Gavin Sherlock

Research/Lab website:   Home Page

1. Yeast Genome Evolution

When closely related Saccharomyces species are mated, after sporulation, rare viable progeny may result. Usually these progeny have undergone many genomic rearrangements. In collaboration with Frank Rosenzweig at the University of Montana, we are using array Comprative Genome Hybridization (aCGH) to investigate the types of changes that occur, and how these changes occur over time, under various selective pressures in a chemostat.

2. The Yeast Transcriptome

Although the genome sequence of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been finished since 1996, the full complement of transcripts has not yet been definitively defined, with many ORFs marked as spurious, and possibly many more transcripts being yet unannotated. We are using custom microarrays to define the complete yeast transcriptome, and functionally characterizing previously unidentified transcripts.

3. The Stanford Microarray Database (http://genome-www.stanford.edu/microarray/)

The Stanford Microarray Database (SMD) serves all on campus microarray researchers, and allows them to share their experimental data with each other and off-site collaborators. It is the largest academic microarray database in the world, and makes available more public data than any other microarray database. Our current projects for development of SMD include the incorporation of controlled vocabularies for the annotation of experiments and gene products, the addition of tools for quality assessment and control, and the implementation of new tools for data analysis.

4. The Candida Genome Database (http://www.candidagenome.org/)

We will be creating a curated resource for the Candida albicans research community, that will be built on the existing infrastructure of the Saccharomyces Genome Database. We will be further developing the Gene Ontology to annotate C. albicans gene products to, as well as curating the literature of C. albicans.