May’s Science talk- Dr Tom Williams

Dr Tom Williams, a former Newcastle university post doc who is now a senior lecturer at Bristol Universities School of Earth Sciences, joined us to talk about evolution. His talk focused on the work he has done recently on rooting the archaeal branch of the tree of life and why correct rooting of phylogenetic trees is so important when inferring the origins of modes of metabolism. He also gave us a fascinating insight into how we can date microbial evolution, given that we lack a fossil record of them, by tracking horizontal gene transfer. Tom then focused in on Microspira, a parasitic fungi with a tiny genome, to demonstrate how modelling phylogenetic lineages and taking into account horizontal gene transfer can lead to lab based experiments to test ancestral proteins (work carried out her in Newcastle University, by Martin Embley’s lab).

Much discussion of rules governing growth rates, yields and genome sizes throughout evolutionary history ensued and was continued over a drink and dinner.

Last modified: Mon, 15 May 2017 14:15:58 BST