Our group is studying the evolution of genes and genomes using comparative genomics’ methods.

We have all witnessed a dramatic flourishing in genetic and genomic research over the past few years.  Our research programme has benefited from our central role in the publicly-funded human genome project (published in 2001), which led subsequently to further sequencing projects, for mouse (2002), rat (2004), chicken (2004) and dog (2005).  Scientific interactions within these research consortia provided an unparalleled training environment from which all have benefited.  They also provided insights into upcoming data sources and resources that have been invaluable in defining our research agenda for the next five years.

Current Research Programme

We intend to strengthen our position at the intersections between comparative genomics, evolutionary analyses and molecular structure-function predictions.  We will exploit new sequence data from mammalian and model organism genomes to illuminate the molecular pathoetiology of human disease.  We will also diversify into analyses of parasite and pathogen genomes in order to address issues of communicable diseases. 

Our primary aim will be to infer the evolutionary history of each alignable codon of the human genome.  This will determine the set of codons subjected to purifying selection that will be, on average, more deleterious if substituted within the human population; these sites will be most relevant to our understanding of conserved gene function and dysfunction.  We will also identify the set of codons that have evolved by positive selection; these will be most relevant to illuminating recent primate evolution and our genetic arms race with pathogens and parasites.  Our programme consists of eleven interlocking projects, although it is clear from the pace of change in our field that additional unforeseen opportunities and projects will arise serendipitously.

Our eleven research projects are:

• Accurate prediction of orthology among mammalian genomes.
• Paralogues and gene prediction.
• The imprint of positive selection on the mammalian genome.
• Analyses of newly-sequenced genomes.
• The imprint of selection at the codon-level.
• The imprint of selection on cellular and tissue gene expression and function.
• Variation in evolutionary neutral rates within the human genome.
• Understanding the genomic co-evolution of parasites, pathogens and their mammalian hosts.
• Predicting causal relationships between gene regulation and sequence features.
• Copy number variation.
• Gene-centred studies.

Further information can be found at: http://www.mrcfgu.ox.ac.uk/research/chris-p-ponting

Chris Ponting