Graduate Research Forum Details
ACOS: Automated Co-Ortholog Search
| Author: | Julian Catchen |
|---|---|
| Date: | March 14, 2006 |
| Time: | 15:00 |
| Location: | 200 Deschutes |
Abstract
In this informal talk, I will be discussing my ongoing research project, ACOS: Automated Co-Ortholog Search. This project focuses on identifying zebrafish co-orthologs of human genes in an automated fashion at high volumes.
According to the theory of genome duplication, several times in our evolution from single-celled organisms to higher-order vertebrates, our entire genome was duplicated. These duplications are believed to be responsible for several phases of rapid-evolution, such as the teleost-radiation in fish. This period of rapid evolution in fish, which occurred after humans and fish had diverged evolutionarily, created a large number of different types of fish, such as the pufferfish and the zebrafish.
Our project seeks to identify where all the conserved human genes are in the zebrafish. The goal of our project is to create a map of human-to-zebrafish gene locations that can be used for studying human disease within the zebrafish.
My talk will discuss our search strategy as well as some basic concepts in bioinformatics and biology. I will show our current results for 130 known human disease genes found on chromosome 17.