Nicole King (born 1970) is an American biologist and faculty member at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

in molecular and cell biology and integrative biology. She was awarded a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

in 2005. She has been an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) since 2013. King studies the

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

multicellularity A multicellular organism is an organism that consists of more than one cell, in contrast to unicellular organism. All species of animals, land plants and most fungi are multicellular, as are many algae, whereas a few organisms are partially uni- ...

and

choanoflagellates The choanoflagellates are a group of free-living unicellular and colonial flagellate eukaryotes considered to be the closest living relatives of the animals. Choanoflagellates are collared flagellates, having a funnel shaped collar of interconn ...

. The goal of her work is to reconstruct how multicellular animals evolved from single-cell organisms.

Professional contributions

King identified

as key organisms to answer questions about the origin of multicellularity. Prior to her work, it was unclear whether choanoflagellates or

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately fr ...

were the closest outgroup to multicellular animals (also called "

metazoan Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage in ...

s"). King's

comparative genomics Comparative genomics is a field of biological research in which the genomic features of different organisms are compared. The genomic features may include the DNA sequence, genes, gene order, regulatory sequences, and other genomic structural ...

work in collaboration with Sean Carroll helped to elucidate the evolutionary "

tree of life The tree of life is a fundamental archetype in many of the world's mythological, religious, and philosophical traditions. It is closely related to the concept of the sacred tree.Giovino, Mariana (2007). ''The Assyrian Sacred Tree: A Hist ...

." In addition, work by King and colleagues showed that choanoflagellates possess several protein-coding genes that are highly related to protein-coding

genes In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

in animals at the base of the metazoan tree, such as

sponges Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through t ...

cnidarians Cnidaria () is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in freshwater and marine environments, predominantly the latter. Their distinguishing feature is cnidocytes, specialized cells that the ...

, and

ctenophore Ctenophora (; ctenophore ; ) comprise a phylum of marine invertebrates, commonly known as comb jellies, that inhabit sea waters worldwide. They are notable for the groups of cilia they use for swimming (commonly referred to as "combs"), an ...

s. More recent work by King demonstrates that molecules thought to underpin the transition to multicellarity also exist in choanoflagellates and therefore were present in the single-celled and colonial ancestors of animals. For example, one of the most abundant and important

cell adhesion Cell adhesion is the process by which cells interact and attach to neighbouring cells through specialised molecules of the cell surface. This process can occur either through direct contact between cell surfaces such as cell junctions or indire ...

molecules in the animal kingdom,

cadherin Cadherins (named for "calcium-dependent adhesion") are a type of cell adhesion molecule (CAM) that is important in the formation of adherens junctions to allow cells to adhere to each other . Cadherins are a class of type-1 transmembrane proteins, ...

, exists in choanoflagellates. In animals, cadherins are required to keep cells attached to their neighbors, so it was a surprising to discover that cadherins predate the evolution of animals. In addition, King found that choanoflagellates possess

that animal cells use to "talk" or signal to one another, such as

Receptor tyrosine kinase Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) are the high- affinity cell surface receptors for many polypeptide growth factors, cytokines, and hormones. Of the 90 unique tyrosine kinase genes identified in the human genome, 58 encode receptor tyrosine kin ...

. King continues her studies on choanoflagellates and multicellularity as an associate professor at the

. King received her B.S. from

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

in 1992, in the lab of Thom Kaufman, working on the genetic workhorse, the fruitfly, also known as ''

Drosophila melanogaster ''Drosophila melanogaster'' is a species of fly (the taxonomic order Diptera) in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the " vinegar fly" or "pomace fly". Starting with ...

''. She did her graduate work at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

(A.M., 1996, and PhD, 1999), studying the spore formation in ''Bacillus subtilis''. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

in 2003, she accepted the position of assistant professor of genetics and development at the University of California, Berkeley. King's lab has developed and maintaine
ChoanoBase
a genetic library about choanaflagellates.

Awards and recognitions

Nicole King received the

MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...

's "genius" award (2005). She received the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences (2004). King also received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from

Lehigh University Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epi ...

on 18 May 2015, at the commencement ceremony. In 2022 King was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

References

* Gill, Aman Singh.
United we stand: The origins of multicellular animals
" ''Berkeley Science Review'' #10 (2005). * King, N. "The unicellular ancestry of animal development." ''Developmental Cell'' volume 7, pp. 313–325 (2004). * King, N., Hittinger, C.T., and Carroll, S.B. "Evolution of key cell signaling and adhesion protein families predates the origin of animals." ''Science'' v. 301 (5631), pp. 361–363 (2003). * Whitehouse, D.
Ancient ancestor's legacy of life
" BBC News 22 July 2003.

Notes

External links

King Lab website

MacArthur Fellows

Overview of King's work

Tree of Life web project
{{DEFAULTSORT:King, Nicole 1970 births American women biologists Women evolutionary biologists Protistologists Living people MacArthur Fellows University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Indiana University alumni Harvard University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni 21st-century American women