Rate My Professor Megan Wilson

Associate Professor Megan Wilson holds the position in the Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, at the University of Otago. She earned her BSc (Hons) and PhD from the University of Otago. Her PhD, completed in Professor Iain Lamont's Biochemistry laboratory, investigated the PvdS sigma factor protein in the pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Subsequently, she pursued postdoctoral research in Professor Peter Koopman's laboratory at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Australia, focusing on the molecular biology of mammalian sex determination and differentiation using mouse models. This work included identifying protein partners and target promoters for key transcription factors SOX9, SRY, and SOX8, as well as the role of matricellular proteins in testis differentiation. Returning to Otago, she served as a research fellow in Professor Peter Dearden's Laboratory for Evolution and Development, examining the evolution of developmental pathways in honeybee and Drosophila. In July 2011, she joined the Department of Anatomy at the University of Otago, establishing the Wilson Lab with research programs on vertebrate reproductive developmental biology and disease (mouse models) and regeneration evo-devo (ascidian models).

Wilson's research centers on developmental biology and genetics. Her current projects utilize mouse models to study idiopathic diseases, sex-dimorphic brain development and its associations with behavior and neurological disease risk, and early genital ridge development linked to disorders of sex development. Additionally, she investigates whole-body regeneration in the colonial sea squirt Botrylloides leachi, a chordate model offering insights into vertebrate regeneration. Her influential publications include "Insights into social insects from the genome of the honeybee Apis mellifera" (2006), "Retinoid signaling determines germ cell fate in mice" (2006), "Matching SOX: partner proteins and co-factors of the SOX family of transcriptional regulators" (2002), "Sertoli cell differentiation is induced both cell-autonomously and through prostaglandin signaling during mammalian sex determination" (2005), and recent articles such as "Single-cell transcriptomic profiling of the whole colony of Botrylloides diegensis" (2025) and "Sex-biased microRNA expression in the developing mouse brain" (2025). She contributes to teaching in Anatomy (ANAT243, ANAT334, ANAT456) and Genetics (GENE315, GENE411) courses and serves as Director of the Genetics Mātai Ira Teaching Programme.