenesis have shown to be highly conserved between Drosophila and humans, and the fruit fly has functional homologues of most part of the human disease genes, we anticipate that this aspect of Drosophila research will definitely expand in the future.
We invite investigators to contribute original research articles, as well as review articles and opinion papers that address mechanisms involved in human disease using the Drosophila model.
Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:
- Developmental disorders
- Metabolic disease
- Organ disease
- Stem cells and regenerative medicine
- Cancer
- Neurological disease
- Drug discovery