Wu Chung-i
Professor
Beijing Institute of Genomics
Chinese Academy of Sciences
China
Biography
Professor Chung-I Wu obtained his Ph.D degree in Population Genetics from the University of British Columbia, Canada, in 1982. During 1986 - 1991, he was an assistant and then associate professor in the Department of Biology, University of Rochester. In 1991, he moved to the University of Chicago as an associate professor in the Department Ecology and Evolution. In 1998, he became a professor and served as the chair of the department until 2006. Professor Wu was elected as the member of Academia Sinica in 2004. In 2008, as a ‘1000 talents’ (A) Professor, he was appointed as the director of Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences until May 2014. Currently, he is leading the Major Research Plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the 973 Program. He is also the principle investigator of the Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Natural Science Foundation of China. Professor Chung-I Wu’ research interest focuses on molecular evolutionary. He has over 150 papers published including in journals of Science, Nature, PNAS, etc.
Research Interest
Professor Chung-I Wu’s lab mainly focus on the following studies: (1) Cancer genomics. We use population genetics principles and Next-generation sequencing technology to study genomic variations during cancer cell proliferation, differentiation and migration, decipher the evolutionary dynamics of tumor cell populations, and identify the genetic basis that drives tumor to progress. (2) Co-evolution of miRNAs and their target genes. We try to investigate the co-evolution of miRNAs and their targets and to investigate the role of miRNAs in transciptional stability in cancer cells and reveal the function of miRNAs during the cancer progression (3) Evolutionary and population genetics of speciation and species differentiation, including molecular basis of speciation, both within and beyond the Drosophila melanogaster clade, genetic analysis of behavioral isolation between Drosophila races, and molecular basis of natural and sexual selection
Publications
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Jin Xu#，Rui Zhang#，Yang Shen，Guojing Liu，Xuemei Lu，Chung-I Wu*. The evolution of evolvability in microrna target sites in vertebrates. Genome research. 2013;23:1810-1816
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Yang Lyu, Yang Shen, Heng Li, Yuxin Chen, Li Guo, Yixin Zhao, Eric Hungate, Suhua Shi, Chung-I Wu*, and Tian Tang*. New microRNAs in Drosophila--birth, death and cycles of adaptive evolution. PLoS genetics. 2014; 10, e1004096.
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Guojing Liu#, Rui Zhang#, Jin Xu, Chung-I Wu* and Xuemei Lu*. Functional conservation of both CDS- and 3’UTR- located miRNA binding sites between species. Molecular biology and evolution, 2015, 32(3): 623-628
