Scientific collaboration advances cancer research and is at the heart of the Louisiana Cancer Research Center's (LCRC) mission. For example, scientists from LCRC partner institutions Tulane University and LSU Health Sciences Center have been collaborating to share their work utilizing the fruit fly, also known as Drosophila melanogaster. Drosophila mimic human biological pathways and genetics and has been used as a research model for decades.

Six years ago, a handful of researchers began discussing ways to promote collaboration among Drosophila scientists in the state. They created a research community and named it “Fly Bayou” to represent its deep South Louisiana origin.

Today, Fly Bayou includes 30 Drosophila labs in 14 states.

It all began with informal conversations between Dr. Wu-Min Deng from Tulane and Dr. SeYeon Chung from LSU Baton Rouge in 2019 that expanded to include Dr. Chunlai Wu and Dr. Xiaolin Tian, Neurosciences researchers at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, with Dr. Jun-yuan Ji, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology faculty at Tulane School of Medicine, and four more LSU fly labs.  Drs. Deng and Ji are faculty members of the Louisiana Cancer Research Center, which supports cancer research throughout the state.  

“Then we organized a monthly seminar series on Zoom and collected speakers every month,” said Dr. Deng, the first organizer of the group. “And it kept growing from there. We held in-person symposiums in 2023 and again in August 2025 at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. It has been very successful.”

The small virtual community formed to help scientists in institutions with limited Drosophila research in Louisiana has now attracted labs and scientists as far away as Missouri, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Utah.  

This summer, scientists from Louisiana and beyond gathered in New Orleans to discuss their work.

“You get to see what other people are doing and get inspired by their research and ideas,” said Dr. Tian. “It’s helpful to hear about something that's different from what you do or maybe a new technique. You get exposed to different ideas and different tools, different ways of approaching,” said Dr. Tian.

Dr. Yoichiro Tamori, Ph.D., assistant professor of Biology at the University of Louisiana Lafayette, traveled to this year’s symposium. “I was impressed by the diversity of the research content and the exceptionally high standard of the presented studies. I intend to continue participating, contributing to the development of this group and to research activities in this region,” he said.

To learn more about Fly Bayou, visit https://flybayou.org

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