I. Introduction. (Start with Drosophila as a model organism) Drosophila melanogaster (D. melanogaster), the fruit fly, has proven to be an invaluable model organism that has been used to study many genetic phenomena, including genetic inheritance. 'X, genetic mapping and autosomal inheritance [1]. D. melanogaster has been used as a model organism for over 100 years, and its genome (containing approximately 14,000 genes) has been well studied, thus making it ideal as a model organism. As with most long-established model organisms, practicality is paramount. D. melanogaster has a simple diet and the life cycle is relatively short, so large-scale crossbreeding can be followed across many generations [2]. (How Drosophila will be used in crossbreeding) As mentioned above, D. melanogaster has been used extensively in genetic studies, which is what we intend to use them for in our lab. There are many ways in which fruit fly DNA can be mutated to create visible traits, called phenotypes [3]. In our laboratory, we used the lobe, eyeless, sepia, white, and wild-type strains and performed crosses and reciprocal crosses to determine whether the corresponding phenotypes were autosomal or X-linked traits. The Lobe strain has a smaller eye than the wild strain, caused by a mutation in the optic lobe of the brain. The eyeless mutation causes D. melanogaster not to produce eyes during development [3]. Finally, the sepia strain of D. melanogaster has sepia pigment in the organism's eyes [4], while the white strain has a deletion of the genes responsible for making the red pigment observed in wild-type eyes appear white. It should be noted that the white mutation is localized to the sex chromosome, meaning that males and females have a different number of copies of...... middle of paper......, we produce a summary of each possible combination of parental alleles to determine dominance and, therefore, phenotype. (Goals of why we are studying = to learn different concepts such as autosomal inheritance, X-linked inheritance, and genetic mapping). Overall, we are studying D. melanogaster to expand our knowledge in genetics and molecular biology. More specifically: autosomal inheritance, X-linked inheritance and gene mapping. The knowledge gained from such experiments can be used outside the classroom in many aspects, both for scientific and practical purposes. A basic understanding of the above knowledge enables scientists to plan experiments efficiently, be concise in their actions, and make more accurate predictions in the fields of biology. As a biology student, these skills will be useful in whatever field I choose to pursue.