GELIFES Seminars - Leo Beukeboom
Leo Beukeboom (GELIFES)
50 years of sex determination
A farewell lecture by Leo Beukeboom on the occasion of his retirement
Many organisms reproduce sexually with two sexes. Despite being such a fundamental process, the underlying genetic basis of sex determination is enormously variable and has fast turnover rates during evolution. What drives this diversity is still not well understood. Insects are particularly interesting to study because of the wide variety of sex determination mechanisms. I will consider the evolution of insect sex determination by presenting general patterns obtained from comparative studies and some scientific highlights from my own research. As this is my retirement seminar I will include some personal anecdotes and present some future avenues for research.
Biosketch:
Leo Beukeboom started as a biology student at the University of Groningen in 1980. He obtained his PhD in 1992 from the University of Rochester (NY, USA). He subsequently held a 5-year research fellowship at the Max-Planck Institute for Behavioural Physiology at Seewiesen (Germany) and a 5-year Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences fellowship at Leiden University (The Netherlands). He has been holding the chair of Evolutionary Genetics at the University of Groningen since 2001. His research interest is in the genetics and evolution of insect reproductive systems, both from a fundamental and applied perspective. He is editor-in-chief of Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata.