Advisory Board and Editors Genomics
Simon DW Frost
Reader in Pathogen Dynamics at the University of Cambridge; formerly Adjunct Associate Professor in the Dept. of Pathology, University of California San Diego (UCSD). Graduated with a BA in Natural Sciences (1st class), Trinity College, Cambridge (1992), DPhil in Mathematical Biology, Merton College, Oxford (1996). Postdoctoral positions at Princeton University, Oxford University, University of Edinburgh and UCSD. Awards include: NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship (1996), MRC Nonclinical Training Fellowship (1997-2000), a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2008-2013), and Thomson-Reuters Highly Cited Researcher awards in 2014, 2015, and 2016.
Atsushi Fukushima
I am a professor at Kyoto Prefectural University. My current research interests focus on characterization of metabolic regulatory networks and integrated analysis of multi-omics data in plants. I am a member of the editorial board for BMC Genomics, Plant Methods, Frontiers in Plant Science, Plants, BioTech, and PeerJ.
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.
Ioannis Ganopoulos
Dr. Ganopoulos received his BSc degree in Agriculture from the University of Thessaly (2000-2005) and his MS and PhD in Plant Breeding from AUTH (2005-2007/2008–2013). He has been awarded a Heracleitus PhD scholarship by the European Social Fund and the Hellenic National Fund. His recent scientific interests focus on epigenetics, DNA methylation, whole genome sequencing and trascriptomic analysis for molecular breeding purposes. He has participated in four research projects, one of them competitive European project. He has published 93 reviewed articles in SCI journals and h-index=27 (citations 2051 in Scholar google). He was a co-worker in national/international projects and he is Editor in Biochemical Genetics and PeerJ journals.
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.
Jianye Ge
Dr. Jianye Ge is the Associate Director of the Center for Human Identification and an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology & Genetics at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. His research relates primarily to forensic genetics, bioinformatics, and data mining. The software programs he developed have been used by the Federal and State government agencies to assist in solving criminal cases.
Mikhail S Gelfand
Vice-Director for Science at the Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems. Professor of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, and Higher School of Economics. Member of Academia Europaea. Recipient of the 2007 Baev Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Member of Editorial Boards of PeerJ and Biology Direct.
Joshy George
Associate Director fo Computational Sciences, The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, CT, USA. Previously worked at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center in Melbourne Australia and at the Genome Institute of Singapore.
Noushin Ghaffari
Dr. Noushin Ghaffari is a senior member of the bioinformatics team at Texas A&M AgriLife Genomics and Bioinformatics (TxGen), where she is involved in various projects from planning experiments to data analysis. She is also focused on method development and application projects that will impact scientific community. Her research activities have encompassed various areas of computational biology and have enabled her to study and learn more about the characteristics of multiple species. Furthermore, she intensely pursues her theoretical interests focusing on applications of mathematics in solving biological problems. Dr. Ghaffari has led numerous genome and transcriptome assembly projects for novel species such as cattle tick, gene discovery research though RNA-Seq studies, studying microbiome communities via metagenomics research and etc. Dr. Ghaffari has vast teaching experiences and continues to educate Texas A&M faculty/students/researcher on high performance computing, data analysis and bioinformatics.
Joseph J Gillespie
Dr. Gillespie is an evolutionary biologist with broad interests in organismal and molecular evolution. The major focus of his current research is deciphering the mechanisms by which obligate intracellular species of Rickettsiales (Alphaproteobacteria) invade, survive and replicate within eukaryotic cells.
In research funded by the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Gillespie utilizes phylogenetics, comparative genomics and bioinformatics to guide experimental research on various pathogenic species of Rickettsia and their associated arthropod vectors. His early research resulted in the reclassification of Rickettsia species and the identification of many lineage-specific pathogenicity factors. Through years of intense scrutinization of dozens of diverse rickettsial genomes, Dr. Gillespie and colleagues have described a large, dynamic mobilome for Rickettsia species, resulting in the identification of integrative conjugative elements as the vehicles for seeding Rickettsia genomes with many of the factors underlying obligate intracellular biology and pathogenesis. Via an iterative process of genome sequencing, phylogenomics, bioinformatics, and classical molecular biology and microbiology, Dr. Gillespie continues to lead and assist research projects on the characterization of rickettsial gene and protein function, as well as the description of cell envelope glycoconjugates.
Rosanna Giordano
Dr. Rosanna Giordano is Assistant Professor at Florida International University, Institute of Environment.
She received her undergraduate degree from Dowling College, her master’s degree from the University of Northern Iowa, and her doctoral degree in Entomology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Dr. Giordano's primary research interests are focused on the population structure and genomics of invasive agricultural insect species such as aphids and honey bees. How the microbiome affects insect’s metabolism and their ability to cope with control strategies such as resistant plant varieties and insecticides. As well the development of genomic tools to track invasive insect species and to use insects as bio monitors of environmental pollution.
Marta Giovanetti
My research focuses on investigating the patterns of gene flow in pathogen populations, focusing in phylogenetics and phylogeography as tools to recreate and understand the determinants of viral outbreaks and how this information can be translated into public policy recommendations. More specifically, my research focuses on recent arboviral outbreaks in Latin America (Zika, Chikungunya, Dengue and Yellow fever viruses and more recently SARS-CoV-2 in Brazil, Italy and South Africa), combining genetic, spatial and ecological information. I am interested in the epidemiology and ecology of viruses in natural populations. My research involves developing and applying techniques to integrate virus genetic data with traditional clinical and demographic data.