Yan Liang

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, working with the Tree of Life Programme and Bat1K Consortium. I use genomics to study animal phylogeny, development and morphological diversification.

My research combines comparative genomics, phylogenomics, functional genomics and evolutionary developmental biology to understand morphological diversification across species, and the molecular and regulatory mechanisms underlying these evolutionary processes.

At Sanger, I contribute to phylogenomic research on bat evolution. Working within these international collaborative programmes has allowed me to explore how large-scale genomic data can be used to resolve evolutionary relationships and understand the processes underlying species diversification.

Before joining Sanger, my research focused on the evolution of animal development. Using functional genomics in marine invertebrates, I investigated how developmental programmes and gene regulatory landscapes evolve, and how these changes contribute to the diversification of animal life histories and morphology.

Across these projects, I enjoy integrating genomic data with evolutionary and developmental questions. My developing independent research programme builds on these themes by asking how developmental programmes and cell states evolve across species, and how these evolutionary changes ultimately contribute to morphological diversification across the tree of life.