Hybrid Monday Lecture Series
(open to the Rockefeller community)
Monday, October 19, 2026
Li Zhao, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics, The Rockefeller University
Born from Scratch: The Origin and Evolution of De Novo Genes and Proteins
Recommended Readings:
Li, Cong, et al. “Regulatory divergence and effector turnover shape species-specific bacterial clearance in Drosophilidae.” bioRxiv (2026): 2026-08.
Casola, Claudio, et al. “De novo genes: current status and future goals.” Genome Biology and Evolution 17.12 (2025): evaf230.
Peng, Junhui, et al. “Gene regulatory networks and essential transcription factors for de novo-originated genes.” Nature ecology & evolution 9.8 (2025): 1487-1498.
Lee, UnJin, et al. “Comparative single-cell analysis of transcriptional bursting reveals the role of genome organization in de novo transcript origination.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 122.18 (2025): e2425618122.
Peng, Junhui, and Li Zhao. “The origin and structural evolution of de novo genes in Drosophila.” Nature Communications 15.1 (2024): 810.
