Julia Van Etten and Debashish Bhattacharya
Horizontal Gene Transfer in Eukaryotes: Not if, but How Much?
Julia Van Etten, a PhD student in the Bhattacharya lab publishes a review in the journal Trends in Genetics on the topic of the frequency and importance of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in microbial eukaryote evolution. Her work shows how HGT can be adaptive in extreme and fluctuating environments and how it has contributed to major eukaryotic transitions. She identifies future directions in the field and proposes that upcoming eukaryote genome projects need to incorporate standardized pipelines to create a robust inventory of HGT across the tree of life.