Third-round winner

 Pigs to pandas

Ya-Ping Zhang studies the evolutionary history and genetic makeup of animals in his native China.

As vice director of the Kunming Institute of Zoology, a component of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, his work takes him into the genomics (genetic structure) and diversity of pandas, monkeys, hares, small rodents, and fishes, many of them endangered species, as well as the origin and diversity of domestic animals — pig, cattle, dog, and chicken.

Conservation of endangered species is one of the most important tasks facing science, and the diversity of more familiar animals used to feed a growing human population is of great importance. Zhang’s work is helping to relate a species’ genomics to its vulnerability to decline or extinction.

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