| So, why study evolution?
Well, as Dobzhansky so correctly pointed out, nothing in biology
makes sense except in the light of evolution. Also, and more
practically, evolutionary data don't very often conflict with
the interests of the current Danish government, in which case
one would immediately be accused of having a socialistic agenda
and performing political research. But one shouldn't complain;
people in the media and the Supreme Court are facing the same
situation.
'But have you no historical consciousness in Denmark?' you
wonder. The reply is simple: 'Not as long as it's not tax
deductible'.
Research interests
Reverse transcription
The role of reverse transcription in eukaryotic genome evolution.
According to the notion of soft-wired genomes – as suggested
by Alan Herbert & Alexander Rich – reverse transcription
may be an essential information-processing step in the evolution
of novel genomic functions in eukaryotes.
The evolution of alternative splicing
Together with Exiqon
A/S, we are developing microarrays to detect and quantify
different gene spliceforms using the nematode, C. elegans
as a model organism.
*) At present: Dan Jeffares, Pia Friis, Søren Mørk,
Peter Arctander & yours truly.
Intron evolution
Why are there so many around? Why are
they sometimes absent? And is there anything interesting hidden
in their sequences?
Antisense transcription
How universal and evolutionary ancient
is it? Does it regulate certain types of RNA processing? Does
the presence of perfect dsRNA always have to trigger the RNAi
system?
Selected publications (selection criteria:
all)
Mourier T, Jeffares DC (2002)
Eukaryotic
Intron Loss.
Science 300:1393
Willerslev E*, Mourier T*, Hansen AJ*, Christensen
B, Barnes I, Salzberg SL (2002) Contamination in the Draft
of the Human Genome Masquerades As Lateral Gene Transfer.
DNA Sequence 13:75-76
*) Joint Authorship
Mourier T, Hansen AJ, Willerslev E & Arctander
P (2001) The Human Genome Project Reveals a Continuous Transfer
of Large Mitochondrial Fragments to the Nucleus. Mol Biol
Evol 18(9):1833-1837
Hansen AJ, Willerslev E,
Wiuf C, Mourier T & Arctander P (2001) Statistical Evidence
for Miscoding Lesions in Ancient DNA Templates. Mol Biol Evol
18(2):262-265
Last updated: 29 August 2003
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