03 April 2023: Department of Genetics celebrated 'National Fly Day'.
To begin the day, Dr Felipe Karam-Teixeira presented a talk on the history of researchers using drosophila as a model organism and how different current department members are linked to those who first began working with them.
This was followed by Simon Collier presenting different fly mutations in petri dishes, which members could observe under a microscope. Members could also design their own mutated flies and add them to our test tubes.
We carried on the celebrations into the tea room and had a themed cake stall which included butterFLY cakes, microinjection jelly petri dishes with fruit salad fly food and a fly's eye view of the tea room!
Professor Steve Russell, Head of Department, was asked his thoughts on 'Why do geneticists work with flies?' and 'How did the use of flies become so predominant in the department?' and you can watch the full videos here on our YouTube channel.