Final Report Summary - LIMB EVOLUTION (The origin of evolutionary novelties: regulation of Hoxd genes and the evolutionary transition from fish fins to tetrapod limbs)
Societal implications of the project
To assure that the European Union (EU) has sufficient high quality human resources in the research field is essential to European future competitiveness and economic growth. The current project offered a European fellow the possibility to carry out research in Europe and it will make possible transference of expertise, especially dealing with the zebrafish model, to her own country (Portugal). This fellowship also contributed to increase the international dimension and attractiveness of European research. This proposal covers several areas of research (functional genomics, developmental biology and evolution) and will clearly contribute to enhance EU scientific excellence.
The problem the applicant proposes to tackle in this proposal is a relevant and long-standing one, with high implications in the Life Sciences area. However, it has been only recently that a set of technologies, developed especially in Europe, became available allowing the ultimate functional testing of this question. Therefore, through the intra-European sharing of expertise during this project, we had the chance to address a profound question in biology, which will highly impact the scientific community and the academics throughout the world.
As an important 'side effect', candidate and hosts beneficiated from mutually cultural and scientific exchange, which stems from joint work, strengthens long-lasting collaborations.
We believe that this project will rapidly amplify its benefits having a significant impact in the society.