Rate My Professor Christopher Moran

Moran's academic interests center on animal genetics, particularly molecular genetics in pigs and crocodilian genomics. Starting in the early 1990s with an Australian Research Council grant, he developed DNA markers using restriction fragment length polymorphisms for genetic mapping in pigs, contributing to research on porcine stress syndrome and the international PiGMaP Consortium, which produced a comprehensive pig linkage map. Funded by the Pig Research and Development Corporation until 2005, his laboratory supported continuous postdoctoral research and multi-institutional collaborations with the Universities of Sydney, Melbourne, and New England, alongside industry partner QAF Meat Industries, focusing on quantitative trait loci for growth, productivity, meat quality, and immune function. He chronicled the evolution from RFLPs through PCR-based microsatellites and radiation hybrid maps to next-generation sequencing and the pig genome draft assembly in 2009. Moran co-authored key publications including "Sequencing three crocodilian genomes to illuminate the evolution of archosaurs" (Genome Biology, 2012) and "Three crocodilian genomes reveal ancestral patterns of evolution among archosaurs" (Science, 2014). In his 2012 paper "A personal perspective on pig molecular genetics from RFLPs to SNPs," he outlined the field's advancement from no genetic map in 1990 to full genome assembly enabling genomic selection in livestock.