James lab
We are a newly established research group that focusses on improving our understanding of the fitness effects of new mutations, the evolution of the genome, and the evolution of the proteome. The aim of the group is to take advantage of the large amount of existing genomic and proteomic data to better understand patterns of molecular evolution over a variety of timescales, using computational biology and bioinformatics approaches. We are particularly interested in understanding mutational robustness, which is the capacity of individuals within populations to express similar phenotypes, despite the existence of underlying genetic variation in traits. If you are interested in answering big questions in molecular evolution through bioinformatics and computational biology, please get in touch!
Popular science presentation
How do new mutations affect organisms? Are they generally beneficial, harmful or neutral to the survival of individuals, and to what extent? These questions are important to our understanding of the evolutionary process. Our work investigates the link between phenotypes, the way organisms look; genetic variation, the different mutations harboured by a population; and how able populations and species are to adapt. We are computational biologists, and to conduct our research we use existing data across a wide range of species including bacteria, plants, and animals. We approach our research questions by looking at patterns of genetic variation across the genome, and through investigating protein phenotypic variation and genetic variation both across species and across the genome.
Research projects
Our research projects are divided into three main areas, in which we focus on a range of different evolutionary questions:
1. Evolvability and mutational robustness of proteins
Do mutationally robust proteins have greater evolvability? Are mutationally robust proteins more genetically diverse? Are mutationally robust protein domains used in a greater range of multi-domain proteins?
2. Protein phenotypic diversity
Protein domains undergo both speciation events and duplication events over evolutionary times. But what kind of evolutionary events correlate with the phenotypic diversification of proteins? When do we observe adaptive evolution?
3. The fitness effects of new mutations and genome organisation
How does genome organisation affect the level of selective constraint acting on mutations? Is the distribution of fitness effects of mutations in genes in more complex, connected networks or in more complex species different from the distribution for genes in simple networks, or in species with lower levels of complexity?