Kane Yoon

Profile

I am a molecular biologist specialising in insect biology.

I gained my PhD from Leeds in the lab of Liz Duncan, where I worked on our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underpinning extreme phenotypic plasticity, using the pea aphid as a model. This work was heavily focussed on the ovaries.

My current research, with Amanda Bretman and Liz Duncan, is focussed on identifying mechanisms underlying differential sensitivity of fertility to heat stress, with a focus on male fertility – seeing me switch from ovaries to testes. I am using Drosophila fruit fly species to investigate this. Many species lose fertility at temperatures lower than those that are lethal to them, while others do not lose fertility until the temperature is sufficient to have a lethal effect. The world is heating up, but thermal fertility limits, which are good predictors of natural species ranges, have seen much less study, thus far, than lethal thermal limits

We use a range of approaches, including molecular methods, bioinformatics and fluorescent microscopy to explore the mechanisms controlling this.

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Leeds
• MSc, University of Leicester
• BSc, University of Leicester