Biography
Jackson Champer was born in 1986 in New York City. He received a B.S. in physics and mathematics from the University of Oregon and a M.S. in physics from UCLA. Jackson then switched his focus to biology, receiving a Ph.D. from City of Hope Beckman Research Institute in 2015. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University with Philipp Messer and Andrew Clark from May 2016 - March 2021. Jackson opened his lab at Peking University in late May 2021.
Teaching
Population Genetic Engineering (Fall, alternating years)
Special Topics in Animal Behavior, Conservation, and Evolution (Fall, alternating years)
Fundamentals of Genetics (co-teacher) (Fall)
Mathematical Modeling in the Life Sciences (co-teacher) (Spring)
Frontiers Literature Review (co-teacher) (Fall and Spring)
Gene drive alleles have the potential to rapidly spread through a population. They can modify the population with a desired trait or even directly suppress the population. The most promising application for gene drives is combating vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue. Payloads that could be carried by gene drives to prevent transmission of these diseases already exist. Gene drives could also be used for conservation by removing invasive species or modifying endangered species to protect them. However, substantial challenges must be overcome to develop effective drives.
A primary obstacle to successful gene drive is the formation of resistance alleles by the drive itself. There are many possible ways to reduce formation of resistance alleles. Another challenge for gene drives is to modify only a specific target population, rather than spreading uncontrollably. This could be necessary for a variety of reasons such as sociopolitical considerations or the need to suppress an invasive species only outside its native range. To address these issues, the Champer lab tests gene drive concepts and designs in the model organism, Drosophila melanogaster. There is also research toward generating “release candidates” in multiple species of mosquitoes.
A portion of the Champer Lab’s research involves computational modeling of gene drives to determine how well they may actually perform in natural populations. Suppression drive and confined drive systems have particularly interesting properties in spatially continuous environments . Modeling is also used to assess drive variants and performance models prior to conducting experiments, which are then used to further refine quantitative mechanistic models.
For a full list of publications, lab members, and open positions, please see the lab website (https://jchamper.github.io).
Xu X*, Liu Y, Jia X, Yang J, Xia Y, Chen J, Champer J*. A confined gene drive for population modification in the malaria vector Anopheles stephensi. bioRxiv, April 2026.
Chen W, Wang Z, Champer J*. Experimental and modeling demonstration of stronger population suppression by gene drive targeting doublesex from dominant female-sterile resistance alleles. Nature Communications, 2026.
Xu X*, Chen J, Wang Y, Liu Y, Zhang Y, Yang J, Yang X, He Z*, Champer J*. Gene drive-based population suppression in the malaria vector Anopheles stephensi. Nature Communications, 2025.
Liu Y, Champer SE, Haller BC, Champer J*. Modeling control of invasive fire ants by gene drive. Advanced Science, 2025.
Han Y, Champer J*. A comparative assessment of self-limiting genetic control strategies for population suppression. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2025.
Du J*, Chen W, Jia X, Xu X, Yang E, Zhou R, Zhang Y, Metzloff M, Messer PW, Champer J*. Germline Cas9 promoters with improved performance for homing gene drive. Nature Communications, 2024.
