Assistant Professor
My interest in using molecular biology to address applied questions in conservation and ecology started during a fellowship on the Island of Borneo. Although there has been rapid development in the generation of genetic resources for many model species, resources and tools to study the majority of rainforest species remain limited.
I am interested in exploring the use of next gen sequencing data (Solexa-Illumina) as a tool to survey the “genomic landscape” of non-model organisms (with a focus on tropical rainforest trees). So far, we had sequenced and analyzed the genomes of more than 20 individuals from several tropical Asian rainforest tree families. These data will help us understand the population and the virtually unknown genetic structure of rainforest trees, and to evaluate the effectiveness of next gen data as a marker discovery platform. We also hope that the large number of genetic markers generated could potentially be used to regulate illegal international trade of one of forest timbers.
