Collaborative Research: Genetic Architecture and the Evolution of Recombination

大多数今天活着的生物体在其最近的进化史中与自己物种的生物体交换了基因。 然而，遗传交换在进化上成功的原因尚不清楚。 这项研究将调查遗传交换选择基因之间的相互作用类型的可能性，反过来，选择继续遗传交换。总体目标是开发新的经验和建模框架，用于研究遗传交换的进化。 该研究将（1）扩展现有的病毒复制数学模型，以捕获实验病毒种群的短期进化动力学，（2）确定基因相互作用是否在病毒模型中进化，如从更简单，不太现实的模型预测的那样，以及（3）在真实的病毒种群中对数学模型的预测进行实验检验。遗传交换的进化是最古老的进化之一最棘手的问题此外，基因相互作用的性质是生物学的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包括人类疾病在内的复杂生物过程产生深远的影响。 这项工作的完成将产生新的软件工具，可用于测试各种有关进化过程的其他假设。 最后，该奖项将用于扩大2013年试行的一项钢笔计划，该计划的研究生通过来回撰写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.