OMIC-Engine, the National Hellenic Research Infrastructure on Synthetic Biology, coordinated by the University of Thessaly, dives into the world of Plant Genomics and Bioinformatics.
In our third Webinar, titled “Plant Genomics and Bioinformatics – The power of long read sequencing”, held on Tuesday 18th of May 2021, we welcomes Boas Pucker, Post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Plant Sciences of the University of Cambridge (UK).
High quality plant genome sequences are the key to unravel the biochemical potential of plants and to understand evolutionary processes in plants. The resulting insights are the basis to improve traits in crops. Long read sequencing has become the method of choice for genome analysis. Genome sequencing projects ranging from the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana to crop species like sugar beet, grapevine, and yam will be presented. An investigation of the complex pigment biosynthesis in the Caryophyllales will be highlighted as one example for comparative genomics. The included bioinformatic tools are MGSE for the estimation of genome sizes, NAVIP for the functional annotation of sequence variants, KIPEs for the annotation of biosynthetic pathways, and loreta for the analysis of T-DNA insertion lines. This talk aims to provide an overview of various long read sequencing applications in plant genomics.
Boas Pucker background is in plant genomics and applied bioinformatics. During his time at the Center for Biotechnology (CeBiTec) at Bielefeld University, Boas Pucker worked on several plant genome sequencing projects. He was also involved in iGEM by supervising the ‘Bielefeld-CeBiTec’ teams from 2016 to 2019 and as a judge since 2016. Additionally, Boas supported teams around the globe through the mentoring program. Currently, he is working as a postdoc at the Department of Plant Sciences (University of Cambridge, UK). His research is focused on the complex evolution of the pigment biosynthesis in the Caryophyllales. Two different pigments, anthocyanins and betalains, appear to be mutually exclusive in families of the Caryophyllales. Boas Pucker is also investigating genes involved in the betalain biosynthesis across different species by comparing their genome sequences.
Tuesday 18th of May at 16:00 PM EEST we will have the opportunity to meet the world of Plant Genomics & Bioinformatics.
Learn more about Boas Pucker research by visiting the following websites:
follow him at @boas_pucker on Twitter and Linkedin or contact him by e-mail at bpucker@cebitec.uni-bielefeld.de.