Mark A. Batzer
Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, 202 Life Sciences Bldg., Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA

Dr. Mark Batzer is currently LSU System Boyd Professor and Dr. Mary Lou Applewhite Distinguished Professor, Department of Biological Sciences at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  Dr. Batzer’s research interests focus on comparative genomics of human and non-human primates and other mammals, mobile DNA, forensic genomics, and computational biology.  Additional research interests include the development and application of new high-throughput low cost technologies for PCR and DNA sequence analysis, and the identification of genes related to healthy aging in humans.  Dr. Batzer has authored over 225 publications on his research.  Dr. Batzer received his B.S. Degree in Microbiology & Zoology from Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan in 1983, and continued there until 1985, when he received his M.S. in Zoology.  In 1988, he completed his doctorate in Genetics/Zoology at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after which he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Molecular Genetics at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1992.  Dr. Batzer completed his postdoctoral education in Physical Mapping after one year in the Human Genome Center at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, where he continued as a Biomedical Scientist until 1995.   Subsequently, Dr. Batzer joined the Departments of Pathology, Genetics and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans in 1995, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1998.  Dr. Batzer moved to the Department of Biological Sciences at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge as a Full Professor in 2001.  Dr. Batzer has previously been named the George C. Kent Professor of Life Sciences (2005), and the Andrew C. Pereboom Alumni Departmental Professor (2006) prior to being named LSU System Boyd Professor and Dr. Mary Lou Applewhite Distinguished Professor in 2008.  Dr. Batzer has received an LSU Alumni Association Faculty Excellence Award (2005), LSU Distinguished Faculty Award (2007) and been named an LSU Rainmaker (top 100 faculty in research and creativity) in 2008.  Dr. Batzer has also been elected an AAAS fellow (2007) and named an HHMI Distinguished Mentor (2008).  Dr. Batzer is active in numerous organizations, editorial boards and panels. 

Website: http://batzerlab.lsu.edu

Andre van Wijnen
University of Massachusetts, Department of Cell Biology, Medical Center, 55 Lake Avenue North, Worcester MA 01655, USA

Andre van Wijnen served on the Editorial Board of GENE since 1998 as Reviews Editor. His research is generally focused on the molecular mechanisms controlling cell growth and differentiation in eukaryotic organisms. Studies encompass examination of cell signaling pathways that control gene regulation and characterization of transcription factors that control cell cycle progression or lineage commitment in culture or development. From an Editorial perspective, he is broadly interested in handling research and review papers with a molecular component, including (but certainly not limited to) mechanistic studies on animal or plants systems, biomedical studies on disease mechanisms in humans, as well as bioinformatics analysis of gene regulation and cellular regulatory circuits through microarray approaches or DNA sequencing.  

Fernando G. Alvarez-Valin
Sección Biomatemática, Igua 4225, 11400 Montevideo, Uruguay
Molecular evolution, DNA sequence analysis, Trypanosomatidae evolution

Fernando Alvarez Valin obtained his degree in Biology at the Faculty of Sciences, Universidad de la República (1989) and the PhD in Biology (PEDECIBA) in 1998, in Montevideo, Uruguay. His postdoc was in the laboratory of Molecular Evolution at the Stazione Anton Dorhn, Naples (1998-99).
In Uruguay he worked as Assistant Professor of Genetics in the School of Medicine and in the School of Sciences (UdelaR). Since 2003, his position is Associate Professor of Biomathematics at the School of Sciences (UdelaR) where he leads a research group devoted to the area of molecular evolution and genomics. He is also senior researcher in PEDECIBA (Program for the Development in Basic Sciences) since 2002.

Alvarez-Valin is author of more than 30 scientific publications and in the field of genetics and molecular and genome evolution. His main research interest is evolutionary genomics of trypanosomatids and the evolution and organization of the human genome. He has been serving as editor for the journal GENE since 2001 and for Bioinformatics and Biology Insights, (open access journal, Libertas Academica) since 2008. Since 2007 he is member of the scientific board of UNU-BIOLAC.

