Martin E. Kreitman

Martin E. Kreitman is a Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago where he also serves on the Committee of Evolutionary Biology and the Committee of Genetics.  Kreitman is an experimental population geneticist who has applied new techniques of molecular biology to studies of evolution. Kreitman was the first to complete a population-level study of DNA sequence variation. Through his investigation of the molecular variation within the alcohol dehydrogenase gene of the common fruit fly, he established the degree of variation for a single gene within natural populations. He has also been able to show that natural selection is likely to be an important force in long-term protein evolution. His work is relevant to broad theoretical issues in evolution, and his conceptualization of the problems of evolutionary genetics has generated new ideas for experimentation. His lab currently utilizes the model organisms Arabidopsis thaliana and Drosophila melanogaster to pursue four interrelated research themes: (1) molecular population genetics and evolution (Drosophila and Arabidopsis); (2) functional evolution of cis-regulatory sequences (Drosophila); (3) canalization in development and evolution (Drosophila); and (4) evolutionary dynamics of disease resistance and pathogenicity (Arabidopsis). Kreitman received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his work in 1991. His numerous articles have appeared in publications such as Genetics, Evolution, and Nature.