I am an geneticist interested in using genomic approach to study how pathogenic microorganisms – especially parasites – adapt to the unique environment of their hosts. Every living species has at least one parasite, and the majority of organisms, including humans, have many. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of life on earth must include the study of parasites.

Problems in controlling parasitic nematodes are of global scale. Nematodes currently infect one billion people worldwide and have a major impact on agricultural/forestry production. These issues will intensify as the climate change worsens, causing emergence of new parasites. The key to successful parasitism is that they modulate their hosts and make within-host adaptive life-history decisions. The ability for parasites to acquire these feats is evolutionary in nature, but our knowledge about how parasites have evolved from free-living individuals into pathogenic forms is poor. It remains one of the most fascinating but practical questions in biology. In my laboratory, we are studying the diversity and mechanisms of parasitism in nematodes by combining genomics, transcriptomics, ecology and host infection experiments.