Profile of Barry Ganetzky
- Melissa Marino, Freelance Science Writer
Maybe you can judge a book by its cover, or at least a fly by its phenotype.
For more than 30 years, Barry Ganetzky has scrutinized mutant fruit flies that shake, shimmy, and pass out if overheated, in his search for the genes that underlie this unusual appearance and behavior. Some may consider his use of phenotypic analysis old-fashioned, but it has served him well, leading him to discover numerous genes involved in development and neural function and earning him election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2006.
“I never met a mutant I didn't like,” says Ganetzky, the Steenbock Professor of Biological Sciences and a professor of genetics, neuroscience, and medical genetics at the University of Wisconsin (Madison, WI). “My philosophy is that every mutant has the answer to a biological question if you know the right question to ask.”
Most recently, this approach resulted in the discovery of wasted away, a fly mutant with features that may offer clues about neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, which published as Ganetzky's Inaugural Article in PNAS (1).
Awakening
Ganetzky felt drawn to science from an early age. “I always had questions and was never quite satisfied with the answers I got,” he says. “I appreciated, without being able to articulate it, that science was a way of getting more exact answers.”
But growing up in a working-class neighborhood in Chicago with no scientists in the family as role models, he could not imagine making a career out of asking and answering scientific questions. He began college at the University of Illinois (Chicago, IL), intending to major in chemistry, because he figured a chemist could find a job. However, an honors biology project quickly derailed that decision when it opened Ganetzky's eyes to the life of academic science.
He …