Alberto Bernardi
Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Transposable elements; G proteins; cloning vectors; plasmids; gene expression

1960: Thesis in Medicine (University of Bologna)
1962-1963: Military Service
1963 Specialisation in Mental and Nervous Diseases (University of Bologna)
1964-1966: Post-doctoral research at the "Centre de Recherche sur les Macromlécules", Strasbourg France). Purification and characterisation of several enzymes having an hydrolytic action on nucleic acids
1967-1968: NIH visiting scientist. Relation between  biological activities and structure on tRNA
1969-1970: NIH visiting scientist. In vitro protein biosynthesis  directed by natural or artificial messengers
1971-1972: Chargé de recherches at  the University of Geneva: Molecular mechanism of the regulation of expression of the polymerase in R17 phage: first example of translational regulation of proteins
1973-1974: EMBO senior fellowship at the "Institut Jacques Monod," Paris. Development of microanalysis methods for  nucleotide analysis and determination of the specificity of several DNAases
1975-1976: Associated Professor at the University Paris VII . Development of techniques for genetic manipulations in vitro
1977: EMBO member
1977-1978: Directeur de Recherches at CNRS at the "Centre de Biologie Moléculaire" of Marseilles. Cloning of genes responsible for rifampicine resistance
1979 199: Laboratory of "Enzymologie" Gif sur Yvette. Study of the mechanisms implied in chromosomal rearrangements generated by IS elements in E. coli
1992-1994: "Institut Jacques Monod" Paris and
1995-2001: Laboratory "Population Génétique et Evolution" of Gif sur Yvette. Expression and biochemical characterisation of human and yeast  proteins and exchange factors (CDC 25) expressed in E. coli
 
Teaching activities: at the Universities of Geneva, Paris VII and Camerino

R. Britton
Michigan State University, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, 6175 BPS, East Lansing, MI 48824-1101, USA
Bacterial genetics, microbial genomics, stress responses, translation, ribosome biogenesis, DNA microarrays, probiotics

Olivier K. Clay
Bacterial Zoonoses Branch, DFBMD, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE, Mail stop D-11, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA
DNA sequence analysis and computer simulations

After obtaining my MA in theoretical physics in Switzerland, I wanted to apply methods and ways of thinking I had learned to biology. My entry was via modeling and simulations in the U.S., first in epidemiology and ecology, then in immunology. After returning to Europe I worked in DNA sequence analysis, molecular biology and evolutionary genomics, first in Walter Schaffner's lab in Zurich, then in Giorgio Bernardi's labs in Paris and Naples. During that time I also pursued my theoretical interests in areas such as hypergraphs (gene networks), polymer solutions (genomic DNA in density gradients) and long-memory time series (base compositional changes along chromosomes). I am currently at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, working in a Genomics Unit dedicated to identification, characterization and discovery of microbial pathogens.

D.L. Court
Molecular Control and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bldg. 539 - NCI/FCRDC, Frederick, MD 21702, USA
Bacterial genetics; bacteriophage; bacterial gene regulation; double-stranded RNA; post-transcriptional controls

Dr. Court received his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester, Department of Biology. He was a research associate at Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley in the laboratories of Drs. Alan Campbell and Harrison Echols, respectively, before joining the National Cancer Institute in 1972. In 1988, Dr. Court joined the Frederick ABL-Basic Research Program as Chief of the Molecular Control and Genetics Section, and in 1999, he joined the Center for Cancer Research of the National Cancer Institute.

Developmental systems are controlled by modulating gene expression in response to internally programmed signals as well as to external signals. Our laboratory is interested in studying the molecular interactions and the signaling that occur to regulate gene expression. We exploit the genetic systems available in Escherichia coli, its plasmids, and its virus bacteriophage lambda to help us understand (1) gene regulation at the levels of transcription initiation and elongation, and translation initiation, and (2) cell growth and cell cycle control signals.

