Ricardo C Rodríguez de la Vega Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution Conference 2016

Ricardo C Rodríguez de la Vega

I am a chemist turned evolutionary biologist with a long­ lasting research interest on whether and how the evolutionary history of biotic interactions has been recorded at the genome and molecular levels. Along my scientific career I've gone back and forth between the organismal and molecular levels of antagonistic insterspecies interactions. I'm glad to have contributed with some landmark evidence and analyses into three main areas: i) the molecular and evolutionary basis of target recognition by animal toxins, including the identification of previously neglected interaction modes of potassium channel blocking toxins; ii) the convergent recruitment of protein folds into animal venoms, including one of the earliest identified venom recruitment events from immune response proteins that helped to change the paradigm of venom evolution, and; iii) the role of horizontal gene transfers in the emergence of new adaptive traits, including the genomic footprints of domestication in cheese­making fungi.