Cassandra Extavour Biography

Cassandra Extavour is a Canadian American geneticist, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, and a classical singer. Her research has focused on evolutionary and developmental genetics. She is known for demonstrating that germ cells engage in cell to cell competition before becoming a gamete, which implicates that natural selection can affect and change genetic material before adult sex reproduction takes place. She is also currently the Director of EDEN, a national research collaborative that is pushing scientists to use more than Drosophila as their model organisms in the lab to create diverse study populations.

Early Life

Extavour has described growing up in a mixed race household, her father being from Trinidad and Tobago and her mother from Switzerland and Hungary, as being "critical" to her identity. Her father co-founded the celebration in 1987 to celebrate the legacy of late American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.. She said she was "so proud" of her dad"?s role in helping to bring King"?s message to the Black community in Toronto. Her father also played in a Afro-Caribbean band and would put her on stage with him at age five. He encouraged her to learn to play the flute, violin, steel pan, recorder, and percussion. She didn't realize she had a knack for science until high school. She did well in her math and science classes and that lead her to consider a career in science when she had only ever thought of being a musician.

Science Career

Extavour received an Honors BSc at the University of Toronto. Her Ph.D. thesis was on germ cell selection in genetic mosaics and was published in 2001.

In 2003 Extavour did a study at Cambridge University on epigenesis and preformation that showed cells can be and often are specified by inductive signals (epigenesis). This went against the mainstream scientific view at the time that cells are specified by maternally inherited determinants (preformation). She then published a study that she further supported her theory of inductive signaling. During a 2013 interview with Qaunta Magazine, she explained the concepts of her research as such: "Before there is even an embryo, the molecular content of some cells predetermines them to develop as either germ or soma. In other organisms, there is instead a signaling mechanism: An embryonic cell receives chemical signals from neighboring cells that activate (or repress) the genes that allow for germ-line function."

In 2007 she created her independent laboratory in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University as an Assistant Professor. Later she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2011 and to Full Professor in 2014.

Extavour directs a national research collaborative called EDEN, which stands for Evo-Devo-Eco (evolutionary-developmental-ecological) Network. The organization, funded by the National Science Foundation, encourages geneticists to dissect more exotic creatures than the ubiquitous fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, and by doing so will create diverse study populations. Extavour believes that a number of deep evolutionary questions cannot be answered by examining only one organism and thus promotes science to move past the model organism paradigm. Her own lab focuses on dissecting insect embryos and ovaries, searching for genetic clues to the origin of multicellularity.

Music

Extavour sings classical and baroque music on stage with the Handel and Haydn Society at Symphony Hall in Boston. She has a soprano voice and pursues her musical career part time, while being a Geneticist. She has been a musician and performer since the age of five, and a professional classical singer since attending undergraduate school in Toronto, where she was a member of the Tafelmusik Chorus. She now performs with the Handel and Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music in Boston.

While living in Spain she studied voice under Carlos Mena in Madrid, and with Richard Levitt at Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland. She has soloed with various ensemble groups, including Alia Musica in Madrid, Spain, Capella de Ministrers in Valencia, Spain, Capilla Real de Madrid, and Emmanuel Music in Boston. She sang as a freelance soloist in the United Kingdom, in operas like Mozart"?s The Marriage of Figaro and Humperdinck"?s Hansel and Gretel. In 2007 she started working with the Juilliard School doing recital and chamber work. She recently performed in Auckland Choral Society production of "Messiah" in December 2016.

Publications

Her most highly cited publications are :

• Extavour, CG , M Akem"Mechanisms of germ cell specification across the metazoans: epigenesis and preformation" ''Development'' 2004 Dec125, 130 (24) 589-840 According to Google Scholar, this publication has beencited 618 times,as of Feb 10,2018.
• Rwe-Campen, Evelyn E Schwager, and Cassandrs GM Extavour, ''The molecular machinery of germ line specification'' Molecular and Cellular Reproduction. Volume 77, Issue 1, pages 3-18, January 2010. According to Google Scholar, this publication has beencited 114 times,as ofFeb 10,2018.