Dr. Claude Depamphilis

Biography

I am a plant evolutionary biologist with broad interests in processes and patterns of evolution at both the molecular and organismal levels. My research focuses on the evolution of the floral developmental program, the study of parasitic plants, and chloroplast genome phylogenomic evolution. I aim to address key questions surrounding the origin and diversification of flowers, such as the genetic information needed to assemble modern flowers and the role of genome duplication in flower diversification. Recent studies have identified over 100 genes with specific roles in flower development, revealing phylogenetic relationships within flowering plants through bioinformatics analysis. As the principal investigator of the Floral Genome Project, I have been involved in sequencing, library building, and constructing databases for bioinformatic and molecular evolutionary studies. My long-term research interest includes the phylogeny and biology of parasitic plants, which hold significant economic importance as many are important crop plants. Additionally, I participate in a large-scale chloroplast genome sequencing project to sequence and analyze over 55 chloroplast genomes from critical lineages of flowering plants and gymnosperms, focusing on evolutionarily significant genomic changes.

Research Interests