Massimo Di Giulio
Laboratory for Molecular Evolution, Institute of Genetics and Biophysics "Adriano Buzzati-Traverso", CNR, Via P. Castellino 111, I-80131 Napoli
Italy
Origins of life; origin of genetic code; molecular phylogeny; molecular evolution

Massimo Di Giulio was born  in Alfedena, Italy, in 1952. In 1976, he obtained the PhD in Biology at the University of Naples. From 1976 to 1979 he was engaged as Professor of Science at the National High Schools. In this period I was interested to study the molecular evolution. From 1980 to 1986 he was Research Fellow at the International Institute of Genetics and Biophysics, National Council Research, Naples. From 1987 to 2008 he was working at the Institute of Genetics and Biophysics 'Adriano Buzzati Traverso' as researcher. He was investigating the origin of translation. His activity research was clarifying the relative importance of the theories that explain the genetic code organisation. Furthermore, he has proposed a model that explains the origin of the tRNA molecule. Recently, he has suggested a new hypothesis for the origin of the genetic code. He has also studied the non-monophyletic origin of the tRNA molecule and genes. Finally, he has studied the thermophilic nature of the last universal common ancestor and the possibility that the code might have originated at high hydrostatic pressure and high temperature.

Evan Eichler
Howard Hughes Medical Institute; University of Washington; Genome Sciences, Box 355065; Foege Building, S413C; 1705 NE Pacific St.; Seattle, WA 98195-5065; USA
Human Variation and Disease, Primate Genome Evolution, Gene and Transcript Innovations

Evan Eichler, Ph.D., is a Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in the Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine. He graduated with a B.Sc. Honours degree in Biology from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada in 1990. He received his Ph.D. in 1995 from the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. After a Hollaender post-doctoral fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he joined the faculty of Case Western Reserve University in 1997 and later the UW Department of Genome Sciences in 2004. He was a March of Dimes Basil O’Connor Scholar (1998-2001), was appointed as a HHMI Investigator (2005), and was awarded an AAAS Fellowship (2006). He is an editor of Genome Research and has served on various scientific advisory boards for both NIH and NSF. His research group provided the first genome-wide view of segmental duplications within human and other primate genomes and he is a leader in an effort to identify and sequence normal and disease-causing structural variation in the human genome. The long-term goal of his research is to understand the evolution and mechanisms of recent gene duplication and its relationship to structural variation and human disease.

Cédric Feschotte
Department of Biology, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA
Transposable elements and other forms of mobile DNA, genome structure and dynamics, emergence of new genes and genetic innovation

Cédric Feschotte received his B.S degree in 1996 from the University of Toulouse, France, and his Ph.D. in 2001 from the University of Paris VI, Université Pierre and Marie Curie, France. He carried out his postdoctoral research on plant transposable elements in the group of Susan Wessler at the University of Georgia, Athens, USA. Since 2004, he has been a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Texas, Arlington, USA. His research interests focus on the evolution of transposable elements, their impact on genome structure and function and their contribution to the emergence of genetic innovations.

Website: http://www3.uta.edu/faculty/cedric/

Samuel Goldenberg
Instituto Carlos Chagas, Fiocruz-PR, Rua Prof. Algacyr Munhoz Mader 3775, 81350-010 Curitiba - PR - Brasil
Trypanosoma gene expression regulation, Trypanosoma differentiation, Molecular Parasitology, Functional genomics of parasites

Samuel Goldenberg studied at the University of Brasilia where he got the degree (BSc) and Master (MSc.) in Molecular Biology on 1973 and 1975, respectively. He finished his PhD at the University of Paris VII under the supervision of Klaus Scherrer in 1981. In the year of 1982 he joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Oswaldo Cruz Institute (IOC, FIOCRUZ), heading the Department from 1985 to 1989. Upon arrival at Fiocruz he started to study the mechanisms involved in gene expression regulation in Trypanosoma cruzi and this is his major research interest. More recently he started working on the epigenetics of adult stem cells differentiation. In early 2001 he created with his co-workers the Paraná Molecular Biology Institute ( IBMP). He also participated from several committees including the Genetics Advisor Committee from Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq). He is member of several international and national scientific societies, he is member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences,  was in the Direction Board of the Brazilian Society for Genetics (SBG, 2005-2006) and President of the Brazilian Society of Protozoology (SBPz, 2006-2007). He is presently the Director of Carlos Chagas Institute at Curitiba, Parana, Brazil.

