Image source: scixplorer.org
The development of the genetic code's initial and middle phases might have been shaped by pressures unrelated to its role in protein translation. I am investigating the resilience of early-stage genetic codes to mutations, focusing on codes of varying complexity. My objective is to determine at what level of complexity the genetic code starts transitioning towards its definitive functional role.
In the past decade, the use of high throughput sequencing (HTS) for analyzing DNA and RNA molecules in in vitro evolution experiments has seen a significant rise. My current focus is on the development and application of bioinformatic tools for processing and interpreting HTS data.
Check my latest tool, EasyDIVER, a pipeline for processing high-throughput sequencing data from in vitro selections and directed evolution experiment.
The concept of a fitness landscape represents the relationship between fitness (or molecular activity) and all possible genetic sequences. Evolution navigates this landscape, aiming to reach higher peaks of fitness. This journey can be envisioned as a biased random walk on the fitness landscape, favoring upward movement. To deepen our understanding of evolution, I am creating and utilizing computational methods to depict and study fitness landscapes, drawing on sequencing data from evolutionary studies.
I am passionate about applying mathematics to describe nature. Most of my work in this realm relates to modeling and simulating a wide variety of biological systems and processes, ranging from protocells to phage-bacteria interactions.
As Albert Einstein pointed out, How is it possible that mathematics, a product of human thought that is independent of experience, fits so excellently the objects of reality?
It is an empirical fact that amino acids appear almost exclusively in the left-handed form (L-amino acids) and sugars in the right-handed form (R-sugars) in biological organisms. The emergence of homochirality in the molecules of life remains a mystery for modern science and we are still far from having plausible theories to explain its origin. My work in this field has been dedicated to the unveiling of the fundamental aspects of the onset, emergence, amplification and transmission of chiral asymmetry at the molecular and supramolecular levels.
Read my PhD thesis: Models for chiral amplification in spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking.