Lin Chao is a

Chinese Brazilian Chinese Brazilians ( pt, Sino-brasileiro, italic=yes or ''Chinês-brasileiro''; zh, c=巴西華人 / 巴西华人 or 巴西華裔 / 巴西华裔) are Brazilians of Chinese ancestry or birth. The Chinese Brazilian population was estimated to be a ...

American

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life for ...

and

geneticist A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processe ...

. Chao gained his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in 1977 from the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

, as a student of Bruce R. Levin (now at

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...

), and was a

NIH The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

postdoctoral fellow at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in the laboratory of Edward C. Cox. He spent most of his career in the Department of Biology of the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

and is currently at the

Ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

, Behavior and Evolution Section of the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

. Chao is best known for his early work on the evolution of

bacteriocins Bacteriocins are proteinaceous or peptide, peptidic toxins produced by bacteria to inhibit the growth of similar or closely related bacterial strain(s). They are similar to yeast and paramecium killing factors, and are structurally, functionally ...

, his demonstration of Muller’s ratchet in the

RNA Virus An RNA virus is a virusother than a retrovirusthat has ribonucleic acid (RNA) as its genetic material. The nucleic acid is usually single-stranded RNA ( ssRNA) but it may be double-stranded (dsRNA). Notable human diseases caused by RNA viruses ...

Phi-6 and his work on sex in viruses. More recently, he was instrumental in the demonstration of the evolution of parasitic genetic elements in co-infecting

bacteriophages A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a ''phage'' (), is a duplodnaviria virus that infects and replicates within bacteria and archaea. The term was derived from "bacteria" and the Greek φαγεῖν ('), meaning "to devour". Bacterio ...

and experimental tests of

Fisher's geometric model Fisher's geometric model (FGM) is an evolutionary model of the effect sizes and effect on fitness (biology), fitness of spontaneous mutations proposed by Ronald Fisher to explain the distribution of effects of mutations that could contribute to adap ...

. He argued that "

life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...

". The approach generally used in his laboratory is called microbial

experimental evolution Experimental evolution is the use of laboratory experiments or controlled field manipulations to explore evolutionary dynamics. Evolution may be observed in the laboratory as individuals/populations adapt to new environmental conditions by natura ...

. Chao is married to

Camilla Rang Camilla may refer to: People * Camilla (given name), including a list of people with the name ** Camilla, Queen Consort (born 1947), wife of King Charles III Places * Camilla, Georgia, a city in the United States * Camilla Castle, an alternativ ...

, a fellow scientist, T-shirt designer and Swedish children's book author. * UCSD Chancellor's Associates Faculty Excellence Award (2014)

References

External links

Chao's Faculty Webpage at UCSD
American people of Brazilian descent American people of Chinese descent Brazilian people of Chinese descent Phage workers University of California, San Diego faculty Living people University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni Princeton University fellows Year of birth missing (living people) Brazilian American {{biologist-stub