Chris Toomajian, PhD

Associate Professor
Graduate Program Director of Interdepartmental Genetics

4018C Throckmorton PSC
1712 Claflin Road
Manhattan, KS 66506

Ph: 785-532-0879

Biography

I was born and raised in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. I earned a B.A. in Biological Sciences and Integrated Science from Northwestern University, where I was introduced to laboratory research in the human genetics laboratory of Anna Di Rienzo. Interested in merging my interests in genetics and evolution, I earned a Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of Chicago under the supervision of Martin Kreitman. My dissertation focused on population genetics, explored genetic variation linked to human disease loci, and asked what patterns of variation could tell us about the evolutionary history of the disease mutations.

As a postdoctoral research associate, I switched to the plant model system Arabidopsis thaliana in the laboratory of Magnus Nordborg. There, I helped catalog natural genetic variation in Arabidopsis, infer the consequences of natural selection on this genetic variation, and develop resources for performing genome-wide association mapping studies in this species.

I started my position at K-State, with a heavy emphasis on research, in 2008. Here, I continued plant genetics and genomics studies in Arabidopsis and also expanded my work to include the population genetics and comparative genomics of various Fusarium species. In addition to my active participation in the Department of Plant Pathology, I am a graduate faculty member of the Interdepartmental Genetics Program and serve as the Graduate Program Director of this program.

Education

Ph.D. Genetics, University of Chicago, 2002
B.A. Biology & Integrated Science, Northwestern University, 1995

Research

My research program investigates the genetics and genomics of plant and plant pathogen populations in both agricultural settings and natural ecosystems.

Current grant funding:

United States Wheat and Barley Scab Initiative, Genetic mapping of genes underlying variation in Fusarium head blight traits – Lead PI Toomajian, co-PIs Rupp and Leslie.

Goal: To map Fusarium graminearum pathogen trait variation - aggressiveness, deoxynivalenol production, and fungicide sensitivity, e.g. - genetically with genome-wide association methods. By identifying variants underlying this trait variation, we may identify markers and targets that can be used in disease management.

Additional projects:

My lab is leading projects in the Fusarium fujikuroi species complex that address questions of speciation, adaptive divergence, and secondary metabolite variation using comparative genomics, QTL mapping, and population genomics.

Teaching

PLPTH 820 Population Genetics – 3 credits, offered Spring of ODD years.
The course introduces students to the growing and modern field of population genetics and the major questions that it can address in the era of genomics. Lectures cover the theoretical and quantitative foundation of the field and include the application of population genetic principles to natural populations of model and nonmodel species and managed populations of domesticated species. Students with a strong background in the basics of genetics and who have familiarity with various quantitative fields (algebra, basic probability theory, statistics) are generally well prepared for this course.