Current Research Projects

1. Molecular evolution in eukaryotes

We have been interested for many years in the movement of DNA between different cellular compartments, so-called "promiscuous DNA". Our research enabled observation, for the first time in an experimental time frame, several instances of the initial evolutionary event that has led to endosymbiotic evolution. These events, in which DNA transfers from the chloroplast genome to the nucleus, have been ongoing for 1.5 billion years and have resulted in the cellular relocation of the majority of formerly cyanobacterial genes. However such functional gene transfers are clearly very rare compared with the simple relocation of DNA per se. Current research projects aim to characterise the sites at which chloroplast DNA has integrated into nuclear DNA and to investigate the genetic stability of such insertions.

Funding sources

This research has been supported for 9 years by the Australian Research Council (ARC)