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Mission

Our research aims to implement an experimental framework that can rapidly identify and characterize genomic variation. In particular, we are interested in harnessing next-generation DNA sequencing/resequencing technologies in order to make genomic variation detection rapid and inexpensive. Our ultimate goal is to understand how genome variation we observe contributes to variation in important phenotypes in human and model systems.

Background

The existence of variation is central to the field of genetics. However, finding genetic variation has often proven to be difficult, expensive and slow. The promise of genomics lies in the ability to conduct experiments that characterize genome-wide patterns of variation. These studies have typically been carried out in large industrial genome sequencing centers that reduce costs through economies of scale. Next-generation genomics technologies offer the promise of a genome sequencing center on every laboratory bench, producing vast quantities of genomic variation data at an ever-reduced cost. Technological innovations, such as microarray-based resequencing, can enable single laboratories to conduct genome-wide experiments that in the past would have only been possible in larger centers. Our research aims to harness these cutting-edge technologies to solve important problems in human, model organism (like Drosophila) and microbial systems.