Wen-Juan Ma

Wen-Juan is an evolutionary geneticist and genomicist. Her lab (Evolutionary Genomics of Sex, http://www.wmalab.com) studies what drives sexual dimorphism, and the genomic, transcriptomic and molecular basis underlying the differences between the sexes across the tree of life. Major research themes include evolution and origin of sex chromosome recombination suppression and degeneration, sex determination, and evolution and consequences of asexuality. Her lab integrates the cutting-edge OMICs approaches with natural variation, experimental evolution, and selection to study the relationship between genotype and complex sex phenotypes.

• W-J Ma, BA Pannebakker, X Li, E Geyverink, SY Anvar, P Veltsos, T Schwander, L van de Zande, LW Beukeboom. (2021). A single QTL with large effect is associated with female functional virginity in an asexual parasitoid wasp. Molecular Ecology 30: 1979-1992.
• W-J Ma, P Veltsos, R Sermier, D Parker, N Perrin. (2018). Evolutionary and developmental dynamics of sex-biased gene expressions in the common frogs with proto-Y chromosomes. Genome Biology 19: 156.
• DL Jeffries, G Lavanchy, R Sermier, MJ. Sredl, I Miura, A Borzée, LN Barrow, D Canestrelli, P-A Crochet, C Dufresnes, J Fu, W-J Ma, C Macías Garcia, K Ghali, AG Nicieza, RP O’Donnell, N Rodrigues, A Romano, Í Martínez-Solano, I Stepanyan, S Zumbach, A Bresfold, N Perrin. (2018). A rapid rate of sex-chromosome turnover and non-random transitions in true frogs. Nature Communications 9: 4088.