My primary efforts at this point are administrative in my role as Associate Vice President for Research for the University of Kentucky.  As part of that role, I am very active in the development of the biomedical informatics infrastructure for the University of Kentucky and the Commonwealth.  I am the UK coordinator for the KBRIN project, funded by NIH grant 5P20RR016481-05 to Dr. Nigel Cooper at the University of Louisville.

My own research concerns primarily bioinformatics of fungal genomes.  My lab has, in collaboration with Dr. Mark Farman, in Plant Pathology, developed methods of assembling the telomere and subtelomere sequences from data typically excluded from fungal genome assemblies.  We are now characterizing the nature of the fungal subtelomere sequences.  Such sequences vary considerably within and between fungal species and may have important roles in fungal genome evolution.

My past research was primarily the molecular characterization of fungal mating types and determinants of fungal gene susceptibility.  At this point, I am no longer actively researching those topics.

I have also taught many different levels of biology as well as bioinformatics.  Most recently, I taught BIO150, Principles of Biology I.  I originated BIO520, Bioinformatics at the University of Kentucky.  I have also taught Genetics (BIO304) and Microbiology (BIO208) and various graduate and undergraduate seminar or special topics courses.

• Li W, Staben C, Farman ML. (2005) TRUMATCH, a BLAST post processor. Bioinformatics21:2097-98.
• Li W, Rehmeyer CJ, Staben C, Farman ML. (2005) TERMINUS - telomeric end-read mining IN unassembled sequences. Bioinformatics 8:1695-8.
• Galagan JE, Calvo SE, Borkovich KA, Selker EU, Read ND, Jaffe D, FitzHugh W, Ma LJ, Smirnov S, Purcell S, Rehman B, Elkins T, Engels R, Wang S, Nielsen CB, Butler J, Endrizzi M, Qui D, Ianakiev P, Bell-Pedersen D, Nelson MA, Werner-Washburne M, Selitrennikoff CP, Kinsey JA, Braun EL, Zelter A, Schulte U, Kothe GO, Jedd G, Mewes W, Staben C, Marcotte E, Greenberg D, Roy A, Foley K, Naylor J, Stange-Thomann N, Barrett R, Gnerre S, Kamal M, Kamvysselis M, Mauceli E, Bielke C, Rudd S, Frishman D, Krystofova S, Rasmussen C, Metzenberg RL, Perkins DD, Kroken S, Cogoni C, Macino G, Catcheside D, Li W, Pratt RJ, Osmani SA, DeSouza CP, Glass L, Orbach MJ, Berglund JA, Voelker R, Yarden O, Plamann M, Seiler S, Dunlap J, Radford A, Aramayo R, Natvig DO, Alex LA, Mannhaupt G, Ebbole DJ, Freitag M, Paulsen I, Sachs MS, Lander ES, Nusbaum C, Birren B. (2003) The genome sequence of the filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa. Nature. 422:859-68.
• Kronstad, J.W. and C. Staben ( 1997) Mating type in filamentous fungi . Ann. Rev. Genet. 31:245-276.
• Edelmann, S. E., and C. Staben. 1994. A statistical analysis of sequence features within genes from Neurospora crassa. Exp. Mycol. 18:70-81.
• Philley, M. L., and C. Staben. 1994. Functional analyses of the Neurospora crassa MT a-1 mating type polypeptide. Genetics 137:715-722.
• Ludewig, G., Y. Li, J. M. Williams, and C. Staben. 1994. Pentamidine isethionate inhibition of Saccharomyces cerevisiae growth and respiration. Antimicrob. Ag. Chemother. 38:1123-1128.
• Chang, S., and C. Staben. 1994. Directed Replacement of mt A by mt a-1 Effects a Mating Type Switch in Neurospora crassa. Genetics 138:75-81.
• Ludewig, G., and C. Staben. 1994. Characterization of the PNT1 pentamidine resistance gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Antimicrob. Ag. Chemother. 38: 2850-2856.