Faculty Lead(s)
Project Summary
Beginning in the late 1980s, I started leading the efforts in Ken Stuart’s laboratory Seattle Biomedical Research Institute to sequence trypanosomatid mitochondrial (maxicircle and minicircle) and viral (LRV1) genomes, as well small circular and linear amplified DNA elements of Leishmania. This culminated in my taking a leading role in the worldwide consortium (Seattle Biomed, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, The Institute for Genome Research and Uppsala University/Karolinska Institute) to sequence the TriTryp genomes (Leishmania major, Trypanosoma brucei and Trypanosoma cruzi), which were (largely) completed and published in 2005. Since that time my group has maintained an active involvement in the sequence, annotation and curation of more trypanosomatid genomes, and I was co-PI on the original BMGF grant to establish and maintain TriTrypDB (the definitive database for trypanosomatid genomics data). During this time, my team has developed a number of software pipelines for genome annotation and analysis, and continues to be one of the leaders in this effort for these specialized genomes. More recently, this has extended to data generation and analysis using several new sequencing platforms (Illumina, PacBio, MinIon).
Project Keywords: Bioinformatics, Genomics