The King Lab

Choanoflagellates and the origin of animals

People

Principal Investigator

Post-docs

  • Rosie Alegado, Molecular basis of bacterial-dependent induction of choanoflagellate colonies
  • Pawel Burkhardt, Insights into the origin of a postsynaptic scaffold
  • Mark Dayel, Origins of animal cell-substrate and cell-cell interactions
  • Scott Nichols, Functional evolution of the gene beta-catenin

Graduate students

  • Monika Abedin, Characterizing the structure and function of choanoflagellate cadherins
  • Stephen Fairclough, Cellular and molecular basis of choanoflagellate colony formation
  • Tera Levin, Developing choanoflagellate genetic manipulation
  • Daniel Richter, The evolution of sex in animals
  • Brock Roberts
  • Jody Westbrook, Gene structure and alternative splicing in Monosiga brevicollis
  • Susan Young, The role of transcriptional regulation in the origin of animals

Undergraduates

  • Candace Britton, Colony induction in diverse choanoflagellate species
  • Nicolas Derr
  • Conor McClune, Developing antibiotic selection techniques for genetic manipulation of choanoflagellates
  • Jeremy Mosher

Lab Alumni

  • Kord Kober (Graduate student, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UC Santa Cruz)
  • Tracy LaGrassa (Intellectual Property Legal Intern at Jones Day, NY and Fordham Law School student)
  • Jess Lyons (Graduate student, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, UC Berkeley)
  • Jen Halbleib (Law School Student, Stanford University)
  • Andrea Morris (Graduate student, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, U of Michigan)
  • KC Payne (Undergraduate, UC Berkeley)
  • Rachel Ross (Undergraduate, UC Berkeley)
  • Alison Sweeney (Post-doc, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, UC Santa Barbara)
  • Rick Zuzow (Research Assistant, O’Shea lab, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University)