Jose V. Lopez

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Jose V. Lopez
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Academic background
Alma materGeorgia Tech
Florida State University
George Mason University
Thesis (1995)
Doctoral advisorStephen J. O'Brien
InfluencesCharles Darwin, Alan Watts, Henry David Thoreau/Walden, Lynn Margulis, Benjamin Franklin
Academic work
InstitutionsSmithsonian Institution
Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution
Main interestsevolution, genomics, symbiosis, systematics microbiology,
Notable ideastransposition of mitochondrial DNA

Jose V. Lopez is an American-Filipino molecular biologist. He has been faculty and professor of biology at Nova Southeastern University (NSU).[1] in Dania Beach FL since 2007. Lopez co-founded the Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance (GIGA) community of scientists and participated in the Porifera Tree of Life and Earth Microbiome Projects.

Education[]

Lopez obtained his bachelor's degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology.[citation needed] He then earned a Master of Science degree focused on molecular biology at the Florida State University[citation needed] and his doctorate in Environmental Biology and Public Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax. His doctoral dissertation involved the characterization of transpositions of mitochondrial DNA into the nuclei of cats and the naming of NUMT (nuclear mitochondrial DNAs) as a common evolutionary genomics phenomenon.[2] Subsequent work has involved the application of molecular genetics to symbiosis and marine biology research (e.g. corals and sponges)

Career[]

Lopez applied his molecular evolutionary training in postdoctoral appointments with Nancy Knowlton, characterizing the Orbicella (formerly Montastraea) annularis coral sibling species complex at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and marine sponge genetics with Shirley Pomponi at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Ft Pierce.[citation needed] The latter allowed him to use Johnson Sea-Link submersible technology to investigate deep sea sponges and corals. Lopez's research on marine sponges has been featured in a South Florida PBS documentary "Sponges: are they the oldest animal in the sea?" on ChangingSeas TV.[3] While at NSU's Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography, his laboratory has applied genomics tools to address various specific questions in marine invertebrate-microbial symbiosis,[4] microbiome ecology,[5][6] genomics, forensics, metagenomics of oil-exposed organisms, conservation genomics[7] and systematics/phylogenetics. Lopez is part of the Deep Pelagic Nekton Dynamics (DEEPEND) Consortium of the Gulf of Mexico to better understand food webs and pelagic microbial distributions in the deep Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Lopez has served as an associate editor for the Journal of Heredity since 2008. In 2018, he was awarded an NSU President's Distinguished Professor Award.

Lopez co-founded the Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance (GIGA), which seeks to promote research and student training into the genomics of marine and aquatic invertebrate animals.[8] After some initial consultations with geneticist Stephen J. O'Brien, and seeing the success of the first whole genome sequencing project, Genomes10K, Lopez moved to form GIGA in 2013.[9] This involved reaching out to a diverse community of invertebrate biologists, who mostly supported the concept. Support to fund a maiden workshop was provided by the American Genetics Association. GIGA focuses mostly on aquatic animals, but has similar problems (relatively inaccessible, small individual animals, low input DNA for sequencing) to the larger invertebrate consortium, Insect5K (i5K).[10] Both GIGA and i5K now help comprise a "network of networks" as part of the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP)[11] launched in December 2018 to try to sequence the whole genomes of 1.5 million eukaryotes.

Besides the well-known symbiosis,[12] Lopez initially hypothesized that sponge microbiomes could serve as indicators for the communities in their immediate seawater environment, since sponges are filter feeders. This hypothesis was later proven only partially correct (see the high vs low microbial abundance classification of sponges – HMA, LMA), as growing evidence indicated that many sponge species carry their own adapted symbionts. Nonetheless, Lopez applied the culture-independent molecular tools that arose from the Woese revolution of rRNA-based bacterial systematics.[13] Eventually molecular based identifications expanded to local marine ecosystems as predictors of water quality, human skin microbiomes as possible forensic tools, Myotis bat feces to test for potential microbiome effects on longevity, and the Lake Okeechobee watershed of Florida.

