Andrew W Liu

Current work involves Oikopleura dioica population studies comparing whole genomes using NGS. Oikopleura dioica is a tunicate that has a small genome of ~70MB yet codes for a relatively complex organism (body plan has features of a primitive notochord and tail). It appears from preliminary sequencing of regional populations that there are a range of diversity among the species, with no more than 98% identity. Morphologically, they appear to be the same species but further investigation is on going to determine the relatedness among these populations.