Fundamental basic biological questions include: how cells interact with one another and rearrange themselves to produce organs, how complex organisms develop from a single cell, and how organisms evolve. We are using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to investigate cell fusion, organ formation, and nerve cell development. The wealth of anatomical, genetic, developmental, and molecular information available for C. elegans provides multidisciplinary and powerful approaches for studies of diverse biological questions. The C. elegans community is well organized (Riddle et al. 1997, Riddle 1997) and accomplished to completely sequence the first multicellular genome as well as splendid high resolution anatomy and functional genomic data. In fact, three recent Nobel prizes awarded for discoveries made using C. elegans demonstrate its power as a model organism.

Med temeljna biološka vprašanja spadajo vprašanja, kot so: kako celice delujejo ena na drugo v procesu nastanka organov, kako se zapleteni organizmi razvijejo iz posameznih celic in kako se evolucijsko razvijajo organizmi. Pri našem delu uporabljamo nematodnega črva Caenorhabditis elegans za raziskave zlivanja celic, oblikovanja organov in celičnega razvoja. Bogastvo anatomskih, genetskih, razvojnih in molekulskih informacij, ki je na voljo za C. elegans. nam omogoča uporabo močnih multidisciplinarnih pristopov k raziskavam različnih bioloških vprašanj. Skupnost znanstvenikov, ki raziskuje C. elegans, je dobro organizirana (Riddle et al. 1997, Riddle 1997). V celoti ji je uspelo določiti sekvenco prvega celotnega genoma večceličnega organizma, z odlično visoko ločljivostjo raziskati celotno anatomijo živali in pridobiti funkcionalno- genomske podatke. Pravzaprav so bile v zadnjem času tri Nobelove nagrade podeljene za odkritja, pridobljena z uporabo C. elegans, kar dobro prikaže moč tega organizma kot raziskovalnega modela.