Website: http://www.abc.org.br/~sgoldenb

I. King Jordan
Georgia Tech University, School of Biology, 310 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0230, USA
Genome Evolution, Transposable Elements, Computational Biology, Gene Expression, Comparative Genomics

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology.  Before coming to Georgia Tech, I received my PhD in Genetics from the University of Georgia and then worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Staff Scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information.  I lead a computational biology laboratory at Georgia Tech – the Evolutionary Systems Biology Group http://esbg.gatech.edu – that includes undergraduate, Masters and PhD students majoring in Biology, Bioinformatics and Computer Science.  Members of our laboratory investigate genomic evolution, dynamics and systems through the computational analysis of large-scale molecular data sets.  The comparative emphasis of our research necessitates the analysis of data from many different species.
Much of our work on genome dynamics is done on eukaryotes with an emphasis on the human genome, while our efforts in computational genomics are focused primarily on microbial genomes.  We are currently working on three specific areas of research:
1) Transposition - the influence of transposable elements (TEs) on the structure, function and evolution of eukaryotic genomes. Understanding the relationship between TEs, chromatin structure and gene expression. 
2) Regulation - the tempo and mode of evolutionary changes in patterns of gene regulation and expression as well as the evolutionary origins of regulatory RNAs.  Defining changes in gene expression that distinguish normal from cancerous tissues. 
3) Computational Genomics - the development and application of computational tools for analysis of microbial genome sequences.  Creation of web-enabled programs for the molecular epidemiological analysis of microbial pathogens.

Website: http://esbg.gatech.edu

Lynn B. Jorde
Department of Human Genetics, Eccles Institute of Human Genetics, University of Utah, 15 North 2030 East, Room 2100, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Human genetic variation, the genetic basis of human limb malformations, and the genetics of common diseases such as hypertension

Dr. Lynn Jorde has been on the faculty of the University of Utah School of Medicine since 1979 and holds an H.A. and Edna Benning Presidential Endowed Chair in the Department of Human Genetics.  Dr. Jorde=s laboratory is actively involved in studies of human genetic variation, the genetic basis of human limb malformations, and the genetics of common diseases such as hypertension.
Dr. Jorde is the lead author of Medical Genetics, a textbook that is now in its 3rd edition.  He has received 12 teaching awards at the University of Utah School of Medicine, including the Leonard W. Jarcho Distinguished Teaching Award in 2003 and the University of Utah Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006.  He is the co-recipient (with Dr. Louisa Stark and Dr. John Carey) of the 2008 Award for Excellence in Education from the American Society of Human Genetics.

J. Jurka
Genetic Information Research Institute, 1925 Landings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

Dr. Jerzy Jurka received his D.Sc. (Ph.D.) degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Warsaw in 1979.  He is the founder and current Director of Genetic Information Research Institute.  Previously, he served as an Assistant Director of Research at Linus Pauling Institute. His major research areas include Genomics, Computational Biology and Molecular Evolution. During the last 20 years, he and his team performed research on the biology of transposable elements (TEs). His accomplishments include: discovery and classification of major Alu subfamilies, discovery of paternal transmission of human Alu elements and the discovery of the integration mechanism of L1-type non-LTR retrotransposons. He is also a co-discoverer of two new classes of DNA transposons (Helitrons and Polintons/Maverics), as well as of several new superfamilies of TEs, two of which played a fundamental role in the origin of vertebrate immune system.  More recently, he discovered numerous TE-derived repetitive families overrepresented in cis-regulatory modules. Dr. Jurka is the founder and co-developer of Repbase, a database of repetitive elements used throughout the world in genome studies, and the editor-in-chief of the accompanying electronic journal Repbase Reports.  He served on the Editorial Board of Journal of Molecular Evolution (1989-1998) and also served as an Associate Editor of that Journal (1998-2006). Currently he serves as an Associate Editor of Biology Direct and Gene.  Dr. Jurka was a chief organizer of two international conferences centered on the genomic impact of transposable elements.

