Kimberly Chen
Hometown: Taipei, TAIWAN
Program at IU: Evolution, Ecology and Behavior (EEB) Graduate Program
Year of birth: NA
Main interests:I am interested in the evolution of the life history transition from vegetative growth to multicelluar fruiting body development in the social myxobacteria.
What I’m doing right now: Pxr is a small noncoding RNA recently discovered in the our model species Myxococcus xanthus that controls multicellular fruiting body development. It functions as a developmental checkpoint by blocking development when nutrients are abundant. Moreover, no Pxr homologs were found outside myxobacteria. I am trying to track the evolutionary origin of the Pxr regulatory pathway in myxobacteria through multiple approaches, including molecular evolution, molecular genetics and comparative genomics.
My education information: BSc in Forest Resources Conservation, National Taiwan University; MSc in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, Imperial College London.
Fellowships and/or awards: NA
My contact information (e-mails followed by indiana.edu):
icchen@
Publications:
Swanstrom, J., K. Chen, K. Castillo, T. Barraclough, & D. Fontaneto. (2010) Testing for evidence of inefficient selection in bdelloid rotifers: do sample size and habitat differences matter? Hydrobiologia 662(1): 19-25.
Fontaneto, D., T. Barraclough, K. Chen, C. Ricci, & E. Herniou. (2008). Molecular evidence for broad-scale distributions in bdelloid rotifers: everything is not everywhere but most things are very widespread. Molecular ecology, 17(13): 3136-3146.