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Richard Heineman

Research Educator

The University of Texas at Austin

Integrative Biology

heineman@mail.utexas.edu

I use experimental bacteriophage evolution to explore questions about optimality and the genotype-phenotype map.

Viruses of bacteria can have very short generations and large populations, so they evolve quickly. This makes them an excellent model system for evolutionary processes that are difficult to study in other systems. Through phages, I explore the ways in which organisms evolve to overcome challenges posed by new environments or genetic alterations.

(T7 Bacteriophage DNA and Protein Imaging. Tara Spires and R. Malcolm Brown, Jr.
Department of Botany, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Tx., 78713)

Figure 1. T7 bacteriophage, my primary model system.

I teach freshmen to do publication-quality research on this topic in the Freshman Research Initiative.

Darth Phager

Figure 2. T7 bacteriophage, my primary model system, as visualized by one of my students, Justin Hsu.

(T7 Bacteriophage DNA and Protein Imaging. Tara Spires and R. Malcolm Brown, Jr. Department of Botany, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Tx., 78713)

(T7 Bacteriophage DNA and Protein Imaging. Tara Spires and R. Malcolm Brown, Jr.
Department of Botany, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Tx., 78713)