Dr Jungnam Cho

Jungnam studies mobile genetic element known as transposon in plants.

Jungnam Cho is the third international scholar to join CEPAMS at SIPPE in 2018. Jungnam is originally from South Korea and has also worked in the University of Cambridge in the UK.

During evolution, transposons help plants acquire new traits by changing DNA sequence. Jungnam aims to understand how transposons move and then develop crops with greater resilience to stress.

He sees transposon as genomic ‘dark matter’ that has a strong potential to improve crops and ultimately contribute to global food security.

• Genome Plasticity – Investigating transposon diversity and its impact on plants’ adaptation to stress
• Transposition Dynamics – Studying the regulatory mechanisms for transposon mobility
• Artificial evolution by transposon – Developing new crops by controlled transposition