Fungal pathogens exhibit considerable genetic plasticity, with both microvariation and chromosome-level rearrangements frequently enabling adaptation to host and environmental pressures.  Several genera of fungi are important human pathogens, with invasive fungal infections responsible for the death of approximately 1.5 to 2 million people worldwide each year. Candida species are the most prominent cause of invasive fungal disease in the US, with the major protagonist being Candida albicans.

This research seeks to characterize the transcriptome and epigenome of models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in Drosophila melanogaster. The project will seek to investigate the role of sirtuins in the development and progression of AD, and to understand the molecular mechanism of their reported neuroprotective effects.

A large fraction of our genomes (~45%) is composed of retrotransposable elements (RTEs), mutagenic mobile DNA elements that have been implicated in the etiology of several diseases. Retrotransposition of RTEs can be deleterious at multiple levels. To protect against RTEs multiple silencing mechanisms have evolved. We made an interesting discovery: RTEs become activated in senescent cells and in aging tissues. We have proposed that RTE activation may represent a hitherto unappreciated molecular aging process.

Nonlinear genetic effects have been proposed as key contributors to missing heritability – the proportion of heritability is a trait that is not explained by the top associated additive variants in genome-wide association (GWA) studies. To this end, probabilistic machine learning approaches have been shown to be useful tools that exhibit great performance gains in genomic selection-based analyses.

Dr. Sohini Ramachandran will develop new computational and analytical methodologies to identify risk alleles for leukemia that differ in incidence across ethnic groups and genders, and apply these methods to genome wide association studies. Analyses of X-linked factors offer new insights into human genomic variation.

While infection biology has largely focused on studying the immune response to a single infection, it is becoming increasingly clear that many infections involve more than one pathogen.