Dr. Christian R. Voolstra

postdoctoral scholar, Medina Lab
School of Natural Sciences
University of California, Merced
email: chris.voolstra@gmail.com

Research Interests:

• Evolutionary Genomics
• Systems Biology
• Adaptation
• Symbiosis
• Immunity
• Speciation

Current Project: Evolutionary Genomics & Systems Biology of Coral Reefs

Coral reefs represent one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. They are, however, extremely fragile and endangered ecosystems due to human imposed exploitation, pollution, and global warming. An Evolutionary Genomics and Systems Biology perspective can add to our understanding of reef ecology and conservation efforts. Briefy, I am interested in 1) the role of adaptive evolution and coral-specific genes in molecular mechanisms of bleaching and stress, 2) the molecular machinery of mutualism between corals and algae, and 3) the role of prokaryotes in these processes.

I think that only the application of a comparative genomic, ecological, and evolutionary approach will provide an integrative framework, in which we are able to understand the significance of the coral holobiont and the contribution of each of its member species.

Short Vita:

Current Position:

• postdoctoral scholar in the lab of Mónica Medina, UC Merced

Employment:

• 2002 – 2006: Research assistant, University of Cologne, Germany; Dept. of Evolutionary Genetics, PI Diethard Tautz
• 2000 – 2001: Scientific assistant, University of Cologne, Germany; Dept. of Evolutionary Genetics, PI Diethard Tautz
• 1999: Research Intern, Institute of Human Brain, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Degree:

• PhD in Biological Sciences (Dr.rer.nat.), Cologne (2006)
  Advisors: Prof. Diethard Tautz, Dr. Bettina Harr
  Thesis: Evolution of gene expression between closely related taxa of Mus
• Diploma in Biological Sciences (Diplom-Biologe), Colonge (2001)
  Advisor: Prof. Diethard Tautz
  Thesis: Evolution of a gene and its promoter in sibling species of Drosophila

Publications:

Original publications:

• The host transcriptome remains unaltered during the establishment of coral-algal symbioses.
  Voolstra, C.R., J.A. Schwarz, J. Schnetzer, S. Sunagawa, M.K. DeSalvo, A.M. Szmant, M.A. Coffroth, M. Medina
  Molecular Ecology Fast Track: doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04167.x, 2009.
  **Recommended Faculty of 1000 rating** [link]
  [PMID: 19317843 - pdf].
• Analysis of gene expression differences between natural populations of house mouse subspecies supports a predominantly neutral model of evolutionary change.
  Staubach, F., Teschke, M., Voolstra, C.R., Wolf, J.B.W., and Tautz, D.
  Evolution (accepted), 2009.
  [PMID: NA - pdf: NA - View abstract: NA].
• Identification and Gene Expression Analysis of a Taxonomically Restricted Cysteine-Rich Protein Family in Reef-Building Corals.
  Sunagawa, S., M.K. DeSalvo, C.R. Voolstra, A. Reyes-Bermudez, M. Medina
