Khan Part of Multi-Institutional Team Awarded $1M Human Frontier Science Grant

Zia Khan, an assistant professor of computer science with joint appointments in UMIACS and the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, was recently named a recipient of a 2015 Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Young Investigator Grant.

The $1.05 million grant will support collaborative research between Khan and scientists in Japan and Germany who are investigating a fold, called the cephalic furrow, which forms during the development of the common fruit fly. The fold performs a critical, yet unknown, function during fly development, and forms without contributing to an organ.

Khan says the team, which includes a cell biologist from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Japan and an evolutionary biologist from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, will study the evolutionary past of the fold by collecting and analyzing comparative genomics data from both the fruit fly and the scuttle fly, each of which has the fold, and the harlequin fly, which does not.

“These flies all evolved from a common ancestor,” Khan says. “The comparative genomics data will allow us to understand the gene regulatory network changes that occurred that lead to the fold’s formation in the fruit fly and scuttle fly.”

Using this information, the researchers will employ quantitative image analysis and computational modeling to determine the function of this fold during development. They will try to reconstitute the fold in the harlequin fly to show they have convincingly determined the evolutionary changes to the gene network that occurred. To understand the fold’s capacity for future evolution, the team will reprogram its cells to simulate possible evolutionary trajectories.

“Overall, our study will allow us to better understand how complex tissue structures, such as organs, evolve,” Khan says.

The Young Investigator Grants from the International Human Frontier Science Program Organization are awarded to teams of scientists who are all within five years of obtaining their first independent position.

The research grants are given for a broad range of projects under the umbrella theme of “complex mechanisms of living organisms,” with a particular emphasis placed on cutting-edge, risky projects.

They are highly competitive, with more than 1,000 applicants vying for the 31 winning grants awarded in 2015.

To view a video of Khan discussing his work, go here.

—Story by Melissa Brachfeld