Chance Meers, Ph.D.

Research Keywords: molecular evolution, transposable elements, and RNA-guided mechanisms.

Research Specialty: Discovery, evolution, and molecular mechanisms of nucleic acid–modifying enzymes.

Research Description: For life to persist, genomes must be faithfully copied, repaired when damaged, and continually adapted under evolutionary pressures. One of the most influential forces acting on genomes comes from selfish mobile genetic elements, fragments of DNA that propagate themselves by moving, duplicating, and inserting into new locations. Through this relentless drive to spread, they have come to occupy large portions of genomes, accounting for nearly half of the human genome and leaving remnants scattered across the tree of life. Yet on occasion, life has turned these elements to its advantage. In fact, some of the most remarkable mechanisms in biology trace their origins to mobile genetic elements, from the CRISPR–Cas immune system in bacteria (Meers et al., Nature 2023) to snoRNA-guided RNA modification (Vaysset & Meers et al., Nature Microbiology 2025) and the V(D)J recombination system that equips our immune cells with the diversity needed to protect us against countless pathogens.

The Meers Lab investigates mobile genetic elements and the molecular strategies they use to manipulate nucleic acids through genetics, biochemical reconstitution, and comparative genomics. By combining these perspectives with evolutionary analyses, we uncover the strategies that drive mobility and the ways life has reshaped these molecular machines to serve diverse cellular functions, offering insights into genome evolution and revealing mechanisms we can harness for biotechnology.

Significance: Enzymes that modify nucleic acids lie at the heart of genome maintenance, RNA processing, and cellular defense. Yet those identified to date likely represent only a glimpse of the molecular diversity evolution has explored. Time and again, the discovery of previously unknown nucleic acid–modifying enzymes has reshaped biology, from reverse transcriptases that enabled modern molecular biology to CRISPR-based genome editing. Exploring this hidden enzymatic diversity will deepen our understanding of genome biology and reveal new tools for genome engineering, molecular diagnostics, and biotechnology.