BEACON member Zachary Blount, formerly a graduate student and now a postdoc in Richard Lenski’s lab, is the lead author on a new paper in Nature describing the step-by-step process by which E. coli evolved the ability to consume citrate in Long Term Evolution Experiment. Blount and Lenski first described the appearance of this new trait in a 2008 PNAS paper which made headlines as an example of evolution in action. Carl Zimmer explains the new study on his blog The Loom.
To hear the whole story in Zachary Blount’s own words, watch his doctoral dissertation defense from last year!
