Johann Peter Gogarten is a German-American biologist studying the early evolution of life. Born in

Bad Oeynhausen Bad Oeynhausen () is a spa town on the southern edge of the Wiehengebirge in the district of Minden-Lübbecke in the East-Westphalia-Lippe region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The closest larger towns are Bielefeld (39 kilometres southwest) ...

, Germany, he studied plant physiology and membrane transport with Friedrich-Wilhelm Bentrup in

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in three ...

and

Giessen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univer ...

. In 1987 he moved to the US as a postdoc to work with Lincoln Taiz at

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge ...

. He currently is Distinguished Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from H ...

in Storrs, CT. Gogarten rooted the tree of life using an ancient gene duplication. He was also one of the pioneers to recognize the importance and the extent of

horizontal gene transfer Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) or lateral gene transfer (LGT) is the movement of genetic material between unicellular and/or multicellular organisms other than by the ("vertical") transmission of DNA from parent to offspring (reproduction). H ...

and its role in microbial evolution. One of Gogarten’s current focuses in his research is the evolution of

homing endonuclease The homing endonucleases are a collection of endonucleases encoded either as freestanding genes within introns, as fusions with host proteins, or as self-splicing inteins. They catalyze the hydrolysis of genomic DNA within the cells that synthes ...

utilizing parasitic genetic elements ( inteins) and the intertwining of selection occurring on the gene, population and the community level (

multilevel selection Group selection is a proposed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group, instead of at the level of the individual or gene. Early authors such as V. C. Wynne-Edwards and Konrad Lorenz argued that the behav ...

Unit of selection A unit of selection is a biological entity within the hierarchy of biological organization (for example, an entity such as: a self-replicating molecule, a gene, a cell, an organism, a group, or a species) that is subject to natural selection. ...

). J. Peter Gogarten was selected as a recipient of a 2009 Fulbright scholarship, a member of the CT Academy of Science and Engineering, and fellow of the

American Academy of Microbiology The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), originally the Society of American Bacteriologists, is a professional organization for scientists who study viruses, bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa as well as other aspects of microbiology. It wa ...

and of th
International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life

References

External links

Gogarten Lab › University of ConnecticutJ. Peter Gogarten
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gogarten, Johann Living people Year of birth missing (living people) German emigrants to the United States University of California, Santa Cruz alumni University of Connecticut faculty 21st-century German biologists Fulbright alumni