Lin Chao

Lin Chao is a professor of Biology at the University of California, San Diego, holding the position of Professor in the Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and completed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University. Chao joined the University of California, San Diego in 1999 and served as Chair of the Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution from 2004 to 2008. In 2014, he received the UCSD Chancellor's Associates Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. He has also served as principal investigator on multiple NIH grants, including projects on the mutational spectrum of an RNA virus, evolution of sex and gene coadaptation in the RNA phage φ6, and natural selection for transposable elements.

Chao's research combines computer modeling and laboratory experiments with microbes, bacteria, and viruses to explore ecological and evolutionary processes, taking advantage of their short generation times. His investigations cover the ecology of host-parasite coexistence, evolution of sex, mutation rates, transposable elements, group and individual adaptations, game theory strategies, Fisher’s Geometric Model of Adaptive Evolution, and deleterious and compensatory mutations. Recent work centers on the evolution of microbial aging and senescence, examining asymmetric partitioning of phenotypic damage during cell division in Escherichia coli using time-lapse photography to assess fitness. Key publications include Turner, P. E. and Chao, L. 1999. Prisoner’s Dilemma in an RNA Virus. Nature 398:441-443; Burch, L. C. and Chao, L. 2000. Evolvability of an RNA virus determined by its mutational neighborhood. Nature 406:625-628; Chao, L. 2010. A Model for Damage Load and Its Implications for the Evolution of Bacterial Aging. PLoS Genet 6(8): e1001076; Proenca, A. M. et al. 2018. Age structure landscapes emerge from the equilibrium between aging and rejuvenation in bacterial populations. Nature Communications 9:3722; and Liao, M. J. et al. 2020. Survival of the weakest in non-transitive asymmetric interactions among strains of E. coli. Nature Communications 11:6055.

Professional Email: lchao@ucsd.edu