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Dr. Jian Ma
University of California at Santa Cruz
Date: Monday, March 09, 2009
Time: 1:00pm-2:00pm
Location: Klaus 1116W
For more information please contact Dr. Hongyuan Zha; zha@cc.gatech.edu
"Reconstructing the evolutionary history of mammalian genomes"
Abstract:
Data generated from numerous mammalian genome sequencing projects have provided an unprecedented opportunity to use comparative genomics to computationally reconstruct the trajectory of all the genetic changes leading to modern placental mammals since their common ancestor living approximately 100 million years ago. However, this task is algorithmically extremely challenging. On a small scale, genomes have undergone point mutations, small insertions and deletions. More dramatically, at a larger scale, rearrangements, duplications, large insertions and deletions have led to varied karyotypes. In this talk, I will first introduce the method of contiguous ancestral regions, which reconstructs the ancestral karyotype based on modern species. Then I will discuss a recent work on reconstructing evolutionary histories involving complex operations on genomes, called the infinite sites model of genome evolution, which combines rearrangements, large insertions and deletions, and duplications into a single, computationally tractable model. Finally, I will discuss a number of ongoing projects and future plans in order to more efficiently and more accurately document the detailed changes in genome evolution, and to discover how evolution has shaped us at the molecular level.
Bio:
Jian Ma is currently a postdoc with David Haussler in the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research interests lie at the intersection of computer science, genomics, and evolutionary biology.
His work so far has been focusing on the theory of ancestral genomic sequence reconstruction and its application to understanding mammalian evolution and human genetics. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in December 2006 from The Pennsylvania State University under the supervision of Webb Miller. He also received his BS and MS degrees, in 2000 and 2003 respectively, from Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
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You are cordially invited to attend a reception that will follow the seminar to chat informally with faculty and students. Refreshments will be provided.
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