Nicole King

Nicole King (born 1970) is an American Evolutionary biology evolutionary biologist, known for her research on animal origins and host-microbe interactions, especially in connection with choanoflagellates. She was elected in 2021 an Associe Étranger of the Académie des Sciences (Institut de France), in 2022 a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and in 2023 a Fellow of the American Academy of Sciences. Quotes The transition to Multicellular organism multicellularity that launched the evolution of animals from protozoa marks one of the most pivotal, and poorly understood, events in History of life life's history. Advances in phylogenetics and comparative genomics, and particularly the study of choanoflagellates, are yielding new insights into the biology of the unicellular progenitors of animals. Cell signaling Signaling and Cell adhesion adhesion gene families critical for animal development (including receptor tyrosine kinases and cadherins) evolved in protozoa before the origin of animals. Innovations in transcriptional regulation and expansions of certain gene families may have allowed the integration of cell behavior during the earliest experiments with multicellularity. The protozoan perspective on animal origins promises to provide a valuable window into the distant past and into the cellular bases of animal development. The unicellular ancestry of animal development Developmental Cell 7 3 2004 313–325 10.1016/j.devcel.2004.08.010 Evolutionary biology Evolutionary biologists have a secret. While our research is motivated by a desire to reconstruct History of life life's history, it can also provide novel insights into fundamental cellular mechanisms in modern organisms. Studies of evolution reveal how the cell's component parts were “assembled” over time, how and why cells are vulnerable to disease and death, the molecular mechanisms that are responsible for fundamental cellular processes, and those mechanisms that distinguish the Morphology (biology) morphology and physiology of different lineages of organisms from each other. Studies of “evolutionary cell biology” promise to deepen our understanding of how cells function. Nature and nurture in the evolution of cell biology Molecular Biology of the Cell 21 22 2010 3801–3802 https://www.molbiolcell.org/doi/full/10.1091/mbc.e10-05-0419 10.1091/mbc.e10-05-0419 ... in the closing line of Darwin's On the Origin of Species Origin of Species, he remarked on 'endless forms most beautiful', and he was referring to the incredible diversity of body plans ... much of his research and thinking had to with trying to understand: How do we get this diversity of organisms? And, there's been a great deal of progress in this regard, largely from the work of Embryologist embryologists, Evolutionary biologist evolutionary biologists, and geneticists working together to try to understand what are molecular mechanistic underpinnings of the diversification of animal body plans. ... Animals are united by their shared ancestry. They all share a common ancestor … And, in fact, we know relatively little about the nature of that organism. Nicole King (UC Berkeley, HHMI), 1: The origin of animal multicellularity April 7, 2015 Science Communication Lab, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?id=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v6cgSkiHik&t=67s (quote at 1:07 of 26:53 in video; part 1 of 2 in talk) External links Nicole King National Academy of Sciences https://www.nasonline.org/directory-entry/nicole-king-sndof8/ Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:Biologists from the United States Category:Harvard University alumni Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:University of California, Berkeley faculty Category:Women academics from the United States Category:Women born in the 1970s Category:Women scientists from the United States