Research

Regulation and evolution of transcription initiation

The DNA sequence of a gene needs to be copied into mRNA molecules to carry out its function, a process called transcription. Cells are highly selective in where they initiate transcription. The mechanism that locates transcription starting positions is shared by most eukaryotic organisms, including humans, plants, and fungi, while distinct modes of transcription initiation have evolved in several fungal species, including baker’s yeast. The main research focus of my lab is to better understand the mechanisms of transcription initiation, and to investigate how the conserved mechanisms have diverged in yeasts.

More information about this topics can be found from the following publications: Lu and Lin (2019), Lu and Lin (2021), Zhang et al. (2021), and Zhan et al. (2025).

Genome assembly and evolution of genomes

An organism’s genome contains the complete set of its genetic information. Changes in genome sequence and structure provide raw genetic materials for functional innovation and evolutionary divergence. Our lab also works on genome assemblies (such as Gardner et al. (2024) and Chen et al. (2026)), and studies of evolutionary patterns and mechanisms of genomic sequences, gene content, and genome structures through comparative analyses across lineages ( Rajeh et al. (2018)).