Artur Romanchuk

Graduate Student
BS, College of New Jersey '08
Began Fall 2008

During the early nineties, as a kid living in post soviet Ukraine, when asked what I wanted to do as an adult, I would proudly say: I want to be a transformer. My dreams did not change much as I moved to US in early 2000, although starting high school I realized those dreams will most likely come to fruition through a study of science (of some sort). Several years later as I was working on my undergraduate degree, I further realized that devising ways to graft laser cannons to my shoulder blades was a lot less exciting then working on plant fungal pathogens. Thus my first work in basic research revolved around a mushroom that infected grass ovaries. Preponderance of grass and ovary related jokes did little to discourage me from clawing at the granite wall known as host-pathogen ecology. Days spend in the lab solidified my resolve to explain the surrounding world, and get rich and famous at the same time (or at least get sweet 20" rimz). Days in the scorching field surveying the infected grass species, on the other hand, did very little to further my thirst for research. I decided to stop all fieldwork, causing me to lose my hollywood tan, and move permanently into the lab. I read more, and became enchanted with the fundamental processes that shape organismal adaptation and evolution. Turns out there is a name for this branch of biology, its genetics. Interested, in genetics, I came to North Carolina after attaining a BS in biology from the College of New Jersey (formerly known as Trenton State) in search of further intellectual challenges and guidance. Currently I am playing with computational tools and their applications to population genetics, as well as plant pathogen ecology (this time its a nasty bacteria) and evolution of sexual reproduction. Time will tell if I came to the right place, all I know now is that my advisor eats bugs for breakfast (check his bio if you don't believe me) and my colleagues sit around and talk about interesting things in spite of pending deadlines. Life is good (still no sweet rimz though).

"Scientists do not coddle ideas. They crash test them. They run them into a brick wall at seventy miles per hour and examine the pieces. If the idea is sound, the pieces will be those of the wall."
~ unknown researcher

Publications:

  • Baltrus DA, Romanchuk A, Nishmura M, Roach J, Jones CD, Dangl JD. Whole genome sequencing of a clade of Pseudomonads reveals complex interplay between effector repertoire and host utilization. PLoS Pathogens [accepted pending minor revision].


Copyright 2011 Last Modified 4/2011