Molecular Systems Evolution

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology - Department of Evolutionary Genetics

Institute of Evolutionary Sciences - Montpellier (ISE-M) - CNRS

My research aims at understanding the origin and evolution of genomes. The genetic information of each living organism is encoded by a long sequence of four "characters". How this chain of characters encodes the structure of a full organism is the central question of molecular biology. Where it comes from, how it has evolved and still evolves is the scope of molecular evolution. By comparing genome sequences from various individual and/or species, one can gain insights into the process on how and when species are created, a fundamental aspect of life and therefore of biology.

In the lab, we're interested in understanding how biological molecule evolve. In order to do so, we combine modeling approaches and statistical data analysis, as well as lab experiments when possible. Our research make us wander in the fields of phylogenetics, population genomics and structural biology, as well as systems biology. One recurrent question we are addressing is how distinct levels of organization impact evolution.

More specific topic we are currently addressing include:

• Level of organization in protein / RNA structures and patterns of substitutions, notably co-evolution
• New tests of positive selection in protein sequences
• Extending sequentially Markov coalescent models for population genomics
• Stochastic phenomena in molecular biology, notably gene expression