Research Program           

I have broad interests in comparative and evolutionary genomics, bioinformatics, and plant evolution.

Much of my current research focuses on understanding the role of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in eukaryotic evolution. HGT is the process of genetic changes across the boundaries of species or genomes and has been recognized as an important force in the evolution of life.  In prokaryotes, acquisition of foreign genes from other organisms is considered as the major means to gain novel genes and, therefore, to create beneficial phenotypes and abilities to live in previously unexplored niches. However, the importance of HGT in eukaryotic evolution is less clear. We are currently performing genome analyses to identify transferred genes in eukaryotes and to understand the impact of HGT on the evolution of recipient organisms.

Opportunities are also available for students who are interested in other related research areas in the lab.
           

Courses Taught

Bioinformatics

Evolution of Genes and Genomes
Taxonomy of Vascular Plants

Recent Publications

Huang, J. and J. P. Gogarten. 2008. Concerted gene recruitment in early plant evolution. Genome Biology 9: R109.

Huang, J. and J. P. Gogarten. 2007. Did an ancient chlamydial endosymbiosis facilitate the establishment of primary plastids? Genome Biology 8: R99.

Huang, J. and J. P. Gogarten. 2006. Ancient horizontal gene transfer can benefit phylogenetic reconstruction. Trends in Genetics 22: 361-366.

Huang, J., Y. Xu, and J. P. Gogarten. 2005. The presence of a haloarchaeal type tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase marks the opisthokonts as monophyletic. Molecular Biology and Evolution 22: 2142-2146.

Huang, J., N. Mullapudi, C. A. Lancto et al. 2004. Phylogenomic evidence supports past endosymbiosis, intracellular and horizontal gene transfer in Cryptosporidium parvum. Genome Biology 5: R88.

Striepen, B, A., J. P. Pruijssers, J. Huang, C. Li et al. 2004. Gene transfer in the evolution of parasite nucleotide biosynthesis.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 101: 3154-3159.

Huang, J. and S. M. Bhandarkar.  2003. A comparison of physical mapping algorithms based on the maximum likelihood model.  Bioinformatics 19: 1303-1310.

Huang, J. and R. A. Price.  2003.  Estimation of the age of extant Ephedra using chloroplast rbcL sequence data.  Molecular Biology and Evolution 20: 435-440.