Eugene Koonin

Who is Eugene Koonin?

Eugene V. Koonin is an American biologist and Senior Investigator at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA . He is a recognised expert in the field of evolutionary and computational biology.

Koonin gained a Master of Science in 1978 and a PhD in 1983 in Molecular Biology from Department of Biology, Moscow State University, Moscow, USSR. He conducted research in Computational Biology at the Institute of Poliomyelitis and Institute of Microbiology, Moscow in 1985-1991. He has worked at the NCBI since 1991 and is Editor of Genome Analysis section in Trends in Genetics. Koonin has an Erdős number of 2.

Principal research goals:

⁕Comparative analysis of sequenced genomes and automatic methods for genome-scale annotation of gene functions.

⁕Application of comparative genomics for phylogenetic analysis, reconstruction of ancestral life forms and building large-scale evolutionary scenarios.

⁕Mathematical modeling of genome evolution.

⁕Computational study of the major transitions in the evolution of life, such as the origin of eukaryotes.

⁕Evolution of eukaryotic signaling and developmental pathways from the comparative-genomic perspective.