Personal life[]

Lopez's parents are University of Philippines graduates, clinical pathologist Ernesto G. and Rosario Lopez, who first met each other in Binghamton New York.[14] He is married to Amy Doyle of Plantation FL.[citation needed]

References[]

  1. ^ "Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography at NSU". cnso.nova.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
  2. ^ Lopez, J. V.; Yuhki, N.; Masuda, R.; Modi, W.; O'Brien, S. J. (1994). "Numt, a recent transfer and tandem amplification of mitochondrial DNA to the nuclear genome of the domestic cat". Journal of Molecular Evolution. 39 (2): 174–90. doi:10.1007/BF00163806 (inactive 31 May 2021). PMID 7932781.CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of May 2021 (link)
  3. ^ "ChangingSeas.TV Sponge documentary (episode 801)". www.changingseas.tv/.
  4. ^ Thomas, Torsten (2016). "The Global Sponge Microbiome: Symbiosis Insights Derived From A Basal Metazoan Phylum". Nature Communications. 7 (11870): 11870. doi:10.1038/ncomms11870. PMC 4912640. PMID 27306690.
  5. ^ Campbell, Alexandra; Fleisher, Jay; Sinigalliano, Christopher; White, James; Lopez, Jose (2015). "Dynamics of marine bacterial community diversity of the coastal waters of the reefs, inlets, and wastewater outfalls of Southeast Florida". MicrobiologyOpen. 4 (3): 390–408. doi:10.1002/mbo3.245. PMC 4475383. PMID 25740409.
  6. ^ O'Connell, Lauren; Gao, Song; Fleisher, Jay; Lopez, Jose (2018). "Fine Grained Compositional Analysis of Port Everglades Inlet Microbiome Using High Throughput DNA Sequencing". PeerJ. 6: e4671. doi:10.7717/peerj.4671. PMC 5947159. PMID 29761039.
  7. ^ Lopez, Jose; Kamel, Bishoy; Medina, Monica; Collins, Timothy; Baums, Illiana (2019). "Multiple Facets of Marine Invertebrate Conservation Genomics. Annual Review of Animal Biosciences". Annual Review of Animal Biosciences. 7: 473–497. doi:10.1146/annurev-animal-020518-115034. PMID 30485758.
  8. ^ GIGA Community of Scientists; Bracken-Grissom, H.; Collins, A. G.; Collins, T.; Crandall, K.; Distel, D.; Dunn, C.; Giribet, G.; Haddock, S.; Knowlton, N.; Martindale, M.; Medina, M.; Messing, C.; O'Brien, S. J.; Paulay, G.; Putnam, N.; Ravasi, T.; Rouse, G. W.; Ryan, J. F.; Schulze, A.; Wörheide, G.; Adamska, M.; Bailly, X.; Breinholt, J.; Browne, W. E.; Diaz, M. C.; Evans, N.; Flot, J. F.; Fogarty, N.; et al. (2014). "The Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance (GIGA): Developing Community Resources to Study Diverse Invertebrate Genomes". Journal of Heredity. 105 (1): 1–18. doi:10.1093/jhered/est084. PMC 4072906. PMID 24336862.
  9. ^ Koepfli, Klaus-Peter; Paten, Benedict; Genome 10K Community of Scientists (2015). "The Genome 10K Project: a way forward". Annu. Rev. Anim. Biosci. 3 (5): 57–111. doi:10.1146/annurev-animal-090414-014900. PMC 5837290. PMID 25689317.
  10. ^ i5K Consortium. (2013). "The i5K Initiative: advancing arthropod genomics for knowledge, human health, agriculture, and the environment". Journal of Heredity. 104 (5): 595–600. doi:10.1093/jhered/est050. PMC 4046820. PMID 23940263.
  11. ^ Lewin, Harris; Robinson, Gene; Kress, John; Baker, William (2018). "Earth BioGenome Project: Sequencing life for the future of life". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115 (17): 4325–4333. doi:10.1073/pnas.1720115115. PMC 5924910. PMID 29686065.
  12. ^ Wilkinson, Clive (1987). "Significance of microbial symbionts in sponge evolution and ecology". Symbiosis.
  13. ^ Pace, Norm (1997). "A molecular view of microbial diversity and the biosphere". Science. 276 (5313): 734–740. doi:10.1126/science.276.5313.734. PMID 9115194.
  14. ^ Nancy Wiltsie (24 September 1961). "Filipino tradition followed at Quedding-Lopez wedding". Binghamton Sun-Bulletin.

External links[]

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