Genetics, Genomics & Systems Biology; Evolutionary Biology
A major challenge in biology is to determine the genetic and molecular mechanisms responsible for phenotypic differences between species (DevoEvo), particularly mechanisms that underlie the origin of new anatomical structures (‘evolutionary novelties’), biological functions (‘evolutionary innovations’), and that limit biological possibilities (‘developmental constraints’). To explore how evolutionary novelties, innovations, and developmental constraints evolve we combine comparative genomics and experimental methods to deduce the molecular mechanisms that underlie the evolution of pregnancy and animals with extremely long lifespans and large body sizes, and the role evolutionary history plays in our susceptibility to diseases such as preterm birth and cancer.