#  Graduate Student, Ben Ewen-Campen and Cassandra Extavour Solves Biological Germ Cell Mystery  

 





December 10, 2012

 

 

- [ News ](/news-categories/news)
 
 

 

Research in the **Extavour Lab** finds that a gene that acts as "master regulator" of germ cell development originally evolved to play a role in the nervous system rather than in reproduction. Graduate student **Ben Ewen-Campen** was the first author of this study that shows that this gene arose much earlier in evolution than previously suspected. *Read the original article in [Current Biology ](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982212012043), a [Dispatch in Current Biology](http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(12)01372-3), and a news feature in [The Harvard Gazette](http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/12/solving-a-biological-mystery/).*



 

 

 



 

 See also:- [ Faculty News ](/news-type/faculty-news)
- [ Graduate News ](/news-type/student-news)
- [ 2012 ](/news-year/2012)