“Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.” — Marston Bates
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
Yamada, K. J., T. Barker, K. D. Dyer, T. A. Rice, C. M. Percopo, K. E. Garcia-Crespo, S. Cho, J. J. Lee, K. M. Druey, and H. F. Rosenberg. 2015. Eosinophil-associated ribonuclease 11 is a macrophage chemoattractant. Journal of Biological Chemistry 290 14:8863-8875. DOI:10.1074/jbc. M114.626648
Liu, J., X.-P. Wang, S. Cho, B. K. Lim, D. M. Irwin, O. A. Ryder, Y.-P. Zhang, and L. Yu. 2014. Evolutionary and functional novelty of pancreatic ribonuclease: A study of musteloidea (order Carnivora). Scientific Reports 4DOI:10.1038/srep05070
Goo, S. M., and S. Cho. 2013. The expansion and functional diversification of the mammalian ribonuclease a superfamily epitomizes the efficiency of multigene families at generating biological novelty. Genome Biology and Evolution 5 11:2124-2140. DOI:10.1093/gbe/evt161
Papanicolaou, A., A. Woo, B. Brei, D. Ma, A. Masedunskas, E. Gray, G. G. Xiao, S. Cho, and C. Brockhouse. 2013. Novel aquatic silk genes from Simulium (Psilozia) vittatum (Zett) Diptera: Simuliidae. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 43 12:1181-1188. DOI:10.1016/j. ibmb.2013.09.008
Yu, L., W. Jin, X. Zhang, D. Wang, J. Zheng, G. Yang, S. Xu, S. Cho, and Y. Zhang. 2011. Evidence for positive selection on the leptin gene in cetacea and pinnipedia. PLoS ONE 6 10DOI:10.1371/ journal.pone.0026579
Baldi, C., S. Cho, and R. E. Ellis. 2009. Mutations in two independent pathways are sufficient to create hermaphroditic nematodes. Science 326 5955:1002-1005. DOI:10.1126/ science.1176013
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 5:1259-1268. DOI:10.1093/molbev/ msm047
Cho, S., Z. Y. Huang, and J. Zhang. 2007. Sex-specific splicing of the honeybee doublesex gene reveals 300 million years of evolution at the bottom of the insect sex-determination pathway. Genetics 177 3:1733-1741. DOI:10.1534/ genetics.107.078980
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 11:1366-1375. DOI:10.1101/gr.4695306
Cho, S., and J. Zhang. 2006. Ancient expansion of the ribonuclease A superfamily revealed by genomic analysis of placental and marsupial mammals. Gene 373 1-2:116-125. DOI:10.1016/j. gene.2006.01.018
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 2:208-220. DOI:10.1016/j. ygeno.2004.10.008
Cho, S., S.-W. Jin, A. Cohen, and R. E. Ellis. 2004. A phylogeny of Caenorhabditis reveals frequent loss of introns during nematode evolution. Genome Research 14 7:1207-1220. DOI:10.1101/gr.2639304