  PLoS ONE: 4(3): e4865, 2009.
  [PMID: 19283069 - open access].
• Bacterial Diversity and White Plague Disease-Associated Community Changes in the Caribbean Coral Montastraea faveolata.
  Sunagawa, S., T.Z. DeSantis, Y.M. Piceno, E.L. Brodie, M.K. DeSalvo, C.R. Voolstra, E. Weil, G.L. Andersen, M. Medina
  The ISME Journal: doi: 10.1038/ismej.2008.131, 2009.
  [PMID: 19129866 - pdf].
• Evolutionary analysis of orthologous cDNA sequences from cultured and symbiotic dinoflagellate symbionts of reef-building corals (Dinophyceae: Symbiodinium).
  Voolstra, C.R., S. Sunagawa, J. A. Schwarz, M.A. Coffroth, D. Yellowlees, W. Leggat, M. Medina
  Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology D: doi:10.1016/j.cbd.2008.11.001, 2008.
  [PMID: NA - pdf].
• Differential gene expression during thermal stress and bleaching in the Caribbean coral Montastraea faveolata.
  DeSalvo, M.K., C.R. Voolstra, S. Sunagawa, J.A. Schwarz, J.H. Stillman, M.A. Coffroth, A.M. Szmant, M. Medina
  Molecular Ecology: 17(17): 3952-3971, 2008.
  [PMID: 18662230 - pdf].
• Coral life history and symbiosis: Functional genomic resources for two reef building Caribbean corals, Acropora palmata and Montastraea faveolata.
  Schwarz, J. A., Brokstein, P. B., Voolstra, C., Terry, A. Y., Manohar, C. F., Miller, D. J., Szmant, A. M., Coffroth, M. A., and Medina, M.
  BMC Genomics: 9: 97, 2008.
  [PMID: 18298846 - open access].
• Identification of Differentially Expressed Genes Involved in the Formation of Multicellular Tumor Spheroids by HT-29 Colon Carcinoma Cells.
  Dardousis, K., Voolstra, C., Roengvoraphoj, M., Sekandarzad, A., Mesghenna, S., Winkler, J., Ko, Y., Hescheler, J., and Sachinidis, A.
  Molecular Therapy: 15(1):94-102, 2007.
  [PMID: 17164780 - pdf].
• Contrasting evolution of expression differences in the testis between species and subspecies of the house mouse.
  Voolstra, C., Tautz, D., Farbrother, P., Eichinger, L., and Harr, B.
  Genome Research: 17, 42-49, 2007.
  [PMID: 17038563 - open access].
• A change of expression in the conserved signaling gene MKK7 is associated with a selective sweep in the western house mouse Mus musculus domesticus.
  Harr, B., Voolstra, C., Heinen, T. J., Baines, J. F., Rottscheidt, R., Ihle, S., Muller, W., Bonhomme, F., and Tautz, D.
  J Evol Biol 19, 1486-1496, 2006.
  [PMID: 16910979 - pdf].
• An optimized embryonic stem cell model for consistent gene expression and developmental studies: a fundamental study.
  Gissel, C.*, Voolstra, C*., Doss, M. X., Koehler, C. I., Winkler, J., Hescheler, J., and Sachinidis, A. (* authors contributed equally)
  Thromb Haemost 94, 719-727, 2005.
  [PMID: 16270623 - pdf: NA].
• Comparative analysis of somitogenesis related genes of the hairy/Enhancer of split class in Fugu and zebrafish
  Gajewski, M., and Voolstra, C. (authors contributed equally)
  BMC Genomics 3, 21, 2002.
  [PMID: 12160468 - open access].

