William Murphy
Texas A&M University-College Station, TX·Ecology & Evolution
Every species' genome is a patchwork of many different genetic histories, which makes it hard to tell which stretches of DNA reveal the true family tree of living and extinct species. One strong clue is recombination, the shuffling of DNA between paired chromosomes during the formation of eggs and sperm.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Genetics
- Topics
recombination rate
recombination maps
phylogenomics
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Reconstruct how mammalian chromosomes and their recombination rates changed from a roughly 100-million-year-old inferred ancestor to living species, by pairing chromosome-level genome assemblies with recombination maps.
- Identify shared chromosome regions with the slowest historical recombination and test whether they most faithfully reconstruct the evolutionary relationships among mammals.
- Determine whether specific genes preferentially evolve in chromosome regions with historically high or low rates of chromosomal change, using comparative genomics across mammals.
- Build the first mammalian phylogeny (evolutionary tree) from Y chromosome data, exploiting Y regions that have historically lacked meiotic recombination.
- Create a public web database of mammalian genetic maps for browsing chromosomes, genes and recombination rates across the mammalian tree of life.
More about the research
Regions that rarely recombine tend to keep a more faithful record of deep ancestry. This project uses that idea to trace how mammalian chromosomes and their recombination rates changed over about 100 million years, from a reconstructed common ancestor to today's species.
Why it matters
Biologists trying to resolve the Tree of Life often struggle to choose which DNA regions give reliable answers. Knowing which chromosome regions recombine least could lead to more efficient ways to work out evolutionary relationships, over both recent and deep timescales. A public database of mammalian recombination maps would give other researchers a ready resource for studying chromosome evolution and gene content.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Caitlin Smukowski Heil
North Carolina State University, NC·Genetics
Build genome-wide recombination maps for multiple Saccharomyces uvarum populations using whole genome sequencing, and compare how double-strand breaks are repaired as crossovers versus non-crossover gene conversions.
Jacob L Mueller
University of Michigan, MI·Genetics
Determine how the dosage of SLX and SLXL1 proteins on the X chromosome affects their molecular competition with Y-linked SLY1 and SLY2, using yeast three-hybrid competitions and massively parallel sequencing screens.
Diana Libuda
University of Oregon, OR·Genetics
Test how specific meiotic chromosome structures regulate and respond to repair pathway and partner choice, using in vivo assays in C. elegans that directly detect use of the sister chromatid as a repair template during prophase I.
The school
Texas A&M University-College Station: 23 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 768 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.