This action funds an NSF Research Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biological Informatics for 1999.
The research and training plan is in the area of systematic biology and is entitled "Tracking the evolution of cellular processes using molecular genealogy." This project is in two parts. The first entails 'phylogeny mapping'. This incorporates the phylogenetic framework of small subunit ribosomal RNA (ssu rRNA) as a scaffold on which homologous cellular processes such as metabolic processes, genes, or morphological description are mapped. The second involves producing a model for a rate of evolution based on empirical in vitro evolution data and modified versions of existing programs that incorporate fossil evidence for known divergence times in a pair of sequences. This model will be applied to the results of the phylogeny mapping in an effort to place a relative time on internal nodes of the ssu rRNA tree topology. Results of will include new analysis tools of interest to the bioinformatics community as well as providing new strategies for accessing and analyzing sequence data. Some of these programs will be useful beyond the scope of bioinformatics. In addition, fundamental answers concerning the evolution of cellular processes will lend new insights into the process by which life originated.