Book Reviews:

• Microarray Bioinformatics.
  Voolstra, C., and Tautz, D.
  Brief Funct Genomic Proteomic 3, 289-290, 2004.
  [PMID: NA - pdf: NA].

Abstracts and Other:

• Symbiodinium-cnidarian symbioses: Ontogeny and diversity.
  Coffroth, M., Voolstra, C., and Medina, M.
  Journal of Phycology 43, 1-1, 2007.
  [PMID: NA - pdf: NA].
• Spectrophotometric Quantification of Nucleic Acids.
  Voolstra, C., Jungnickel, A., Bormann, L., Kirchner, R., and Huber, A.
  American Biotechnology Laboratory 24, 8-9, 2006.
  [PMID: NA - pdf: NA].

Talks and Posters (selected):

• 2009: JGI user meeting, Walnut Creek, CA; Poster: "Genomic resources for the coral holobiont – EST datasets for two Caribbean corals and associated symbionts"
• 2008: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Winter course "Evolution of Complex Systems", Talk: "A Novel, Lineage-Specific Cysteine-Rich Peptide Family expanded in Reef-Building Corals" (speaker: Shinichi Sunagawa)
• 2008: 11th ICRS (International Coral Reef Symposium), Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Talk: "Coral Reef Genomics: A genome wide approach to study establishment and maintenance of coral-zooxanthellae symbioses"
• 2008: 11th ICRS (International Coral Reef Symposium), Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Talk: "Differential gene expression during thermal stress and bleaching in the Caribbean coral Montastraea faveolata" (speaker: Michael K. DeSalvo)
• 2008: 11th ICRS (International Coral Reef Symposium), Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Talk: "Bacterial Community and Gene Expression Profiling Using 16SrRNA Gene and cDNA Microarrays: Introduction of a Dual High-Throughput Approach to the Study of Coral Disease and Bleaching" (speaker: Shinichi Sunagawa)
• 2008: 11th ICRS (International Coral Reef Symposium), Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Talk: "Comparative microarray analysis during onset of calcification in the phylogenetic distinct scleractinian coral species Acropora millepora and Montastraea faveolata" (speaker: Alejandro Reyes).
• 2008: 11th ICRS (International Coral Reef Symposium), Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Poster: "Using BACs to compare the genomes of two Caribbean corals, Acropora palmata and Montastraea faveolata"
• 2008: IEDG, Integrating Evolution, Development and Genomics, UC Berkeley, CA; Poster: "A genome-wide approach to study establishment and maintenance of coral-zooxanthellae symbioses in an evolutionary context"
• 2007: 33rd Scientific Conference of the Association of Marine Laboratories of the Caribbean, University of the Virgin Islands in St. Thomas, United State Virgin Islands, Talk: "Coral Reef Genomics. A Holistic Approach to the Study of Symbiosis, Bleaching and Disease" (speaker: Mónica Medina)
• 2007: DOE JGI user meeting, Walnut Creek, CA; Poster: " Differential gene expression during thermal stress in the Caribbean coral, Montastraea faveolata"
• 2007: DOE JGI user meeting, Walnut Creek, CA; Poster: "Genomic resources for two reef-building Caribbean corals, Acropora palmata and Montastraea faveolata"
• 2007: AAAS Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA; Poster: "A Genome-wide Approach to the Study of Coral Biology"
• 2006: Conference of Evolutionary Biology, Biozentrum LMU, Planegg, Germany; Talk: "Evolution of gene expression between species and subspecies of Mus"
• 2005: PopGroup, Edinburgh, Scotland; Talk: "Evolution of gene expression between closely related taxa of Mus"
• 2005: ESEB X, Congress of Europ. Soc. for Evolutionary Biology, Krakow, Poland; Poster: "Evolution of gene expression between species and subspecies of Mus"

Skills:

• Languages: German (native), English (high proficiency: written and spoken), French (basic knowledge), some Spanish (un poquito :) )
• Wet lab: Broad spectrum of techniques in molecular biology, microarrays (cDNA, aCGH), qPCR, management/setup large-scale PCR/microarray projects, assay development
• Computer lab: Genomic (EST) data analysis, Evolutionary Genomics, data base management, HTML, Wordpress, UNIX, Perl, SigmaStat, SigmaPlot, SPSS, Photoshop, Illustrator, all MS OFFICE applications

Courses & Training:

• 2008 Custom cDNA microarray printing – UC Berkeley
• 2007/2008 Coral spawning, experimental biology, field collections (Mexico 8/2007, Panama 3/2008, Mexico 8/2008)
• 2007 Scientific Diver - American Association for Underwater Science (AAUS)
• 2005 Computational Biology - Data Processing and Programming in Sed, Awk, Perl
• 2004 qPCR ABI Prism 7900 training
• 2003 Genetic engineering safety officer (course for principal investigators and delegates of biosafety)

Awards & Honors:

• IEDG (2008), Integrating Evolution, Development and Genomics, UC Berkeley: Best Poster Award
• IEDG (2008), Integrating Evolution, Development and Genomics, UC Berkeley: awarded travel reimbursement for Poster abstract
• Student price, Institute for Genetics, University of Cologne (2000): Christian Voolstra was among the five top students (out of 85 participants) of the Winter Semester 1999/2000.
• DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Travel Grant: Internship at Institute of Human Brain, Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Department of Radiochemistry

Past and Present Collaborations:

• Mónica Medina, Coral Reef Genomics
• Alina Smzant, reproductive ecology and physiological ecology of reef corals
• Mary Alice Coffroth, Evolutionary Biology and Ecology; Population Biology of Marine Invertebrates
• David Yellowlees, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
• Bill Leggat, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
• Leon Peshkin, Systems Biology, University of Massachusetts, MA
• Andreas Heyland, Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada
• Diethard Tautz, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Ploen, Germany
• Bettina Harr, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Ploen, Germany
• Lutz Bunger, Leader of Growth Genetics, Animal Breeding and Development Team, Sustainable Livestock Systems, Research and Development Division SAC, Edinburgh
• Agapios Sachinidis, Center of Physiology and Pathophysiology, Institute of Neurophysiology, University of Cologne
• Michael Rosskopf, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Bioinformatik
• Henrik Glenner, Institute of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen
• Implen, solutions for small volumes, US/UK/Swiss/Germany

Current Address:

Christian R. Voolstra - Last Change: Monday, April, 17th 2009