Douglas Houston is a Professor at the University of Iowa. His research is focused on a central problem in developmental biology: how a single-celled egg differentiates into an organism containing many different cell and tissue types. Using frog embryos as a model organism, he and his lab have isolated numerous novel genes with potential roles in key pathways of ovum functions, including genes involved in PGC formation, morphogenesis, and TGF-beta and Wnt growth factor signaling.