NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology: How have Gene-environment Interactions Shaped the Repeated Evolution of Differentiated Multicellularity?

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2022, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the Fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. Complex multicellularity has evolved multiple times throughout the history of life.

This research will examine how new types of cells evolve and specifically how interactions between genes and the environment shaped the repeated evolution of multicellular species with multiple cell types. The project, which will also train the Fellow in cutting-edge methods, is likely to substantially advance the field as it lays out a novel framework for understanding the evolution of complex multicellularity through interactions among genes, development, and the environment.

This project will broaden participation in the sciences by bringing new teaching materials to underserved and highly diverse local middle schools as well as by generating new materials for undergraduate education, and through the mentoring of undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds.

The research aims to uncover how environmentally-regulated changes in gene expression may have shaped the repeated evolution of cellular differentiation. Specifically, it tests the hypothesis that the repeated evolution of a new cell type (somatic cells) is due to the recurrent transition from environmental to developmental-genetic regulation of cellular specialization.

The project will employ single-cell transcriptomics to understand how gene expression changes in response to the environment, and how these changes in gene expression can underpin developmental changes in cellular specialization. Next, the research will use a comparative approach to examine the reorganization of gene expression networks during the evolution of obligate somatic differentiation.

Finally, the project will integrate the developmental and phylogenetic approaches by comparing the environmentally-induced changes in gene expression described in one species to the evolutionary changes in gene expression characterized across species. This research will use the volvocine algae as a model system because cellular differentiation has evolved repeatedly in this clade and the genomes of multiple species have been sequenced.

Over the course of the project, a postdoctoral researcher will be trained in single-cell transcriptomics, bioinformatics, and network analysis. The researcher will also train undergraduates from diverse backgrounds in laboratory techniques, develop activities for undergraduate online learning, and work with local middle schools to help them improve the teaching of evolution in the classroom.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.