SCIENCE AT THE EDGE SEMINAR SERIES

Quantum Biology / Gene Expression in Development and Disease Seminar

Friday, 21 October 2011 at 11:30am

Room 1400 Biomedical and Physical Sciences Bldg.

Refreshments at 11:15

Speaker: David Houle
         Department of Biological Science, Florida State University

Title:   Phenomics and the Genotype-phenotype Map

Abstract:

A key goal of biology is to understand phenotypic characteristics, such as
health, disease, and evolutionary fitness.  Despite this need, our ability to
characterize phenomes, the full set of phenotypes of an individual, lags our
ability to characterize genomes. We exploit a system to comprehensively
characterize the wing morphology of Drosophila melanogaster as a model for
phenomics.  I will combine results from three aspects of this overall project
that demonstrate the potential for a phenomic approach to evolutionary
biology. First, we have characterized variation within and among species.
Second, we are building a dictionary of genetic effects by studying the
phenotypic effects of manipulating gene expression at specific genes.
Finally, we have performed a genome-wide association study for wing shape.
These data together demonstrate that dimensionality can be a blessing rather
than a curse.  The potential for synergism in simultaneously characterizing
phenotypic, developmental and genomic variation is very large.