Andrew J. Roger | |
|---|---|
| Andrew J. Roger | |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of British Columbia, Dalhousie University |
| Influences | Ford Doolittle |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | Dalhousie University |
| Main interests | Eukaryotic organisms,biology and evolution of mitochondria,hydrogenosomes and mitosomes,comparative genomics of unicellular eukaryotes,modeling the evolution of genes and genomes |
| Website | https://medicine.dal.ca/departments/department-sites/biochemistry-molecular-biology/our-people/faculty/roger.html |
Andrew J. Roger is a Canadian-Australian molecular biologist and evolutionary bioinformatician. He is currently a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Dalhousie University and was the founding director (from 2008-2017) of the inter-departmental Centre for Comparative Genomics and Evolutionary Bioinformatics (CGEB). [1]
Roger received his B.Sc from the University of British Columbia and his PhD from Dalhousie University. Roger was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012 [2] for his work on eukaryotic superkingdoms,his work on the evolution of mitochondrion-related organelles in anaerobic protists and his contribution to investigating and improving phylogenetic models [3]
A former student of Ford Doolittle,Roger's research focuses on the 'deep' Tree of Life,especially determining the super-kingdom-level relationships amongst eukaryotes and clarifying the nature of the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA). [4] Using phylogenomic approaches Roger's group elucidates the patterns and process of genome evolution in eukaryotic microbes. His research also addresses the evolutionary origin of mitochondria,hydrogenosomes,and mitosomes, [5] [6] [7] the role of lateral (horizontal) gene transfer in eukaryotic genome evolution [8] [9] and how anaerobic parasites evolved from free-living ancestors.