Dr. Chen Jit Ern is a Research Fellow at the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development and a Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at Sunway University. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences and a PhD in Plant Sciences. His primary research interest is in the development and utilization of genetic engineering techniques and molecular tools on various microalgae, to study the underlying mechanisms for physiological traits such as lipid accumulation and heat tolerance. His previous Post-Doctoral position was in KAUST, Saudi Arabia, studying the potential for increased heat-tolerance in Zooxanthellae (Symbiodinium microadriaticum), the photosynthetic coral endosymbiont, native to the Red Sea. His current project in Sunway University is a continuation of this work, with a particular emphasis on the study of heat-activated Zooxanthellae retrotransposons.