ABOUT C.ELEGANS

C. elegans is a free-living worm (non-parasitic) widely used as a laboratory model organism for biological and biomedical studies. Its advantages are short generation time and easy growing conditions among others, making research cost efficient and fast. Genes involved in programmed cell death were initially discovered in C. elegans, and paved the path to the first Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology given to research on this model organism in 2002.

Furthermore, one of the most widely used methods to manipulate gene expression across many animal species, called RNA interference, was originally discovered in C. elegans given this mechanism the second Nobel prize for C. elegans research in 2006. In addition, a non-invasive method to label and study development and function of any cell type in a whole live organism was developed in this small worm (using Green Fluorescent Protein, GFP). This method was awarded with the third worm's Nobel Prize in this case in Chemistry in 2008.