Rafik Neme, Ph.D.

Research

The Landweber lab investigates how some unusual single-celled organisms can break apart—and correctly reassemble—their chromosomes without making any fatal mistakes. A handful of pond-dwelling organisms keep their DNA in two nuclei—one of which contains DNA that will be fragmented before mating and then pieced back together in the resulting offspring. Using a suite of approaches in molecular, computational, and evolutionary biology, I will compare the genomes of several of these organisms to assess how and when this ability evolved, the molecular components that underlie the process, and how this system influences molecular innovation. These findings will enhance our understanding of how cells maintain genome organization and integrity, a process that often goes awry in human cancers.