Nancy A. Moran

Research

My long-term interests are in the evolution of biological complexity, such as that apparent in complex life histories, in intimate interactions among species, and in species-diversity of clades and communities.

My focus is on symbiosis, particularly that between multicellular hosts and microbes.

Education

• B.A. Highest Honors, Biology, 1976 University of Texas
• M.S., Zoology, 1978 University of Michigan
• Ph.D., Zoology, 1982 University of Michigan (Dissertation advisors: William D. Hamilton and Richard D. Alexander)

Professional Experience

• National Acad. Sciences Fellow, 1984, Inst. of Entomology,  Czechoslovakia
  
• Postdoctoral Fellow, 1984-86, Northern Arizona University
  
• Assistant Professor, 1986-91, University of Arizona
  
• Associate Professor, 1991-96, University of Arizona
  
• Professor, 1996-2000, University of Arizona
  
• Regents’ Professor, 2000-2010, University of Arizona
  
• William H. Fleming Professor, May 2010-2013, Yale University
• Professor, 2013- , The University of Texas at Austin
• Leslie Surginer Endowed Professor, 2014-2017, The University of Texas at Austin
• Warren J. and Viola Mae Raymer Chair Professor, 2018- , The University of Texas at Austin

Publications (last two years)

Full publication list (website) | Google Scholar page

Huang Q, Lariviere PJ, Powell JE, Moran NA. 2023. Engineered gut symbiont inhibits microsporidian parasite and improves honey bee survival. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Jun 20;120(25):e2220922120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2220922120. [Online ahead of print]

Elston KM, Phillips LE, Leonard SP, Young E, Holley JC, Ahsanullah T, McReynolds B, Moran NA, Barrick JE. 2023. The Pathfinder plasmid toolkit for genetically engineering newly isolated bacteria enables the study of Drosophila-colonizing Orbaceae. ISME Commun.   3(1):49. doi: 10.1038/s43705-023-00255-3. 

Motta EVS, Arnott RLW, Moran NA. 2023. Caffeine Consumption Helps Honey Bees Fight a Bacterial Pathogen. Microbiol Spectr . 2023 May 22; e0052023. doi: 10.1128/spectrum.00520-23. [Online ahead of print.] 

Powell JE, Lau P, Rangel J, Arnott R, De Jong T, Moran NA. 2023. The microbiome and gene expression of honey bee workers are affected by a diet containing pollen substitutes. PLoS One . 18(5):e0286070. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0286070 

Motta EVS, Moran NA. 2023. The effects of glyphosate, pure or in herbicide formulation, on bumble bees and their gut microbial communities. Sci Total Environ. 872:162102. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162102.

Hammer TJ, Easton-Calabria A, Moran NA. 2023. Microbiome assembly and maintenance across the lifespan of bumble bee workers. Mol Ecol . 32(3):724-740. doi: 10.1111/mec.16769.

Li Z, Li Y, Xue AZ, Dang V, Renee Holmes V, Spencer Johnston J, Barrick JE, Moran NA. 2022. The genomic basis of evolutionary novelties in a leafhopper. Mol Biol Evol . 39(9):msac184. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msac184.

Holley JC, Jackson MN, Pham AT, Hatcher SC, Moran NA. 2022. Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa) Harbor a Distinctive Gut Microbiome Related to That of Honey Bees and Bumble Bees. Appl Environ Microbiol. 88(13):e0020322. doi: 10.1128/aem.00203-22.

Smith TE, Li Y, Perreau J, Moran NA. 2022. Elucidation of host and symbiont contributions to peptidoglycan metabolism based on comparative genomics of eight aphid subfamilies and their Buchnera. PLoS Genet. 18(5):e1010195. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010195.

Motta EVS, Powell JE, Leonard SP, Moran NA. 2022. Prospects for probiotics in social bees. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 377(1853): 20210156. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0156.

Li Y, Leonard SP, Powell JE, Moran NA. 2022. Species divergence in gut-restricted bacteria of social bees. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A . 119(18):e2115013119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2115013119.

Nakabachi A, Moran NA. 2022. Extreme polyploidy of Carsonella, an organelle-like bacterium with a drastically reduced genome. Microbiol Spectr.10(3):e0035022. doi: 10.1128/spectrum.00350-22

Busby TJ, Miller CR, Moran NA, Van Leuven JT. 2022. Global Composition of the Bacteriophage Community in Honey. mSystems Bees.26;7(2):e0119521. doi: 10.1128/msystems.01195-21

Motta EVS, Powell JE, Moran NA. 2022. Glyphosate induces immune dysregulation in honey bee. Anim Microbiome 4(1):16. doi: 10.1186/s42523-022-00165-0

Blaxter M, Archibald JM, Childers AK, Coddington JA, Crandall KA, Di Palma F, Durbin R, Edwards SV, Graves JAM, Hackett KJ, Hall N, Jarvis ED, Johnson RN, Karlsson EK, Kress WJ, Kuraku S, Lawniczak MKN, Lindblad-Toh K, Lopez JV, Moran NA, Robinson GE, Ryder OA, Shapiro B, Soltis PS, Warnow T, Zhang G, Lewin HA. 2022. Why sequence all eukaryotes? Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 119(4):e2115636118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2115636118

Perreau J, Moran NA. 2022. Genetic innovations in animal-microbe symbioses. Nat Rev Genet. 23(1): 23-39. doi: 10.1038/s41576-021-00395-z.