UWO’s Amanda Moehring is new Canada Research Chair

University of Western Ontario researcher Amanda Moehring has received a $500,000 appointment as Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Functional Genomics.

One of the great unanswered questions in biology is how such a wide variety of creatures came to be living on our planet – that is, the genetic changes that cause one population to diverge into two distinct species and prevents them from merging back together.

The work of Moehring focuses on the genetic changes that cause new species to form and be maintained. Her work examines both the genetics of behavioural isolation (why species are not attracted to other species) as well as hybrid sterility, which occurs from interspecies matings.

Moehring also received $163,330 in infrastructure funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation for a Molecular and Behavioural Genetics Laboratory.

Spring 2009 Western Alumni Gazette p. 9