Dixie Mager
Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia and Senior Scientist, Terry Fox Laboratory, B.C. Cancer Research Centre, 675 W. 10th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V5Z1L3, Canada
Endogenous retroviruses, gene regulation, epigenetics, immunogenetics

Dr. Dixie Mager received her BSc degree in physics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1975.  She then obtained Masters and PhD degrees in medical biophysics at the University of Toronto, with a research focus on cancer cell biology.   Her postdoctoral work in genetics was performed at the University of Wisconsin under the direction of Dr. Oliver Smithies, where she was one of the first to discover endogenous retroviral-like sequences (ERVs) in human DNA.  She established her own research group in 1985 as Senior Scientist within the Terry Fox Laboratory, British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada with her academic appointment in the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia, where she has been a full Professor since 1996.  She has authored over 95 peer-reviewed papers and 20 review articles over the course of her career.  Her laboratory investigates the roles of mammalian ERVs and other transposable elements in gene regulation, genome evolution and disease with an increasing focus on epigenetics of these sequences. Her other main research interest is in the transcriptional regulation, epigenetics and evolution of immune receptors.

Leonardo Mariño-Ramírez
Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Unit, Biotechnology and Bioindustry Center (CBB), Corporacion Colombiana de Investigacion Agropecuaria (CORPOICA), CORPOICA - Tibaitata Km. 14 Via a Mosquera, Bogotá, Colombia
Computational Biology, Eukaryotic Gene Expression, Genome analysis

Leonardo Mariño-Ramírez is an Associate Investigator at the Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Unit, Biotechnology and Bioindustry Center (CBB) at the Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria (CORPOICA) in Bogotá, Colombia.
Dr. Mariño-Ramírez received his Ph.D. training in the laboratory of Dr. James C. Hu in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Texas A&M University, funded by a Fulbright predoctoral fellowship. He carried out postdoctoral training in Dr. David Landsman's laboratory at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the world's premier research institutions in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. His laboratory focuses on the development of an efficient framework to study various aspects of gene regulation in eukaryotic genomes using integrative computational tools and epigenetic data.
Dr. Mariño-Ramírez's activities can be broadly divided in four main categories: 1) Functional analysis of regulatory elements in eukaryotic genomes. 2) Genome and metagenome sequence assembly and analysis. 3) Evolution of eukaryotic gene regulatory mechanisms. 4) Database design and implementation for biological information. He is also an editor of GENE (Elsevier) and DATABASE (Oxford Journals).

Website: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/CBBresearch/Marino/

S.M. Mirkin
White Family Chair in Biology Tufts University Biology, Barnum 101B, 165 Packard Ave., Medford, MA 02155, USA
DNA replication; DNA structure and topology; trinucleotide repeat diseases; transcription; protein-DNA interaction

Dr. Sergei M. Mirkin received a M.S. in Genetics from the Moscow State
University in 1978, followed by a Ph.D. in Molecular biology from the Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, in 1983. During his graduate studies under the supervision of Prof. Roman Khesin, he isolated a conditionally lethal mutant of DNA gyrase and found that this enzyme is essential for both DNA replication and transcription in E. coli. He then carried out his postdoctoral studies at the same Institute under the supervision of Prof. Maxim Frank- Kamenetskii, studying conformational transitions in superhelical DNA. His research has led to the discovery of the first multi-stranded DNA structure, called H-DNA, which is formed by homopurine-homopyrimidine mirror repeats. This pioneering study triggered a worldwide interest in unusual DNA structures. Dr. Mirkin was appointed a Group Leader at the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Moscow in 1988. He soon moved to the United States to become an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Medicine in 1990. During his years at UIC, he rose in ranks to the Full Professor becoming an internationally recognized leader in the field of DNA structure and functioning. One of his major achievements was unraveling the replication mechanism of the expansion of triplet repeats that is responsible for more than thirty human hereditary disorders. In 2007, he moved to Tufts University to become White Family Chair in Biology. He published over seventy scientific papers, including numerous book chapters, scientific reviews and literary essays.

