Maduro Lab, UC Riverside

Morris F. Maduro
Div. Dean of Life Sciences, CNAS
Prof. of Biology, Dept. of MCSB
More info here.

Gina Broitman- Maduro
Research Associate

Melissa Guthrie
PhD Student (CMDB Program)

Kortney Schoenborn
RISE 2024
and undergrad research

Dylan Truong
RISE 2024
and undergrad research

	Ami Mody RISE 2026		Sarah Hekmat RISE 2026		Rahul Ranjan RISE 2026
Previous Lab Members

We are looking for students to join our team! → More info here.

Structure and Evolution of Gene Regulatory Networks

Pristionchus, Gene Network, C. angaria embryos

Transcriptional Gene Regulatory Networks (GRNs) direct the development of multicellular animals, and are important in other contexts, including stem cell specification and development of cancer. Developmental GRNs typically exhibit layers of redundancy to assure the robust specification of early embryonic precursor cells. Changes in such networks are generally known to underlie differences in form and function between related species. Paradoxically, GRNs can also undergo evolutionary changes even when there is no apparent change in development, a phenomenon called Developmental System Drift. We have studied the specification of the embryonic endoderm precursor cell E in the nematode C. elegans and its close relatives for more than 20 years. In more distantly related species, the gene network for specifying the endoderm is simpler and has fewer factors, suggesting that the more complex network in C. elegans was derived from a simpler ancestral network. We are currently extending this work into nematodes of the genus Pristionchus. Our work promises to yield new insights into how gene networks evolve over time.

→ More information about our research here.

News Highlights

— June, 2026 - 5th International Pristionchus Meeting —

Images from conference in Tuebingen, Germany

Gina and MM attended the Pristionchus Meeting at the Max Planck in Tuebingen, Germany.
Clockwise from top left: Max Planck House and Tuebingen; poster session; MM with Hillel Schwartz (Max Planck), Paul Sternberg (Caltech), and Ralf Sommer (Max Planck); session room; Ray Hong (CSUN); Ping Hsueh (Max Planck); Gina with Ralf Sommer; Gina with Oliver Hobert (Columbia) and Paul Sternberg; Adrian Streit (Max Planck); MM and Gina by her poster.

— July 1, 2025 - Worm Show at the International Worm Meeting! —

Curtis Loer and MM presented the ninth Worm Show at UC Davis
More information is here.

— June 17-20, 2024 - EvoWorm Meeting in Vienna —

2024 Worm Evolution Meeting at the Vienna BioCenter in Vienna, Austria.
Clockwise from upper left: Group image; MM with Ron Ellis; Gina at our poster; Gina with Oliver Hobert and André Pires da Silva;
meeting organizers Yen-Ping Hsueh, Amanda Gibson, Gavin Woodruff, Erik Andersen, and Alejandro Burga

— April 8, 2024 - Total Solar Eclipse! —

We watched the Great American Eclipse of 2024 from Franklin, Indiana, where totality was just over four minutes.
Read another article about MM's eclipse hobby and the 2024 trip, here.
(Canon R6mkII, 800mm f/11)

— January, 2024 - NSF Grant Awarded! —
	We have been awarded a $1.3M grant from the National Science Foundation to study developmental system drift in endoderm specification, using Pristionchus. NSF site: IOS#2341162 • UCR Press Release

— April 5, 2023 - Our paper on C. angaria was a finalist for Outstanding Paper —
	Our 2022 paper on gut specification in C. angaria, a distant relative of C. elegans, was one of three finalists for from the journal Development. Video on YouTube • Twitter/X link

→ See all news here.