We are excited to welcome Dr. Ando, an expert in phylogenetic reconstruction and evolutionary biology, in this episode. Dr. Ando's intriguing work centers on Ribonucleotide Reductases (RNRs) - essential enzymes used by all free-living organisms and many viruses in the biosynthesis of DNA precursors.

RNRs exhibit tremendous diversity in terms of primary sequence and cofactor requirements while retaining a conserved fold and a radical-based mechanism for nucleotide reduction. Dr. Ando and his team have pieced together the most extensive phylogeny of RNRs to date, including a whopping 6779 sequences that unite all extant classes of the RNR family.

During our discussion, Dr. Ando shares fascinating insights into their discovery of a novel, phylogenetically distinct clade that they have dubbed 'clade Ø'. This clade is ancestral to the clas ...