John V. Moran
Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Departments of Human Genetics and Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, 1241 E. Catherine Street, Rm. 4909 Buhl, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-5618, USA
LINE-1, Alu, retrotransposon, genome, recombination, reverse transcription

John V. Moran, Ph.D. is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and is a Professor of Human Genetics and Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.  He received his B.S. from the Rochester Institute of Technology.  He conducted his graduate studies with Dr. Philip S. Perlman, earning a M.S. from The Ohio State University and and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.  He conducted postdoctoral studies with Dr. Haig Kazazian at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.  He joined the University of Michigan faculty in 1998.  His laboratory studies the biology of an abundant class of mobile genetic elements in the human genome known as Long Interspersed Element-1 (LINE-1 or L1) retrotransposons.

S. Mueller
Klinikum der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Institut für Humangenetik, Zytogenetik, Goethestr. 29, 80336 München, Germany
Mammalian chromosome and genome evolution, comparative cytogenetics and genomics, nuclear and chromatin architecture, molecular cytogenetics technology

After obtaining my PhD in 1998 I worked as a postdoc at the Institute of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Department of Biology, LMU Munich, Germany. In 2004 I qualified as university lecturer in Human Genetics, and since 2008 I am in charge of the Cytogenetics Laboratory, Institute of Human Genetics, Medical School, LMU Munich.
Main research interests are the molecular cytogenetics and cell biology of large-scale evolutionary genomic changes in vertebrates with special emphasis on primates. Here, we have reconstructed the succession and evolutionary direction of chromosomal rearrangements in various mammalian lineages, including primates, insectivores, scandentia, but also in a neotropical eagle. More recently, we focussed our attention to the comparative analysis of the three-dimensional nuclear genome architecture. To this end, some common principles have become apparent, which are highly conserved irrespective of extensive genome reshuffling during evolution.

Mohamed Noor
Department of Biology, Box 90338, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Genetic changes leading to species formation and in molecular evolutionary genetics

Mohamed Noor is Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Biology at Duke University and director of graduate studies of Duke's University Program in Genetics and Genomics.  He completed his PhD at the University of Chicago in 1996, and spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow in the Section of Genetics and Development at Cornell University.

Norihiro Okada
Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuta-cho, Midori-ku, Yokohama 226-8501, Japan
Retrotransposons; SINEs; LINEs; phylogeny; speciation; cichlids

Norihiro Okada, Professor at the Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, graduated with a BSc (1973) and a PhD (1978) from The University of Tokyo, Japan. He became a post-doc at USA/NIH in 1978, an assistant professor at Tsukuba University, Japan in 1979, became an associate professor in 1988, and moved to Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1992 as a professor. He undertook extensive research on experimental study on the origin of SINEs 1986-, phylogenetic usage of retroposons 1993-, study on the speciation mechanism of cichlid fishes 1996- and study on the mechanism of generation of mammalian brain 2007-. In summary, he discovered the tRNA origin of SINEs (1986, JME), established the SINE method for determination of phylogeny (the first application of the SINE method was published in 1993, PNAS; discovery of hippos and whales relatedness in 1997, Nature & 1999, PNAS; mammalian phylogeny in 2006, PNAS), elucidated the amplification mechanism of SINE (2002, Cell), proposed the SINE function in mammalian-brain formation (2008, PNAS) and proposed the Sensory Drive mechanism of speciation in cichlids (2008, Nature). During 2002-2007, he organized the Speciation Mechanism Study Project supported by the Grant of MEXT Japan. During 2005-2007, he organized Asia Africa Science platform Program supported by JSPS. He received a number of awards in Japan, such as Kimura Prize (2003), Kihara Prize (2006), Fujiwara Prize (2006) and Medal with Purple Ribbon (2007). He became a fellow of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) in 2001.

