Collaborative Research: Genetic Architecture and the Evolution of Recombination

今天活着的大多数生物在最近的进化史中都与自己物种的生物交换了基因。然而，基因交换进化成功的原因尚不清楚。本研究将探讨基因交换选择基因间相互作用类型的可能性，而基因间相互作用反过来又选择持续的基因交换。总体目标是为研究遗传交换的进化发展新的经验和建模框架。该研究将(1)扩展现有的病毒复制数学模型，以捕捉实验病毒群体的短期进化动态；(2)确定基因相互作用在病毒模型中的进化是否如从更简单、不太现实的模型中预测的那样；(3)在真实病毒群体中实验测试从数学模型中获得的预测。基因交换的进化是生物学中最古老、最棘手的问题之一。此外，基因相互作用的本质是生物学几个领域的中心焦点，包括生理学和系统生物学。基因相互作用的研究将对理解复杂的生物过程，包括人类疾病，产生深远的影响。这项工作的完成将产生新的软件工具，可用于测试关于进化过程的各种附加假设。最后，这笔奖金将用于扩大2013年试点的笔友计划，在该计划中，研究生通过相互交流他们的研究和其他科学兴趣，让中学生参与科学发现的过程。

Most organisms alive today have exchanged genes with organisms of their own species in their recent evolutionary history. However, the reasons for the evolutionary success of genetic exchange are unclear. This research will investigate the possibility that genetic exchange selects for types of interactions between genes that, in turn, select for continued genetic exchange. The overarching goal is to develop new empirical and modeling frameworks for studying the evolution of genetic exchange. The research will (1) extend an existing mathematical model of virus replication to capture the short-term evolutionary dynamics of experimental virus populations, (2) determine whether gene interactions evolve in the virus model as predicted from simpler, less realistic, models, and (3) experimentally test the predictions obtained from the mathematical model in real virus populations.The evolution of genetic exchange is one of the oldest and most intractable problems in biology. In addition, the nature of gene interactions is a central focus for several areas of biology, including physiology and systems biology. The study of gene interactions will have far-reaching consequences for understanding complex biological processes, including human diseases. The completion of this work will generate new software tools that can be used to test a variety of additional hypotheses about evolutionary processes. Finally, this award will be used to expand a Pen Pal Program piloted in 2013 in which graduate students engage middle school students in the process of scientific discovery by writing back and forth about their research and other scientific interests.