Brian C. Verrelli
Molecular Evolutionary Genetics
My research focuses on molecular population genetics and molecular evolution. I am interested in the roles that evolutionary forces such as genetic drift, population demography, and natural selection play in governing both genetic and phenotypic variation across taxa. In characterizing the patterns of molecular variation within and between populations and species, I hope to understand the relative contribution that natural selection makes in the maintenance of molecular variation and how this may explain differences at both the single gene and genomic level.
In addressing evolutionary questions at the molecular level, my research has included several taxonomic groups at a hierarchy of levels: from genes and genomes, to individuals, populations, and species. My research program utilizes much of the outstanding new molecular technology to not only focus on specific taxa to understand more about their biology and evolutionary history, but one that also utilizes different model organisms to address broad evolutionary principles using a comparative genomic approach.
My recent projects focus on using a population genetic approach to study human evolution. In examining global populations at the genetic level, we can understand how specific genetic and infectious diseases have originated and persisted and what evolutionary processes have enabled our species to adapt to them. A large component of this research is comparative genomic work with our closest relative, the chimpanzee. With these interspecific analyses we hope to tease apart the 1% of genetic variation that separates us from them and consequently makes our two lineages evolutionary unique for a suite of phenotypic traits including behavior, cognition, morphology, and response and adaptation to disease.
Selected publications
Verrelli BC (2008) The Genetics of Malarial Resistance and Susceptibility. In: Handbook of Human Evolution, (ed: D.N. Cooper, H. Kehrer-Sawatzki), Wiley & Sons, UK (in press).
Perry GH, Martin RD, Verrelli BC (2007) Signatures of functional constraint at aye-aye opsin genes: the potential of adaptive color vision in a nocturnal primate. Molecular Biology and Evolution 24:1963-1970.
Perry GH, Tito RY, Verrelli BC (2007) The evolutionary history of human and chimpanzee Y-chromosome gene loss. Molecular Biology and Evolution 24:853-859.
Stone AC, Verrelli BC (2006) Focusing on comparative ape population genetics in the post-genomic age. Current Opinion in Genetics and Development 16:586-591.
Verrelli BC, Tishkoff SA, Stone AC, Touchman JW (2006) Contrasting histories of G6PD molecular evolution and malarial resistance in humans and chimpanzees. Molecular Biology and Evolution 23:1592-1601.
Hedrick PW, Verrelli BC (2006) "Ground truth" for selection on CCR5. Trends in Genetics 22:293-296.
Perry GH, Verrelli BC, Stone AC (2006) Molecular evolution of the primate developmental genes MSX1 and PAX9. Molecular Biology and Evolution 23:644-654.
Perry GH, Verrelli BC, Stone AC (2005) Comparative analyses reveal a complex history of molecular evolution for human MYH16. Molecular Biology and Evolution 22:379-382.
Verrelli BC, Tishkoff SA (2004) Signatures of selection and gene conversion associated with human color vision variation. American Journal of Human Genetics 75:363-375.
Drousiotou A, Touma E, Andreou N, Chouery E, Khneisser I, Loiselet J, Angastiniotis M, Verrelli BC, Tishkoff SA (2004) Molecular characterization of G6PD deficiency in Cyprus. Blood Cells, Molecules, and Diseases 33:25-30.
Tishkoff SA, Verrelli BC (2004) G6PD deficiency and malarial resistance in humans: insights from evolutionary genetic analyses. In: Infectious Disease: Host-Pathogen Evolution, (ed: K. Dronamraju), Cambridge University Press, New York.
Tishkoff SA, Verrelli BC (2003) Role of evolutionary history on haplotype block structure in the human genome: implications for disease mapping. Current Opinion in Genetics and Development 13:569-575.
Tishkoff SA, Verrelli BC (2003) Patterns of human genetic diversity: implications for human evolutionary history and disease. Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics 4:293-340.
Verrelli BC, McDonald JH, Argyropoulos G, Destro-Bisol G, Froment A, Drousiotou A, Lefranc G, Helal AN, Loiselet J, Tishkoff SA (2002) Evidence for balancing selection from nucleotide sequence analyses of human G6PD. American Journal of Human Genetics 71:1112-1128.