Igor Rogozin
National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health, National Centre for Biotech Info, Building 38A, Room 5N505A, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
Comparative genomics, bioinformatics, phylogenetic analysis, mutagenesis, molecular evolution

Dr. Rogozin received his PhD in computational biology from the Novosibirsk State University (Russia). After that he was serving as postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Advanced Technologies in Milan (Italy) and completed his postdoctoral training at Penn State University (USA). For the last 8 years, Dr. Rogozin has been working on various aspects of molecular evolution and comparative genomics as a Staff Scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information NLM, National Institutes of Health (USA). He is also an Adjunct Lecturer in Johns Hopkins University (USA). Dr. Rogozin is a editorial board member of two high-impact peer-reviewed journals, Gene and Briefings in Bioinformatics. He authored over 150 papers published in internationally peer-reviewed journals, ranging from Science and Nature to more specialized journals such as Nucleic Acids Research and Bioinformatics.

Alla Rynditch
Department of Molecular Oncogenetics, Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, 150 Zabolotnogo str., 03143 Kiev, Ukraine
RNA function, RNA processing, transcriptional and protein isoforms, expression of retroviral genomes

Upon completion of her doctorate in Biochemistry in 1970 (Sector of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Academy of Sceinces of Ukraine, Kiev) A. Rynditch joined a group in which she directed research combining genomics and molecular retrovirology with reverse transcriptional approaches. This led to the establishment of new mechanisms for the generation of sarcoma viruses and their adaptation to unrelated hosts. Using multiple model systems, the specificity of integration of oncoviruses into host genome compartments and the dependence of expression of their proviruses in specific sites of the host genome were shown. Dr. Rynditch actively participated in investigations on pre-mRNAs and giant supragenic transcripts of globin genes that appeared to be part of the nuclear matrix, and on the formation of intergenic transcripts due to rearrangements of human chromosome 3 in leukemia. Different parts of this work were  carred out  through collaboration with laboratories in several European countries and the USA, in most of which Dr. Rynditch was able to work after 1984. Since 1995 as head of the Department of Functional Genomics, Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Prof. A. Rynditch continues to work in the field of molecular retrovirology (on endogenous viruses) and genomics, mainly on alternative splicing of adaptor proteins, transcription of eukaryotic domains, aberrant methylation and gene expression in several epithelial cancers.

Manfred Schartl
Physiologische Chemie I, Biozentrum der Universitat Wuerzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Wuerzburg, Germany
Teleost and elasmobranch gene structure and genomic organization; receptor tyrosine kinases; signal transduction; tumour-related genes, oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes in lower vertebrates; transgenic fish and gene transfer methods; homologous recombination and 'knock-out' approaches in lower vertebrates

Manfred Schartl, born 1953 in Friedberg/Hessen, has studied Chemistry and Biology in Giessen, Germany. After obtaining his doctoral degree in Genetics he worked as scientific assistant in research laboratories in Germany and in the U.S. From 1985 on he was team leader of a research group at the Genetic Center of Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich. Since 1991 he is Head of the Department of Physiological Chemistry I at the Biocenter of the University of Wuerzburg. He is vice-chairman of the DFG research center for experimental medicine (Rudolf-Virchow-Zentrum). He has served as chairman and vice-chairman of the Biocenter Wuerzburg. He is also Adjunct Professor for Experimental Cancer Research at the Institute for Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Bergen/Norway. He is Head of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Center of Molecular Biology at the University of Göttingen and for the Sars Centre for Molecular Marine Biology in Bergen. From this University he was awarded an honorary doctoral degree in 2004. He is President–elect of the German Society for Genetics. He is one of the founders of the study program of Biomedicine in Wuerzburg.
His main research interests are the molecular processes in organismic development and their malfunction in cancerogenesis. The major topic is the understanding of signal transduction and gene regulation in melanoma, using the Xiphophorus model system. A further interest is in the processes that control differentiation and stemness of embryonic stem cells and their relation to cancer stem cells. Last not least his team takes interest in evolutionary questions centering on the organismic level around sex determination and on the molecular level on the impact of gene duplications for the evolution of genes and genomes.

