Eugene Yujun Xu, PhD

Assistant Professor of Reproductive Biology Research
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Feinberg School of Medicine

Research Interests:
The career research goal of Dr. Eugene Xu is to understand the genetic and developmental mechanisms responsible for human reproduction, in particular, gamete production as well as how those mechanisms have evolved. In addition to the human genetics tools, he would like to take advantage of model organism systems such as mouse and fly to achieve his goals. His previous research has identified a candidate human meiotic regulator—BOULE and demonstrated the conservation of Boule gene at sequence, expression and functional levels from flies to human. These findings suggest that despite the strong selective pressure, components of reproductive pathways could still be conserved. He hypothesizes that there exists a conserved pathway regulating key steps of germline development and that the BOULE gene is the key regulator that controls the decision to enter meiosis in mammals.

Dr. Xu’s current research is focused on:
1. Continuing characterization of mammalian BOULE genes through human mutation screening and the generation of mouse Boule mutation
2. Identifying proteins that interact with BOULE
3. Characterizing murine homologs of putative germline stem cell factor--pumilio in another key step of germline development—germline stem cell regulation
4. Identifying other conserved components of the reproductive pathways using comparative genomic approaches
5. Characterizing the function of potential conserved reproductive genes through screening mouse gene trap ES lines and subsequent analyses of mouse mutants