Alumni
This person is a member of Sanger Institute Alumni.
Milan's research interests focus on population genomics, particularly on genetic variation underpinning evolution of novel traits, and, recently, on evolution of recombination rates along the genome. Milan is also intested in development of new methodologies for population genomics and for genome assembly.
My current interests lie in understanding how recombination frequencies vary along the genomes of different vertebrate species, and how these genomic patterns of recombination evolve. Also, in turn, how does recombination rate variation affect patterns of genetic polymorphism and how it interacts with natural selection?
My recent technical work included developing software for population structure inference from RAD-seq data (fineRADstructure) and a software package for inferring gene-flow between populations and closely related species (Dsuite).
Before that, I was a PhD student at the Durbin group from September 2012 until September 2015, using whole genome sequence data to study the genetic variation underpinning an amazing array of phenotypic adaptations in hundreds of species of East African cichlid fishes. My PhD work, based on whole genomes of ~100 species from Lake Malawi, built the initial platform for the current Sanger project, with over 2000 specimens sequenced: https://www.sanger.ac.uk/project/malawi-cichlid-genome-project. At the interface between micro- and macro-evolutionary studies, this work contributes to our understanding of how vertebrate genomes evolve and function. While a PhD student in Richard’s group, I also developed a new method for genome assembly to reduce difficulties caused by heterozygosity by taking advantage of mother-father-offspring trio data.
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