Jonathan Klassen

Jonathan Klassen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology / Microbiology at the University of Connecticut. His research focuses on microbial community ecology, particularly using the fungus-growing ant symbiosis as a model system to study the evolution of microbial interaction networks. He couples genomics and chemical biology to understand molecular mechanisms in symbiosis and explore drug discovery opportunities.

• PhD: Microbiology and Biotechnology, University of Alberta
• Postdoctoral Study: Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

His work spans microbial ecology, symbiosis, secondary metabolite discovery, and comparative genomics. Recent publications highlight studies on microbial exclusion dynamics in ant symbiosis, ITS2 metabarcode biases, and chemical defense mechanisms in insect-associated microbes.

• Scientific Awards:
  • “Highly Accessed” article in BMC Genomics (2012)
• Contact:
  • Email: jonathan.klassen@uconn.edu
  • Phone: 860-486-6890
  • Lab: @klassenlab