Betul Kacar

Role: 
Affiliate
Location: 
University of Arizona, Molecular and Cell Biology
Education: 

2004-2010, Ph.D., EMORY UNIVERSITY (Atlanta, GA)
Biomolecular Chemistry & Biochemistry
2000-2004, B.Sc., MARMARA UNIVERSITY (Istanbul, Turkey)
Chemistry

Research Interests: 

Synthetic Biology, Molecular Evolution, Astrobiology. The Kacar Lab investigates key questions regarding molecular mechanisms of evolution and the origins of life. We are interested in understanding how the ancestral behaviors of proteins and their host systems change through time.

Selected publications: 

B. Kacar*, Guy L, Smith E, Baross J. 2017 “Resurrecting ancestral genes in bacteria to interpret ancient biosignatures” Phil Trans A 375(2109) http://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2016.0352

B. Kacar*, Hanson-Smith V, Adam ZR, Boekelheide N. 2017 “Constraining the timing of the Great Oxidation Event within the Rubisco phylogenetic tree” Geobiology 15(5):628-640 https://doi.org/10.1111/gbi.12243

B. Kacar*, Garmendia E, Tuncbag N, Andersson DI, Hughes D. 2017 “Replacement of an essential gene with its ancient and modern homologs” mBio 8(4)e01276-17 https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01276-17

B. Kacar*, Ge X., Sanyal S, Gaucher EA. 2017. “Experimental evolution of Escherichia coli harboring an ancient translation protein” J Mol Evol, 81:1-16 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-017-9781-0