Mr Xianren Shan

My research project entails the anatomical and histological study of dermoskeletal and endoskeletal elements among the stem-gnathostomes, a spectrum of jawless and jawed vertebrates that represent the first vertebrates to possess skeletal tissues and which record the sequential assembly of the entire vertebrate skeleton.

Methods of analysis include using synchrotron radiation X-ray tomographic microscopy (SRXTM) to obtain high-resolution data from fossil remains, applying computed tomography to interrogate complex fossil remains, employing comparative anatomy to glean evolutionary insights from the remains of fossil and living organisms, and interpreting these results using state-of-the-art model-based phylogenetic and phylogenetic-comparative methods.

I am also interested in integrating fossil data with developmental biology and gene regulation to gain a comprehensive understanding of the evolution of mineralized skeletons in vertebrates.

Supervised by Prof. Philip Donoghue and Prof. Davide Pisani.