Computational genomics of marine biodiversity and ecosystem function
Marine ecosystems contain vast biodiversity. Our research uses advanced genomics and computational approaches to understand genome evolution across diverse marine lineages, including microbes, harmful algae, corals, and jellyfish, with a focus on how genomic divergence, symbiosis, and microbial interactions contribute to ecosystem function. We routinely develop and apply customised bioinformatics approaches to analyse non-model genomes and identify genetic features associated with environmental adaptation, symbiosis, and resilience to environmental changes. More recently, we explore the use of k-mers as predictive indicators of marine ecosystem status and health. In this talk, I will discuss how these strategies offer scalable tools for monitoring biodiversity and detecting environmental shifts, and a robust bioinformatics framework for understanding ecology and evolution.
Bio
Associate Professor Cheong Xin Chan is a computational biologist and genomicist at the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland. He completed his PhD in Genomics and Computational Biology at UQ and postdoctoral training at Rutgers University in algal genomics, before returning to UQ in 2011 as one of the inaugural Great Barrier Reef Foundation Bioinformatics Fellows. He now leads a research group at the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics (ACE) and is an affiliate of UQ’s Centre for Marine Science.
His research focuses on genome evolution and innovation, the hologenomics of coral-algae symbiosis, and scalable phylogenomics using alignment-free methods. With over 100 published works, his contributions include demonstrating a single origin of Archaeplastida, uncovering molecular mechanisms of coral bleaching, and developing large-scale genomic inference tools.
