Current Projects
Generally I am interested in the application of the tools of bioinformatics and molecular biology to the study of plant evolutionary and ecophysiological genomics. Over the past decade, a large focus of descriptive genomics has been the construction and annotation of high resolution genome maps for a handful of model species. My dissertation research is focused on the next stage of genomics, which is the use of these high resolution genome maps to study fundamental patterns of genome architecture, and the expansion of knowledge gained from these model genomes to the study of other species. It is my hope that many of the tools that I develop can be applied to questions using non-model species in the emerging field of ecological genomics.
I am a graduate student in Jeff Bennetzen's Genomics Lab at the University of Georgia where my current research projects include:
- Evolution and genome cartology of LTR Retrotransposons
- Developing software and statistical methods for exploratory spatial data analysis of genomes with particular interest the effect of genomic context on the evolution of genetic subunits as well as spatially referenced comparative genomic analyses
- Developing RepMiner: A network based,
data mining approach to
the taxonomic assignment of transposable elements
- Developing DAWG-PAWS: A Distributed Annotation Working Group Pipeline for the Annotation of Wheat Sequences. This is aPERL based pipeline for the semi-automated annotation of randomly selected Wheat BACs using the Apollo Genome Annotation Curation Tool.
Previous Research
- Phyloinformatics 2007 Summer of Code Project: "Command Line Topological Query Application for BioSQL."
- Informatic analysis of the use of linker libraries to connect gene islands in the maize genome
- Developed databases, combinatorial experimental designs, and software for the collection, management, analysis, and online publication of BAC based hybridization data related to the physical mapping of genomes
- Wet lab work involved in the Physical mapping of a number crop related genomes including various species of cotton, brassica, sugarcane, sorghum, papaya, and peanut
- Molecular markers in plant ecological genetics.
- Patterns of taxonomic and geographic selectivity in the
distribution of rare plant taxa endemic to the southeastern United
States.
| Author: James Estill Last Updated: Feb 6, 2009 |
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