Meet Chris Organ, PhD

Chris Organ, PhD was a postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and an adjunct professor at Brown University in 2010 when he gave a Science for the Public lecture on The Jurassic Genome.

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Dr. Organ is an expert in a rather new field called "paleogenomics" –the reconstruction of ancient extinct genomes. He has been active in developing techniques that making that reconstruction possible. He has published widely on the reconstruction techniques he and his colleagues have developed. This field introduces an exciting dimension to the study of evolution. The genome of ancient creatures such as the dinosaur can offer new insights into the relationship between genome size and complexity of different organisms. The reconstructed genome also shows how biological innovations may be well established in creatures such as dinosaurs well before new creatures, such as birds, use those features. Many evolutionary puzzles will be solved using the pioneering research techniques Dr. Organ and his colleagues have developed.