Model Organism: Drosophila melanogaster (Fruit Fly)
📌 The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is utilized in labs because it is crucial for understanding genetics and heredity, similar to its use in high school biology practicals.
🔬 Over 10 Nobel Prize winners have used fruit flies, demonstrating that research on this organism can lead to universal benefits for humanity.
🧊 Fruit flies are often immobilized using CO₂ for microscopic examination in the lab, as they tend to fly away otherwise.

Nobel Prize Research 1: Circadian Rhythms and Sleep
🕰️ Three researchers won the 2017 Nobel Prize for explaining why humans sleep longer at night and experience jet lag by studying fruit flies.
🧬 The mechanism involves two proteins in the fly, Per (period) and Tim (timeless), which accumulate at night to induce a rest mode, increasing sleepiness.
💡 The protein Jet-Lg (Jet Lag) is critical for regulating this cycle; it is activated by light and functions to suppress the production of Tim.

Nobel Prize Research 2: Immunology and Pathogen Recognition
🛡️ In 1996 (Nobel Prize 2011), two French researchers used fruit flies to understand how the immune system actively fights invading microbes like bacteria or fungi.
🔑 They demonstrated that fruit flies can recognize dangerous microbes based on specific characteristics, identifying a "pathogen signature" or "KTP patogen" to target elimination.
🌐 This fundamental discovery, established using fruit flies, provided the basis for subsequent research proving similar immune responses in humans one year later.

Drug Discovery Application
🧪 The speaker's research group at Unhas Pharmacy claims to be the first to use fruit flies for drug discovery, diverging from typical genetic research applications.
🤝 The Unhas Fly Research Group is actively collaborating nationally and internationally to advance the use of the fruit fly model for discovering new medicines.

Key Points & Insights
➡️ Research on seemingly simple organisms like the fruit fly can yield profound insights applicable to complex human health issues, including sleep disorders and immunology.
➡️ The work on circadian rhythms highlights the role of genes like period, timeless, and Jet-Lg in governing biological timing and adaptation to time zone changes.
➡️ Avoid immediately killing flies encountered in daily life, as their relatives might be instrumental in future drug discovery efforts.

📸 Video summarized with SummaryTube.com on Nov 23, 2025, 18:58 UTC