Genome Rearrangements: from Biological Problems to Combinatorial Algorithms (and back)
Speaker: Pavel Pevzner
Speaker Affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California at San Diego
Host: Manolis Kellis
Host Affiliation: CSAIL-MIT

Date: 10-6-2008
Time: 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Refreshments: 3:45 PM
Location: 32-G449 (Kiva)

Recent large-scale sequencing projects fueled the comparative genomics
studies and revealed that some classical biological theories may be
incomplete or even incorrect. I describe three controversial and hotly
debated topics: Whole Genome Duplications, Random Breakage Model of
Chromosome Evolution, and Mammalian Phylogenomics, and three related
challenging algorithmic problems: Genome Halving Problem, Breakpoint Re-Use
Problem, and Ancestral Genome Reconstruction Problem. I further describe the
"Multi-Break Rearrangements" framework that simplified analysis of these
biological problems, led to efficient algorithmic solutions, and provided
new evolutionary insights.

This is a joint work with Max Alekseyev.