Academic Affiliation
Assistant Professor, School of Life Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Credentials
PhD, University of Rochester
Bio
Yuseob Kim, PhD, investigates the rate and strength of beneficial mutations in nature as assistant professor at the Biodesign Institute Center for Evolutionary Functional Genomics at Arizona State University.
Beneficial mutations increase reproductive success. Unlike neutral and harmful, or �deleterious,� mutations, beneficial mutations occur too infrequently to be observed directly in a population sample.
Fortunately, beneficial alleles increase rapidly in a population, disturbing the dynamics of neutral and slightly deleterious alleles. These disturbances help Dr. Kim find the signatures of past beneficial mutations in the genetic variations among present-day species.
Dr. Kim develops mathematical models that aid in the process of detecting this signature. Although mainly theoretical, his work remains closely tied to observations of actual DNA sequence variation. When applied, this aids in pinpointing the locations of genes responsible for agronomic traits of domesticated plants.
Drawing on computer simulation, Dr. Kim investigates various models of evolution to find which genetic system (for example, sexual vs. asexual, additive vs. epistatic, robust vs. nonrobust) is important for biological adaptation in nature.
Dr. Kim earned a BS and MS from Seoul National University in Korea. He studied theoretical population genetics in New York at both the University of Rochester, where he earned his PhD and was a postdoctoral fellow, and at Cornell University in Ithaca where he was a postdoctoral associate.