Schmidt-Ott Lab

Urs trained as a zoologist and molecular developmental biologist and is interested in the developmental and genetic basis of animal diversity. He received his graduate training in the laboratory of the Drosophila neurobiologist Gerhard Technau at the University of Mainz in Germany and postdoctoral training under the mentorship of the molecular developmental biologist Herbert Jäckle at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, where he started his own research group in 1997. In 2002, he moved his laboratory to the University of Chicago, where he uses a variety of dipteran insects (flies, midges, mosquitoes) to study developmental mechanisms in their phylogenetic context.

Committee on Evolutionary Biology 
Committee on Development, Regeneration, and Stem Cell Biology
Committee on Genetics, Genomics and Systems Biology

Ezra is a graduate student in the Committee on Development, Regeneration and Stem Cell Biology (DRSB) and interested in the evolution of the epigenetic landscape of early fly embryos.

Contact: emsy<at>uchicago.edu

​Muzi Li is a graduate student in the Committee on Integrative Biology, a graduate program housed in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, who studies mechanisms of symmetry breaking during zygotic genome activation in the midge Chironomus riparius, which uses a TCF-related cysteine clamp protein, called Panish, for establishing embryo polarity.

Contact: muzi1<at>uchicago.edu

Sam is a graduate student in the Heckscher Lab co-advised by Dr. Urs Schmidt-Ott.

Ayse joined the lab as a postdoctoral scholar in June of 2023. In the Schmidt-Ott lab, Ayse is studying the role of microRNAs in dipteran evolution. Ayse completed her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in Marcus Kronforst’s lab where her research focused on using naturally occurring variation in monarch butterfly populations to investigate the underlying genetic origin of migration. Ayse then joined Wittkopp Lab where she explored the role of microRNAs in Drosophila’s pigmentation gene regulatory network.

Contact: ayse.trolander<at>gmail.com or atengertrolander<at>uchicago.edu

​He is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution. He studied genetics at the University of  Novosibirsk, received his PhD from the Institute of Developmental Biology (Russia), and postdoctoral training at Indiana University.

Publications

Contact: mludwig<at>uchicago.edu

​Dr. Stratton has over 28 years of experience as an academic researcher, drug development scientist, educator, and executive. She holds a BS in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine, and a PhD from the University of Arizona. She served as faculty at the University of Arizona and later became the Vice President for Research at Carle Foundation Hospital and faculty at University of Illinois campus in Champaign-Urbana (UIUC). Dr. Stratton has been a leader in small biotech companies, driving bench-to-bedside drug development. She is involved in the Schmidt-Ott lab’s work on Hermetia illucens.

Contact: t-9sstr0<at>uchicago.edu

Abubacarr is an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago College who plans to major in biochemistry who works with graduate student mentor Muzi Li.

Contact: abubacarrj<at>uchicago.edu