Our Goal

The goal of the Computational Genomics Laboratory is to understand the function and evolutionary dynamics of genomes using mathematical and computational sequence analysis. Along the way, we hope to improve genome annotation, enhancing the value of genome sequences for the scientific community.

Currently, we are focused on developing models that will allow us to accurately predict which regions of a genome are transcribed into pre-messenger RNA, how they are spliced, and which portions of the spliced transcript are translated into protein. One of the primary sources of information we use is the commonalities and differences among the genomes of different organisms. The patterns of evolutionary conservation in a set of genomes contains signatures of the different selective pressures on different components of genes, such as splice sites, coding regions, and translation initiation and termination sites.

Ultimately, we would like to gain insight into how the difference between genomic sequences of different species give rise to the observable characteristics of those species. For example, how can differences between the human and chimp genomes help us understand the differences between human and chimp cognition?