You are focussing on archaeal and bacterial evolution. Why do we need bioinformatics to understand this?
Given the incredible amount of evolutionary information in DNA and protein sequences, bioinformatics has become a central methodology in microbial evolutionary research. There are two main aspects of present-day bioinformatics research that I personally find extremely exciting.
First, the diversity of uncultured microbes –organisms we can only study through their DNA sequences– is astounding, and exploring organisms distant to known models can give us access to fascinating biological features.
Second, large-scale analyses over diverse lineages allow us to extract common principles that may go unnoticed with smaller, more homogeneous samples.
Bioinformatics has revolutionised microbiology, enabling effective strategies to tackle fundamental questions about the inner workings of microbes and the evolutionary history of life in our planet.
How do you incorporate bioinformatics in your research?
In my team, we study fundamental processes of cell and genome evolution. One of our main aims is to unearth deep evolutionary history. We do this by disentangling the shape of the tree of life and examining the processes underlying major evolutionary transitions such as the origin of eukaryotes.
Another aim is to explore general principles of genome evolution across vastly diverse groups, including recently discovered lineages. Currently, we are passionate about understanding the evolution of genome architecture –the pressures shaping the position of genes in the chromosome– in bacteria and archaea.
To pursue all these goals, our work specialises in evolutionary bioinformatics, though we also work in close collaboration with experimentalists who allow us to obtain complementary insight in our study systems.
Are you looking to cooperate with researchers from other scientific areas?
Some of our ongoing projects deal with exploring the forces underlying genome architecture in bacteria and archaea, and we are very interested in expanding on our findings through complementary lenses. Other aspects where collaborations could be extremely helpful may relate to structural analyses, molecular biology assays or experimental evolution. And of course, since we are only a young and small team so far, I am excited to find researchers with whom we can consider funding opportunities.
As for what we can offer: we are experts in state-of-the-art phylogenetics and phylogenomics, as well as in genomic and molecular evolution analyses. We are always interested in exploring the evolution of molecular systems and in digging into poorly understood microbial genome data. These can range from species tree reconstructions to identification of gene associations or selective pressures in genes of interest, or inferences of homology and evolutionary history. If any of this sounds interesting, don’t hesitate to reach out for a chat!
What are you looking forward to most as a PI of the UBC?
The UBC is a great hub for bioinformatics-oriented teams, and I am very interested in finding researchers with similar interests. The connection to the UBC opens many opportunities for synergy; from simply discussing molecular evolution and genomics methodology, to learning about the latest developments in AI for biology or about novel insightful data types. I am very happy to be linked to this community, and excited to explore it further in the coming years.