“The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music.” — Lewis Thomas
Soochin Cho
Associate Professor
Molecular & Evolutionary Genomics
Ph.D. – University of Michigan, 2003
M.S. – Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1996
B.S. – Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1994
Creighton University
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE 68178-0103
Courses Offered
Research Interests
Molecular evolutionary genetics and genomics in insect sex determination and sociality
- Molecular mechanism and evolution of the complementary sex determination system in honey bees
- Molecular evolution of the sex-determination pathways in insects
- Genetic/genomic bases of honey bee sociality, particularly evolution of sensory systems, inter- and intra-caste communication, and innate immunity
Comparative and evolutionary genomics of gene family
- Origin and evolution of the ribonuclease A gene superfamily
- Adaptive evolution by gene duplication and functional diversification of the superfamily
Scholarly Works
Publications
Baldi, C., S. Cho, and R.E. Ellis. 2009. Mutations in two independent pathways are sufficient to create hermaphroditic nematodes. Science 326: 1002-1005
Cho, S., Z. Y. Huang, and J. Zhang. 2007. Sex-specific splicing of the honey bee doublesex gene reveals 300 million years of evolution at the bottom of the insect sex-determination pathway. Genetics 177: 1733-1741.
Cho, S., and J. Zhang. 2007. Zebrafish ribonucleases are bactericidal: Implications for the origin of the vertebrate RNase A superfamily. Molecular Biology and Evolution 24: 1259-68.
Cho, S., Z. Y. Huang, D. R. Green, D. R. Smith, and J. Zhang. 2006. Evolution of the complementary sex-determination gene of honey bees: balancing selection and trans-species polymorphisms. Genome Research 16: 1366-1375.
Cho, S., and J. Zhang. 2006. Ancient expansion of the ribonuclease A superfamily revealed by genomic analysis of placental and marsupial mammals. Gene 373: 116-125.
Cho, S., J. J. Beintema, and J. Zhang. 2005. The ribonuclease A superfamily of mammals and birds: identifying new members and tracing evolutionary histories. Genomics 85: 208-220.
Cho, S., S.-W. Jin, A. B. Cohen, and R. E. Ellis. 2004. A phylogeny of Caenorhabditis reveals frequent loss of introns during nematode evolution. Genome Research 14: 1207-1220.