Jeremy Wideman

As an evolutionary cell biologist, my major research interest is understanding how cell complexity and diversity evolved. My approach is to reconstruct the genomic and phenomic characters of the Last Eukaryote Common Ancestor (LECA). LECA was a heterotrophic flagellate with all major eukaryote features established such as the nucleus, mitochondria, flagella, and meiotic sex. How these features arose is still a mystery, and understanding how they have changed over evolutionary time is essential to explaining extant diversity. 

My research seeks to identify novel heterotrophic flagellate groups using single-cell genomics and transcriptomics, expand knowledge of ancestral heterotrophic flagellate (LECA) cell function using heterologous expression systems, and provide eukaryote-wide protein localization maps which can be used to infer LECA's spatial proteome.  

In addition to my interests in evolutionary cell biology I am also deeply interested in the history and philosophy of biology. In particular, my work has sought to bring further clarity to concepts such as convergent simplification, constructive neutral evolution, as well as LECA itself. Bringing theory and philosophy of biology closer to scientific practice (and vice versa), I believe, can lead to fruitful advances in both biology and philosophy.