Joanne Chapman, Ph.D.

Education

Ph.D., in Evolutionary Biology - Balliol College, University of Oxford (2009)

Current Research: Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are small proteins that can directly kill or impede the growth of microorganisms. As such, they play an important role in innate immune defenses of plants and animals. We aim to characterize the activity and evolution of AMPs in Drosophila species. To this end we use a combination of approaches, including functional assays of AMP activity in-vitro, in-vivo infection models involving RNAi gene silencing and CRISPR mediated gene editing, and bioinformatic analyses of AMP diversity and evolution.