IST Austria
Am Campus 1
Klosterneuburg, A-3400
Austria
Phone: +43 2243 9000
Fax: +43 2243 9000 2000
Last Updated: 6 July 2011
Welcome to the Bollback research group website!
Our research focuses on four areas: experimental evolution, population genetics, statistical genomics, and statistical phylogenetics. We work primarily on microbial species, although bigger creatures occasionally creep into the mix.
Research overview:
Microbes — viruses, bacteria, archaea, and protists — account for half of all the biomass and the majority of organismal diversity on planet earth. Microbes gave rise to higher organisms and have left their genomic calling cards in the form of organelles, genes, and so called junk DNA. In addition, microbes are the source of the majority of human diseases. For these reasons alone microbes are worthy of scientific study. Yet, they are also important in another, not so obvious, way: microbes are an extraordinarily powerful model system for understanding, in very fine detail, how evolution operates. To this end, experimental microbial evolution offers one the most powerful approaches to (1) understanding microbial evolution and (2) evolutionary principles in general. This power arises from a number of important features of microbes. First, they can be easily propagated in the laboratory. Second, they have short generation times allowing for many generations of evolution to be documented and analyzed. Third, due to their relatively small genomes we can track many if not all of the genetic changes occurring during evolution and then easily determine their selective affects. Lastly, we can easily manipulate important evolutionary parameters such as population size, recombination, and mutation rates to understand the role these forces play in evolution.
Thus our research focuses on three fundamental areas — microbial evolution, experimental evolution, and statistical phylogenomics — in evolutionary biology to better understand the selective forces shaping microbial genomes, evolutionary interactions between hosts and parasites, the evolution of bacterial immunity, and the genetics of adaptation. More information on past, current, and future research directions can be found here.
Our home:
The Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) is a new Institute dedicated to basic research and graduate education in the natural and mathematical sciences. IST Austria is located in the Vienna Woods just north of Vienna. IST Austria is committed to become a world-class research center. By 2016, up to 500 scientists and doctoral students will conduct research in an international state-of-the-art environment. More details on IST Austria can be found here.
Site navigation:
You can access information on this site by using the links in the navigation panel on the left.
Our research focuses on four areas: experimental evolution, population genetics, statistical genomics, and statistical phylogenetics. We work primarily on microbial species, although bigger creatures occasionally creep into the mix.
Research overview:
Microbes — viruses, bacteria, archaea, and protists — account for half of all the biomass and the majority of organismal diversity on planet earth. Microbes gave rise to higher organisms and have left their genomic calling cards in the form of organelles, genes, and so called junk DNA. In addition, microbes are the source of the majority of human diseases. For these reasons alone microbes are worthy of scientific study. Yet, they are also important in another, not so obvious, way: microbes are an extraordinarily powerful model system for understanding, in very fine detail, how evolution operates. To this end, experimental microbial evolution offers one the most powerful approaches to (1) understanding microbial evolution and (2) evolutionary principles in general. This power arises from a number of important features of microbes. First, they can be easily propagated in the laboratory. Second, they have short generation times allowing for many generations of evolution to be documented and analyzed. Third, due to their relatively small genomes we can track many if not all of the genetic changes occurring during evolution and then easily determine their selective affects. Lastly, we can easily manipulate important evolutionary parameters such as population size, recombination, and mutation rates to understand the role these forces play in evolution.
Thus our research focuses on three fundamental areas — microbial evolution, experimental evolution, and statistical phylogenomics — in evolutionary biology to better understand the selective forces shaping microbial genomes, evolutionary interactions between hosts and parasites, the evolution of bacterial immunity, and the genetics of adaptation. More information on past, current, and future research directions can be found here.
Our home:
The Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) is a new Institute dedicated to basic research and graduate education in the natural and mathematical sciences. IST Austria is located in the Vienna Woods just north of Vienna. IST Austria is committed to become a world-class research center. By 2016, up to 500 scientists and doctoral students will conduct research in an international state-of-the-art environment. More details on IST Austria can be found here.
Site navigation:
You can access information on this site by using the links in the navigation panel on the left.