Catarina Branco was awarded with “Graduate Student Excellence Award” by SMBE 2021. To appear in https://www.smbe.org/smbe/AWARDS/SMBEGraduateStudentExcellenceAwards.aspx Congrats Catarina!!

https://www.farodevigo.es/gran-vigo/2021/08/21/universidad-vigo-mejores-promesas-mundo-56401055.html

Roberto obtained his PhD last 22 July (2021) with the highest score. The thesis was about modeling protein evolution. Good job Roberto!!

Roberto won the Prize to the most outstanding Poster of the 4th Annual Meeting of the CINBIO. The poster presents our work on new substitution models of HIV-1 protein evolution. Congrats Roberto!!

See section Vacancies https://cme.webs.uvigo.es/vacancies/

We found that several evolutionary and environmental processes affected the current (east-west) Asian genetic gradient of modern humans. Published in Molecular Ecology, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mec.15479

We found that ignoring the variation of codon frequencies among sites biases the estimation of molecular adaptation (dN/dS). Published in Bioinformatics, https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article-abstract/36/2/430/5532222?redirectedFrom=fulltext

We developed a new version of our program “ProtASR” to infer ancestral sequences of proteins accounting for the protein folding stability. A methodology that produces more realistic ancestral sequences respect to those obtained using traditional empirical substitution models. This study was done in collaboration with Ugo Bastolla (Center for Molecular Biology Severo Ochoa). Just published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/2041-210X.13341

We investigated the peopling of the Philippines by modern humans, including the estimation of evolutionary parameters and migration patterns such as migration corridors connecting the continent with the archipelago and the presence of long-distance dispersal. This study was done in collaboration with the lab of Antonio González-Martín (University Complutense of Madrid). Just published in Scientific Reports,

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61793-7

David Ferreiro and Marina Kanellou (Greece) just arrived the lab to perform reseach on population genetics and evolution of modern humans. Welcome to the lab!

We obtained a Grant from the “Fundación BBVA” to study human evolution in the Iberian Peninsula.