Research Areas

Lampreys and hagfish eliminated specific chromosomes from nearly every cell in their body during early development, Except their germ cells (reproductive cells). This is essentially a natural form of large scale genome engineering.  We study these chromosomes to understand what tools these vertebrate species have evolved to genetically re-engineer themselves every generation, and the lessons that these unique chromosome have to tell us related to the genes that contribute to fertility and cancer. 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40504158/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38262590/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36930644/

Salamanders, including the axolotl (pictured here) can regenerate amputated organs and body parts. We are working to understand how the genome is reprogrammed when cells in differentiated tissues transition to a new biological state that is capable of regrowing and repatterning lost tissues. Everything the axolotl needs to regenerate its tissues is encoded in its enormous genome (30 times larger than the human genome) and we seek to understand how regenerative and other functions across the species 30 billion base pairs using comparative evolutionary and in vivo approaches. 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30679309/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33001517/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35036404/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33827918/

The unique selective pressures and functional constraints that these vertebrate lineages have experienced over deep evolutionary time have driven the evolution of diverse solutions to even the most fundamental biological problems. The solutions that evolved to meet these challenges are encoded in the genomes of all species, and can be understood by sequencing, comparing and manipulating the genomes of diverse taxa.    

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38262590/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36930644/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30679309/