Jennifer Meadows

Senior Research Scientist, Uppsala University, Sweden

Talk Title: “Leveraging Base Pair Constraint from 240 Mammals to Understandt Genetic Variation and Disease”

Jennifer Meadows is a senior research scientist and group leader in comparative genomics at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research involves the evaluation of genome homology, composition, organisation and function, both within and across the species border, and her research team leverages these analyses to dissect and functionally characterise the natural variation in genome structure and regulation that lead to heritable complex disease. Jennifer has a particular interest in disease that impacts the innate and acquired immune systems, and believes that all species can act as model organisms for each other. Success in this field requires the development and integration of new technologies and novel data sets. Most recently, Jennifer has been a driver within the Zoonomia Consortium, an international initiative to whole genome sequence, align and extract base-pair resolution metrics from 240 diverse mammals, from the human down to bumblebee bats. Read More

Jennifer Meadows will be presenting at PAG Australia, Friday, September 22, at 8:45 AM

Camilla Whittington

Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney, Australia

Talk Title: “Convergent Evolution of Vertebrate Pregnancy and the Placenta”

Camilla Whittington completed her PhD, focused on the genomic investigation of platypus venom, at the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Sydney in 2011. She was also a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Washington. After postdoctoral research at the University of Zurich, she focused on seahorse reproductive biology, and received a University of Sydney Mabs Melville Research Fellowship to work on pregnancy in lizards and marsupials. She was appointed as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney in 2019. Her research now focuses on the biology and evolution of pregnancy, birth, and the placenta, using Australian lizards, seahorses, sharks, and marsupials as models. Camilla and her team use genomic, histological and physiological techniques to achieve their research goals. She was a L’Oreal Unesco For Women in Science Fellow in 2019, and received the 2021 Genetics Society of AustralAsia Ross Crozier Medal for outstanding contributions to the field of genetics research. Her research is currently funded by the Australian Research Council and a Sydney Research Accelerator (SOAR) prize.

Camilla Whittington will be presenting at PAG Australia, Friday, September 22, at 9:30

Olga Dudchenko

Assistant Professor, Baylor College of Medicine   , USA

Workshop Title: "3D Genome Architecture Persists in a 52,000-Year-Old Woolly Mammoth Skin Sample/DNA Zoo"

We develop PaleoHi-C and use it to map chromatin contacts in a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) skin sample preserved in permafrost for ~52,000 years. We use this data to generate a reference-assisted 3D genome assembly for the woolly mammoth with twenty-eight chromosome-length scaffolds. The resulting contact maps reveal that the woolly mammoth genome exhibited chromosome territories, compartments, domains, and loops. Notably, the active/A and inactive/B genome compartments in mammoth skin more closely resemble those in Asian elephant skin than other Asian elephant tissues; differences reveal sequences with potentially altered transcription. Thus, epigenetic and transcriptional information can be preserved in ancient samples, in the form of DNA geometry, and de novo genome assembly may be possible for extinct species. Read More

Biography:

I am an applied mathematician and physicist focusing on biological applications. The projects I have been involved with throughout my training span multiple fields including those of physiology, biological self-organization, telemedicine and genetics. The primary emphasis of my work has been on data analysis and modeling of biological phenomena. Read More