Since my PhD work on African trypanosomes and their antigenic variation (VSG) gene repertoire, I have been fascinated with the evolutionary dynamics of gene diversification. Shaped by processes such as gene duplication, point mutation, recombination, and gene conversion, and under the selection of ecological and epidemiological forces at higher scales, genomic evolutionary trajectories and their optima can be studied with mathematical models. In this research line, we develop stochastic modeling frameworks that capture the governing principles of diversification, its transient dynamics, and resulting equilibria (Gjini et al. 2014). Integrating these models with Bayesian estimation, the aim is to extract the underlying process parameters from genetic data (Gjini et al. 2012).
Collaborators:
- Dr. Christina Cobbold, University of Glasgow
- Prof. Dan Haydon, University of Glasgow
Erida Gjini 