Scientific overview

Unravelling the evolutionary forces responsible for variation in genomes within one species or divergence between two species is a major scientific challenge. Today, genomes of many species and of individuals within species have been sequenced. This gives us the unprecedented opportunity for a quantitative analysis of these data with respect to evolutionary aspects. Due to advances in next generation sequencing technologies and the availability of public databases this analysis is possible with more power and precision than before.

We use data on variation within one genome and comparative genomics to learn more about the processes that shape the genome of humans and other species. We investigate processes on short length scales, e.g. nucleotide substitutions, insertions and deletions and long length scales, e.g. insertions of repetitive elements and duplications. Our analyses are complemented by studies of the mathematical underpinnings of models for nucleotide substitutions and phylogeny as well as experimental approaches to study selection in vitro.

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