Profile
Robert Anholt
Genetics and Biochemistry
Dist Prof-Genetics & Biochem
Provost's Distinguished Professor
Director of Faculty Excellence, College of Science
864-889-0521
Self Regional Hall (Greenwood Genetic Center) 108 [Office]
Profile/About Me
Robert Anholt is the Provost Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Biochemistry and Director of Faculty Excellence in the College of Science at Clemson University. Anholt is a biochemist and neurogeneticist. He served as founding Director of the W. M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology at North Carolina State University. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence from North Carolina State University. and an honorary professorship at Beijing Forestry University. Anholt has served on the Advisory Committee of the NIH sponsored Research Infrastructure for Minority Institutions (RIMI) program at Alabama State University and participated in Annual Biomedical Research Conferences for Minority Students. He has served on numerous review panels of the National Institutes of Health and on several editorial boards. He is the author of the best-selling book Dazzle ˜Em with Style; The Art of Oral Scientific Presentation and has presented numerous workshops on presentation skills at North Carolina State University, the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Miami, Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, the CIIT Health Science Center in Research Triangle Park, the University of Cambridge, Beijing Forestry University, and at the Joint Meeting of the Chilean Society of Genetics and the Chilean Society of Evolution. Anholt has published more than 145 papers, many in collaboration with Dr. Trudy Mackay.
Research Interests
Robert Anholt was originally trained as a biochemist. His doctoral work focused on the purification of functional nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. His postdoctoral period with Dr. Solomon H. Snyder at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine introduced him to neuropharmacology and led him to develop a research program in olfaction. Over the last 20 years, he has incorporated molecular and quantitative genetics approaches and expanded beyond olfaction into the broader field of behavioral genetics using Drosophila as a model. In recent years, his laboratory has focused on whole genome transcriptional analyses and the incorporation of state-of-the-art genomic strategies in studies on a wide range of phenotypes, with a special interest in the genetic underpinnings of phenotypic plasticity and genotype-environment interactions using systems approaches. Anholt has also become interested in exploiting the Drosophila model to gain insights in genetic risk factors that are associated with environmental exposures and can be translated to human genetics, including sensitivity to alcohol, drugs, such as cocaine and methamphetamine, oxidative stress and heavy metals. After arriving at Clemson University in 2018 the Anholt and Mackay laboratories have formally merged. The combined research program is increasingly focused on establishing causal relationships between DNA sequence variants and variation in organismal phenotype. Anholt has mentored 13 graduate students and 13 postdoctoral fellows for positions in academia and industry and served on more than 25 NIH study sections. He has a long and productive history of synergistic collaborations with Dr. Trudy Mackay, which over a period of 25 years has led to 70 joint publications.
Selected Publications
Publications since 2018
Mokashi SS, Shankar V, MacPherson RA, Hannah RC, Mackay TFC and Anholt RRH. 2021. Developmental alcohol exposure in Drosophila: Effects on adult phenotypes and gene expression in the brain. Front Psychiatry 12, 699033
Baker BM, Mokashi SS, Shankar V, Hatfield JS, Hannah RC, Mackay TFC and Anholt RRH. 2021. The Drosophila brain on cocaine at single cell resolution. Genome Res 31, 1927-1937.
Huggett SB, Hatfield JS, Walters JD, McGeary J, Welsh J, Mackay TFC, Anholt RRH and Palmer RHC. 2021. Ibrutinib as a potential therapeutic for cocaine use disorder. Transl Psychiatry. 11: 623.
Johnstun JA, Shankar V, Mokashi SS, Sunkara LT, Ihearahu UE, Lyman RL, Mackay TFC and Anholt RRH. 2021. Functional diversification, redundancy and epistasis among paralogs of the Drosophila melanogaster Obp50a-d gene cluster. Mol Biol Evol 38, 2030-2044.
Baker BM, Carbone MA, Huang W, Anholt RRH and Mackay TFC. 2021. Genetic basis of variation in cocaine and methamphetamine consumption in outbred populations of Drosophila melanogaster. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 118, e2104131118.
Walters JD, Hatfield JS, Baker BB, Mackay TFC and Anholt RRH. 2021. A high-throughput microplate feeder assay for the quantification of consumption in Drosophila. J Vis Exp 172, e62771.
Özsoy ED, Yilmaz M, Patlar B, Emecen G, Durmaz E, Magwire MM, Zhou S, Huang W, Anholt RRH and Mackay TFC. 2021. Epistasis for head morphology in Drosophila melanogaster. G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics 11, jkab285.
Nazario-Yepiz NO, Fernández Sobaberas J, Lyman R, Campbell MR III, Shankar V, Anholt RRH and Mackay TFC. 2021. Physiological and metabolomic consequences of reduced expression of the brummer triglyceride lipase. PLoS One 16, e0255198.
Anholt RRH. 2020. Chemosensation and evolution of Drosophila host plant selection. iScience 23, 100799.
Anholt RRH, Wolfner MF, O’Grady P and Harbison ST. 2020. Evolution of reproductive behavior. Genetics 214, 49-73.
Anholt RRH. 2020. Evolution of epistatic networks and the genetic basis of innate behaviors. Trends Genet 36, 24-29.
Zhou S, Morgante F, Geisz MS, Ma J, Anholt RRH and Mackay TFC. 2020. Systems genetics of the Drosophila metabolome. Genome Res 30, 392-405.
Huang W, Campbell T, Carbone MA, Jones WE, Unselt D, Anholt RRH and Mackay TFC. 2020. Context-dependent genetic architecture of Drosophila lifespan. PLoS Biology 18, e3000645.
Everett L, Huang W, Zhou S, Carbone MA, Lyman R, Arya G, Geisz MS, Ma J, Morgante F, St. Armour G, Turlapati L, Anholt RRH and Mackay TFC. 2020. Gene expression networks in the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel. Genome Res 30, 485-496.
Sass TN, MacPherson RA, Mackay TFC and Anholt RRH. 2020. A high-throughput method for measuring alcohol sedation time of individual Drosophila melanogaster. J Vis Exp 158, e61108.
Huang W, Carbone MA, Lyman RF, Anholt RRH and Mackay TFC. 2020. Genotype by environment interaction for gene expression in Drosophila melanogaster. Nat Commun 11, 5451.
Highfill CA, Baker BM, Stevens SD, Anholt RRH and Mackay TFC. 2019. Genetics of cocaine and methamphetamine consumption and preference in Drosophila melanogaster. PLoS Genet 15, e1007834.
Anholt RRH and Mackay TFC. 2018. The road less traveled: From genotype to phenotype in flies and humans. Mamm Genome 29, 5-23.
Morozova TV, Hussain Y, McCoy LJ, Zhirnov EV, Davis MR, Pray VA, Lyman RA, Duncan LH, McMillen A, Jones A, Mackay TFC and Anholt RRH. 2018. A Cyclin E-centered network contributes to alcohol induced variation in Drosophila development. G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics 8, 2643-2653.
