About me
I am an evolutionary biologist with a wide range of research interests including genome evolution of organisms with different lifestyles, particularly parasitic and free-living species.
I previously worked on unicellular eukaryotes including free-living protists (Pseudotrichomonas keilini) and parasitic ones, such as the malaria-causing Plasmodium species. In my previous work, I compared the gene gain and loss between parasitic relatives of P. keilini, such as Trichomonas vaginalisi, which uncovered the gain of genes with functions related to cell binding and host invasion in T. vaginalis. During my work on the evolution of Plasmodium species that infect mammals, I found striking differences in the evolutionary rates of genetic compartments (nucleus, mitochondrion and apicoplast) between lineages. That finding challenges previously-used molecular dating methods that attempt to estimate when human-infecting parasites arose by fixing the mutation rate of a certain genetic compartment.
I recently made a transition to multicellularity and joined the 959 project where I will be leveraging the expanse diversity of nematode genomes and lifestyles to try and understand the effects of life history strategy, in particular parasitic and free-living lifestyles, on genome evolution.
I am currently investigating a process, known as Programmed DNA Elimination (PDE), that occurs in some nematode genomes in which parts of the chromosomes are deleted from the somatic cells, but are retained in the germ cells. This process also occurs in other species such as hagfish, song birds, and ciliates. My current research aims to investigate the evolution, mechanisms, and functions of PDE in nematodes.