Website: http://www.pch1.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/

M. Stoneking
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
Using molecular genetic methods to address questions of anthropological interest concerning the origins, migrations, and relationships of human populations, and the influence of selection during human evolution

Mark Stoneking received his PhD in genetics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1986.  After postdoctoral work at Berkeley he held research scientist positions at the Human Genome Center at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and at the Cetus Corporation.  He joined the faculty of the anthropology department at The Pennsylvania State University as an assistant professor in 1990, rising to associate professor in 1994 and full professor in 1998.  In 1999 he left Penn State for the newly-established Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, where he supervises the Molecular Anthropology Group and is Honorary Professor of Biological Anthropology at the University of Leipzig.  His research interests involve using molecular genetic methods to address questions of anthropological interest concerning the origins, migrations, and relationships of human populations, and the influence of selection during human evolution.

G. Theißen
University of Jena, Lehrstuhl for Genetics, Philosophenweg 12, D 07743 Jena, Germany
Plant evolutionary developmental genetics; genetics of inflorescence and flower development; plant transcription factors; MADS-box genes; evolution of gene families; genetic aspects of biodiversity

Günter Theißen was born in Mönchengladbach, Germany, on January 16, 1962. He studied biology at the University of Düsseldorf (Germany), and received a Diploma in Biology in 1987, and a Dr. rer. nat. (equivalent to PhD) in 1991, both from the University of Düsseldorf. Working on viroid-binding proteins and the biogenesis of ribosomes in E. coli during his time in Düsseldorf provided him with training in molecular biophysics, molecular biology and microbiology. In 1992 he joined the department of Plant Genetics at the Max-Planck-Institute for Breeding Research (MPIZ) in Cologne (Germany), first as a postdoc, later as a group leader. Here he established a group that worked on the phylogeny of MADS-box genes and its role in the development and evolution of land plants. In 2000 he obtained Habilitation and venia legendi in Genetics from the University of Cologne. In 2001 he became Associate Professor of Botany at the University of Münster (Germany). Since 2002 he works as a Full Professor of Genetics at the University of Jena (Germany). His major research interests are currently the molecular genetics of flower development, the molecular evolution of MADS-box genes and proteins, the evolution of flower development, and the mechanisms of macroevolution.

Jean Nicolas Volff
Equipe Génomique Evolutive des Verté brés, Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle de Lyon, UMR5242 CNRS/INRA/Universit Claude Bernard LyonI/ENS, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 allée d'Italie, F-69364 Lyon Cedex 07, France
Evolution, genomics, fish, transposable elements, sex determination

1994: Ph.D. in Genetics, University of Nancy, France
1994-1996: EMBO postdoctoral fellow, University of Stuttgart, Germany
1996-1997: Research group leader, Robert Bosch Hospital, Stuttgart, German
1997-2006: Assistant professor, University of Würzburg, Germany
2001-2007: Biofuture research group leader, University of Würzburg, Germany
Since 2007: Full professor in Genomics and Evolution, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon Research group leader, Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle de Lyon, Lyon, France

S. Yokoyama
Department of Biology, O. Wayne Rollins Research Center, 1510 Clifton Road, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA
Molecular evolution; opsin; visual pigment and function; DNA sequencing; sequence analysis; vertebrate vision

Jianzhi.G. Zhang
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Michigan, Natural Science Building (Kraus), 830 North University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1048, USA
Adaptive evolution; gene duplication; primate and human evolution; molecular biology; DNA sequence analysis

Jianzhi Zhang is a molecular evolutionary geneticist.  He received his PhD in Genetics from Pennsylvania State University in 1998 and is currently an Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.  His research interests include molecular basis of adaptation, evolution of duplicate genes, evolutionary genomics and systems biology, genetic basis of human origins and primate evolution, and vertebrate sensory gene evolution, and has published ~100 papers in these areas.

Website: www.umich.edu/~zhanglab