UW-Madison Genetics

Congratulations to Annie Anderson on her CALS Academic Staff excellence award

Genetics professor Chris Hittinger leads a landmark study on evolution, offering a possible answer to one of the oldest questions about evolution: why some species are generalists and others specialists.

These jacks-of-all-trades are masters, too: Yeast study helps answer age-old biology question Researchers mapped the genetic blueprints, appetites, and environments of more than 1,000 species of yeasts, building a family tree that illuminates how these single-celled fungi evolved over the past 400 million years.

A team of researchers including UW-Madison Genetics Professor John Pool analyzed DNA from 200-year-old fruit fly museum specimens. Comparing old and modern DNA helps map the fruit fly's genetic course to new lands, revealing the history of its evolution and distribution.
Learn more at

200-year-old DNA helps map tiny fly’s genetic course to new lands, modern times The humble fruit fly is one of the most thoroughly studied animals on the planet and new insights continue to be revealed about the fly’s evolution thanks to centuries-old DNA.

Genetics professor Ahna Skop and collaborators suggest midbody remnants may promote cancer spread

Remnant of cell division could be responsible for spreading cancer Once thought to be the trash can of the cell, a little bubble of cellular stuff called the midbody remnant is actually packing working genetic material with the power to change the fate of other cells—including turning them into cancer.