Advisory Board and Editors Genetics
Joseph Felsenstein
Joe Felsenstein is Professor of the Department of Genome Sciences and in the Department of Biology, and adjunct Professor in the Department of Statistics and in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. Past President of the Society for the Study of Evolution. Recipient of the Weldon Memorial Prize, the Darwin-Wallace Medal of the Linnean Society of London, the John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science from the National Academy of Sciences and of the 2013 International Prize for Biology of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. On the Editorial Board of five journals.
He describes himself as "world-renowned for my outstanding modesty".
Rui Feng
I have been developing and applying statistical models and algorithms in genetics and genomics for more than 10 years. I have contributed both methodological and applied work in family-base studies, copy number variation analysis, genome-wide association studies, and next generation sequence data analysis.
I joined Penn’s biostatistics in August 2009 after receiving my PhD in biostatistics from Yale University and working as a faculty in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. My research interests focus on methodologies and applications in clinical and genetic studies.
Cristina Fillat
Since 2011 she leads a research group in Gene Therapy and Cancer at IDIBAPS, Barcelona. Over the years she has contributed to the gene therapy field with more than 80 publications. She was among the team members that promote the constitution of the Spanish Society of Gene and Cell Therapy and served as Scientific Secretary from 2005 to 2011. She is editorial board member of several journals and Associate Editor of the Current Gene Therapy.
Mario Alberto Flores-Valdez
Dr. Mario Alberto Flores-Valdez is a Professor in the Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Unit, CIATEJ, A.C., Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico (2007-present). He is a member of the National System of Researchers (SNI), and a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences. He was a Stanford University Medical Center postdoctoral fellow (2004-2007), where he received a Dean's Fellowship Award (2006) to conduct research on Tuberculosis. He worked in UNAM as Research Assistant for Prof. Jaime Mora (2004) and Prof. Emundo Calva (2003). He has received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from UNAM (1999-2003), a M.Sc. in Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering from UANL (1996-1999) and a B.Sc. from Universidad de Sonora (1991-1996) in Chemistry and Biology. He received fellowships from CONACYT for M.Sc. and Ph.D. studies and in M.Sc. and B.Sc. has received Diplomas as Best Student. He has expertise in Tuberculosis, particularly in developing recombinant BCG strains. He has been PI for 7 grants from 2008 to date, focused in studies about tuberculosis vaccine development and basic aspects of mycobacterial physiology.
Lasse Folkersen
PhD in genetics from Karolinska Institute, Sweden. Research according to an overarching theme of my research is the use of high-throughput omics to bridge the gap between research and medicine. My initial interest was in expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL), and their possibilities for translating genetics to medical use. This followed a further step into actual industrial drug and pharmacogenetics development from the technique, performed at Novo Nordisk, Denmark. Current interests focus on further translation of main genetics results into actual use both in the clinical context of response stratification and in the industrial context of drug development.
Puri Fortes
PhD in Biology at Autonoma University (Madrid) working with Dr. Juan Ortin (NS1 protein from influenza virus and RNA splicing, transport and translation).
Postdoc at EMBL-Heidelberg working with Dr. Iain Mattaj (nuclear cap binding complex and splicing, polyadenylation and translation).
PI at CIMA (U1 snRNP regulation, viral miRNAs, viral lncRNAs, gene therapy, liver diseases)
M. Pilar Francino
M. P. Francino studied Biology at the National University of Mexico and obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Rochester (New York), working on analyses of rates and patterns of DNA sequence evolution in bacteria and primates. She conducted postdoctoral research in bacterial genetics as an EMBO Fellow at the University of Paris. After that, she served as a Research Scientist at the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) for five years, and was Head of the JGI Evolutionary Genomics Program from 2007 to 2009. Since 2009, she is a Senior Scientist at the Genomics and Health Department of FISABIO-Public Health in Valencia, and has been Head of the Department since 2012. Her current research focuses on the metagenomic analysis of human microbiome communities, in particular on understanding the development of the gut microbiota in infants. Work in her group analyzes the taxonomic composition, coding capabilities and gene expression patterns of the gut microbial community at different stages during infancy, as well as the relationships of these features with infant health. In addition, she is also interested in understanding the forces that shape the structure, organization and evolution of genomes. In previous and current work, she has addressed genome and molecular evolution subjects at different scales, ranging from the impact of mutational biases during DNA sequence evolution, to the evolution of new genes and their regulatory regions and the coevolution of different genomic traits.
Uta Francke
Uta Francke is Professor of Genetics and Pediatrics, Emeritus, Stanford University School of Medicine. Past President, American Society of Human Genetics; Past President, International Federation of Human Genetics Societies; March of Dimes/Colonel Harland Sanders Lifetime Achievement Award in Genetics. Recipient of the William Allan Award of the American Society of Human Genetics. Senior Medical Director, 23andMe, Inc.
Dorota Frydecka
Dorota Frydecka M.A., M.Sc. Eng., M.D. Ph.D. specialist in psychiatry/
I am currently working as a psychiatrist, lecturer and researcher at the University Hospital in the Department of Psychiatry, Wroclaw Medical University, Wroclaw, Poland. Additionally, I work at the Department of Psychology as well as at the Institute of Health Psychology. My main interest is genetics, epigenetics psychoneuroimmunology and computational modeling of cognitive functions using artificial neural networks.
Aleksandra A Galitsyna
Aleksandra is a PostDoc at IMES Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), specializing in chromatin architecture analysis using Hi-C, Micro-C, and imaging data. Notable for contributing to Open2C software with the Open Chromosome Collective. Currently, Aleksandra explores polymer simulations of chromatin in early embryogenesis of vertebrates. Her focus centers on understanding the biological implications of various 3D genome structures and their connection to cell fate decisions.
Dany Garant
Professor of Ecology in the Department of Biology at Université de Sherbrooke.
Research in my lab aims to understand the processes that generate and maintain biodiversity, mainly through the establishment of evolutionary related parameters in their ecological context. Current research projects in our laboratory involve molecular ecology, quantitative genetics and population dynamics to study wild animal populations.
Sònia Garcia
My research is mainly directed towards understanding processes involved in plant genome evolution and organisation, from the sequence to the whole genome. Three areas are highlighted: the study of the evolution of genome size; the structure, organisation and function of ribosomal RNA genes (rDNA) and telomere repeats, and the role of polyploidy and transposable elements (TE) in genome evolution. I have advanced these fields by: (1) the discovery of a novel arrangement of rDNA, first in several Asteraceae and later extended to gymnosperms, (2) the discovery of new telomere sequences in several organisms and (3) the launch and updating of four genomic databases, one compiling Asteraceae genome sizes; the next, on the number and distribution of rDNA sites in plant chromosomes; the following on the distribution of B chromosomes across biodiversity, and the most recent one on plant sex chromosomes. I am the PI of a project on the role of ribosomal DNA in evolution, including the analyses of the repeatome. I was recently involved in a project to examine the role of TE in the evolution of non-model plants and I also participate in a project on the origin and varieties of Cannabis. Beyond this, last year I started an initiative in my Institute to stress the role of women in science, by a series of conferences explaining the biographies and discoveries of relevant scientists in the fields of botany, genetics and genomics, both to the specialised and general public.