Shu-Miaw Chaw, PhD （趙淑妙特聘研究員兼主任）
Distinguished Research Fellow
Director of Biodiversity Research Center
Academia Sinica
Professor Chaw received her Ph.D. degree (1985) in Tulane University, USA. Her major research focus on phylogenetic relationships among the five groups of extant seed plants. To re-examine this long-standing issue, she has been determining the complete chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes of many key seed plants and lower vascular plants. In addition to obtain a better resolved phylogenetic tree of extant seed plants, she aim to seek for more solid structural evidence for the clades in the tree. Her lab is also interested in the characterization and evolution of novel or useful secondary metabolic genes from some indigenous plants with commercial or pharmaceutical values. She has been also investigating the functional divergence of chlorophyll-degradation-related genes encoded the enzyme Chlorophyllase, whose isoforms are expressed in cotyledons, leaves, fruits, and seed coats of soybeans.