Organisms adapt to their environment by selecting for genomic traits within their population that offer a competitive advantage. In our grouping we study genomic evolution and its consequences at different levels of generality and over varying time-scales, often bringing together computational and experimental approaches.
For example, in an inter-disciplinary project involving both CEB experimental and computational scientists, genetic hybrid strains of yeast can be used to study specificity of protein-protein interactions. Other specific research projects include: comparing genomes from divergent species to identify probable non-coding RNAs (see the
miRBase database), development of new bioinformatics software (e.g., phylogenetic methods), the human impact on the evolution of agricultural crop species to understand the origins of agriculture, HIV-1 diversity and evolution, and large international genome projects, for example, the mouse and fruit fly.
PIs
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Douda Bensasson
- Comparative genomics: ecological and evolutionary genomics of yeast
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Casey Bergman
- Comparative genomics: genome structure, function, evolution and in silico biology
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Terry Brown
- Biomolecular archaeology: the use of DNA to study the human past
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Mike Buckley
- Molecular palaeontology: the use of fossil protein sequences to study relationships between extinct and extant taxa
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Daniela Delneri
- Functional genomics: genome-wide approaches to study fitness and speciation in yeast
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Sam Griffiths-Jones
- Functional RNA biology: computational biology of non-protein-coding RNAs
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Chris Knight
- Systems biology: connected molecular systems to biological phenotype
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Simon Lovell
- Structural biology: protein structure and function, protein-protein interactions and the evolution of systems
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David Robertson
- Computational biology: genome and functional evolution of biological systems and pathogen/host interactions
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Daniel Rozen
- Evolutionary biology: laboratory evolution experiments to study the ecology and genetics of adaptation
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John Sulston
- Genomics: science, ethics and innovation
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Cathy Walton
- Evolutionary biology: molecular population genetics of mosquitoes and biodiversity in Southeast Asia
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Simon Whelan
- Molecular phylogenetics: investigating the evolution of biological systems through phylogenetics and genomics
Affiliates
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Matthew Ronshaugen
- Developmental Biology: The role of non-coding RNAs in morphological evolution
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Tokiharu Takahashi
- Developmental biology: evolution of vertebrates and the role of genome duplications