Hey Hey! It is Wen-Cong (pronounced like wentsung 😏) Huang here. I am currently a second year PhD candidate in the EvoSym Team led by Prof. Anja Spang. My research focuses on the evolution of symbiotic archaea from a fascinating supergroup named DPANN, and their hosts. The huge diversity of these organisms often amazes me, and the reported interaction between them and their hosts greatly stimulated my curiosity. My thesis consists of three parts from macro-scale to micro-scale.

1. Using metagenomic approaches to characterise the diversity of the DPANN archaea from interested samples (e.g., marine sediment and hydrothermal vent), and investigating the genome evolution of the DPANN archaea with phylogenetics and ancestral genome reconstruction.

2. Attempting to enrich and isolate novel DPANN symbiont and host system.

3. To understand the feature of genome evolution of N. equitans and its impact on host evolution with experimental evolution.

I obtained my Master’s degree in Shenzhen Univeristy where I worked with Prof. Meng Li and Yang Liu to study the diveristy, metabolic potentials and evolution of Woesearchaeota and Asgard archaea using metagenomic approaches.